That Time When Quotes & Sayings

I got a number of very thoughtful responses to the email I sent out last night, most of which I don't have time to respond to right now. Thanks everyone for the encouragement, questions, criticism. Daniel's response was particularly inspiring to me and deserves to be shared. The resistance of Israeli Jewish people to the occupation and the enormous risk taken by those refusing to serve in the Israeli military offers an example, especially for those of us living in the United States, of how to behave when you discover that atrocities are being commited in your name. Thank you. — Rachel Corrie

When I noticed other people, I wondered what it was like to be alive. They did not know, could not know, how I felt inside. My shell still passed for normal. I felt like I should scream for help, someone should help, but I knew that the time for screaming had passed. Best to just keep on walking, walking dead, one of the few things I could still do. So I kept walking. — Jonathan Rottenberg

And that is when I knew. I knew that what I was feeling was love. It had to be. Because it was all-encompassing and irrational, yet at the same time it felt so perfect and true. — Tillie Cole

The fastest I ever did that was when Kill the Moonlight came out after Girls Can Tell, and I remember both labels I was working with at the time saying, "If this was any other period, I would probably say this is too fast, but because this is first time anybody has ever paid attention to Spoon, let's keep it on an upward trajectory." — John Britt Daniel

Having Simultanagnosia (object blindness), Prosopagnosia (face blindness) and Semantic Agnosia (meaning blindness) goes in my favour with regards to abstract art living in world full of fragmented pieces when I draw it is in real time no visual memory means no "pre-formatted" picture in my mind so I go where my hand takes it's like journey that is happening in the moment, hence why I drew these without my lenses on. When I was younger I would draw pictures by "route" which made it a appear that I had a visual memory (cobbling together things out of context and making a contextual image) — Paul Isaacs

When I hire musicians, I look for that first: every time they sit down do they go for it, you know? And do they try to learn the music and try to get inside the song whatever the tune is? Whether it's my originals or someone else's, it's just whether or not they're gonna play their hearts out, first and foremost. — Mike Stern

Yakov spent the whole day playing his fiddle; when it got completely dark, he took the notebook in which he recorded his losses daily, and out of boredom began adding up the yearly total. It came to over a thousand roubles. This astounded him so much that he flung the abacus to the floor and stamped his feet. Then he picked up the abacus, again clicked away for a long time, and sighed deeply and tensely. His face was purple and wet with sweat. He thought that if he could have put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, he would have earned at least forty roubles a year in interest. And therefore those forty roubles were a loss. In short, wherever you turned, there was nothing but losses everywhere.
- Rothchild's Fiddle — Anton Chekhov

There was a time when we were told ... that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members ... This language at the present day would appear as wild as that great part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience. — Alexander Hamilton

He's been looking at my file. So the question has to be right there on the tip of his tongue right about now, waiting to be spoken. But he keeps up the 'act professional' charade, makes it feel like he sees this kind of thing all the time, but in reality he's having a little fun with it. I'm the story he's going to tell at a bar after making my name anonymous. I'm the case study that's going to become dinner conversation when he takes some rich bitch out next week. He's going to do it to make himself look well-balanced, prove how normal he is in a world full of weirdoes. In short, he's going to look 'normal' at my expense. — Cyma Rizwaan Khan

Time, That Is Pleased to Lengthen out the Day

Time, that is pleased to lengthen out the day
For grieving lovers parted or denied,
And pleased to hurry the sweet hours away
From such as lie enchanted side by side,
Is not my kinsman; nay, my feudal foe
Is he that in my childhood was the thief
Of all my mother's beauty, and in woe
My father bowed, and brought our house to grief.
Thus, though he think to touch with hateful frost
Your treasured curls, and your clear forehead line,
And so persuade me from you, he has lost;
Never shall he inherit what was mine.
When Time and all his tricks have done their worst,
Still will I hold you dear, and him accurst. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn't settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I loved out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death; I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck. — Graham Greene

We had a signal. When I turned the pail upside down by the kitchen house, that meant everything was clear. Mauma would open the window and throw down a taffy she stole from missus' room. Sometimes here came a bundle of cloth scraps - real nice calicos, gingham, muslin, some import linen. One time, that true brass thimble. Her favorite thing to take was scarlet-red thread. She would wind it up in her pocket and walk right out the house with it. — Sue Monk Kidd

There are certain aspects, and there are - there are 15 attributes of winners and winning slogans. "Which side are you on" sounds divisive, that you're on one side or the other, at a time when we actually want universality. We want unanimity. — Frank Luntz

In baseball, you can do something poorly and still get credit. A pitcher could throw a bad ball, the batter hit a screaming line drive, and an outfielder make a fantastic diving catch. Yet, when you look at historical databases, 80% of the time when a ball is struck with that trajectory and velocity, it is a hit. — Billy Beane

Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world. — Ada Louise Huxtable

Things like taking a few dollars out of a paycheck, putting it into savings, and leaving it there. Or doing a few minutes of exercise every day - and not skipping it. Or reading ten pages of an inspiring, educational, life-changing book every day. Or taking a moment to tell someone how much you appreciate them, and doing that consistently, every day, for months and years. Little things that seem insignificant in the doing, yet when compounded over time yield very big results. You could call these "little virtues" or "success habits." I call them simple daily disciplines. Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time. That, in a nutshell, is the slight edge. — Jeff Olson

The head of the sledgehammer was cold, icy cold, and it touched his forehead as gently as a kiss.
'Pock! There,' said Czernobog. 'Is done.' There was a smile on his face that Shadow had never seen before, an easy, comfortable smile, like sunshine on a summer's day. The old man walked over to the case, and he put the hammer away, and closed the bag, and pushed it back under the sideboard.
'Czernobog?' asked Shadow. Then, 'Are you Czernobog?'
'Yes. For today,' said the old man. 'By tomorrow, it will all be Bielebog. But today, is still Czernobog.'
'Then why? Why didn't you kill me when you could?'
The old man took out an unfiltered cigarette from a pack in his pocket. He took a large box of matches from the mantelpiece and lit the cigarette with a match. He seemed deep in thought. 'Because,' said the old man, after some time, 'there is blood. But there is also gratitude. And it has been a long, long winter. — Neil Gaiman

It is one of the many ironies of this period that, at a time when the intelligentsia were excoriating Mellon for tax-evasion, and contrasting the smooth-running Soviet planned economy with the breakdown in America, he was secretly exploiting the frantic necessities of the Soviet leaders to form the basis of one of America's most splendid public collections — Paul Johnson

There was a time when I let go of the reins and thought, What's meant to happen will happen. That's probably one of my biggest faults as a person, and something that I've had to work really hard on: believing in this idea that the universe will decide for me. The universe is not going to decide in your favor. — Rashida Jones

If we turn now to such vestiges of cult as are associated otherwise than with time and season, we discover a definite recognition of the survival of these nearly a century ago. Keightley, the old fairy mythologist, who did such yeoman service in the collection of much valuable elfin lore, says, as long ago as 1850, when referring to the confused nature of his subject: 'Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings (the larger and greater fairies) once formed part of ancient and exploded systems of religion and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved. — Lewis Spence

There's something that just happens to you when you have a baby, and you look at their little eyes for the first time when you're holding them. They've been safe inside your belly for almost 10 months, and now they're in your arms. Intuition kicks in, where you will do anything for them and you have all the tools inside of you to take care of them. — Hilary Duff

He always knew what I would have liked to say, and with startling and increasing accuracy as we spent more time together. One time, for example, I was wondering exactly how he had lost that tooth at the back of his mouth when he saw my eyes on his waning grin and replied, "Ran into a fence when I was twelve." And then I wondered how the heck he could have missed the giant fence standing right in front of him and he said, "Shut up. — Rose Christo

Well, people are like that too. THey create a false door - to deceive. If they are conscious of weakness, of inefficiency, they make an imposing door of self-assertion, of bluster, of overwhelming authority - and, after a time, they get to believe in it themselves. They think, and everybody thinks, that they are like that. But behind that door, Renisenb, is bare rock... And so when reality comes and touches them with the feather of truth - their true self reasserts itself. — Agatha Christie

When I make a documentary I shoot very little but I hang around with my camera for a long time. I look at the people for a long time through the loop and then when I see something interested then I shoot. I think that I have become very sensitive to these things. — Pirjo Honkasalo

Before another century is done it will be hard for people to imagine a time when humanity was confined to one world, and it will seem to them incredible that there was ever anybody who doubted the value of space and wanted to turn his or her back on the Universe. — Isaac Asimov

I suppose when the things that give you bad dreams live inside you, there's no point in trying to stop them. They're going to come out whenever they decide it is their time. Better just to close your eyes and hold on tight, the faster to get the things you fear to go back to sleep themselves. — Cameron Dokey

The cover was pebbled black leather, the pages onionskin, and he opened it carefully. It was his first Bible, the one his mother had given him, the one that had taken its time showing him what he was supposed to do with his life, his size, that voice of his. It was the one used for his ordination, and when he had buried his mother on a autumn hillside in Tennesee five years ago. King James. He didn't care about the scholars or the accuracy or the bringing of his church into whatever century they claimed it was these days; he cared about the poetry, and about the comfort it brought to those who needed to hear it. — Charles L. Grant

'Boom' is my heart. The 'kack' is my soul. Apparently when I choreographed I didn't realize that I said 'boom-kack' 'boom-kack.' I had no idea I was doing it and then I realized that it's every time I felt like the fight in my soul - the boom and the kack - was like my heart. It was like the love of it - my heart and soul. — Laurieann Gibson

His reaction to the idea was not simple. He felt a great warmth that they should want to give him a party and at the same time he quaked inwardly remembering the last one they had given.
Now everything fell into place-Mack's question and the silences when he was about. He thought of it a lot that night sitting beside his desk. He glanced about considering what things would have to be locked up. He knew the party was going to cost him plenty. — John Steinbeck

Artemis grabbed her shoulders, for once abandoning his shell of icy composure. "Holly, Holly, speak to me. Your finger is it okay?"
Holly wiggled her fingers, then curled them into a fist.
"I think so," she said, and whacked Artemis right between the eyes. The surprised boy landed in a snowdrift for the third time that day.
Holly winked at an amazed butler.
"Now we're even," she said.
Commander Root didn't have many treasured memories. But in future days, when things were at their grimmest, he would conjure up this moment and have a quiet chuckle. — Eoin Colfer

that in modern life we overuse the "fight, flight, or freeze" response, because we respond to many situations as if they are life-threatening when they are not. As a result, our nervous systems don't have time to recover, because we are activating this response too frequently. — Linda Lantieri

There is that moment when you first wake up and your dreams are still hovering like a fine mist in the air. For a tiny fragment of time you feel as though you could choose to live in either reality. In fact, in those seconds, as the dream replays in your mind, still so fresh, it seems more real, and this world seems unreal and fuzzy. I want to make the choice to go back to the dream, to live there. — Kitty Thomas

Back then, I didn't understand that what was happening in my house was not happening in everyone's house at night, when the doors were shut and the blinds were drawn. It took me just as long to sort out my physical self - how to dress in a way that flattered my shape, how to do my hair and makeup (or pay professionals to do it), how to be in a body, in the world. It took time before I could take all that pain and use it; transform all that loneliness and isolation and shame into stories. — Jennifer Weiner

I honestly haven't thought about it much. When it comes time for me to retire, I don't think I'll know going into that season. I'll have to evaluate it at the end of each year. — LaVell Edwards

You got the makings of greatness in you, but you gotta take the helm and chart your own course! Stick to it, no matter the squalls! And when the time comes, you'll get the chance to really test the cut of your sails and show what you're made of! And... well, I hope I'm there, catching some of the light coming off you that day. — John Silver

Them up when the other team had a runner on third. By the time the Yankees came to town - this was going on to the end of April - the whole stadium would flush orange when the Bombers had a runner on third, which they did often in that series. Because the Yankees kicked the living shit out of us and took over first place. It was no fault of the kid's; he hit in every game and tagged out Bill Skowron between home and third when the lug got caught in a rundown. — Stephen King

Hoping that if she just walked down the same street fate would whirl her backward in time until she was once more (fill in your age), when the future was something she had not yet stepped into, when it was just an idea, a moment, something that had not disappointed her yet. — Alice Hoffman

What is style but a form of silent speech? When I put together an outfit to wear, I am putting together chapters of a story that needs to tell itself to the world in merely a minute! When I choose an outfit to wear, I am choosing a speech, a certain flow of mind-to-skin that is important to be understood. Style is the sentiment that I make without needing to speak to anyone and it's also an internal conversation that I make with myself throughout the day, I share those intimate words every time I look into the mirror or every time I look at my photographs. — C. JoyBell C.

Not the first time. I didn't think my heart could stand it. But the airplane is a wonderful thing. You are still in one place when you arrive at the other. The airplane is faster than the heart. You arrive quickly and you leave quickly. You don't grieve too much. And there is something else about the airplane. You can go back many times to the same place. And something strange happens if you go back often enough. You stop grieving for the past. You see that the past is something in your mind alone, that it doesn't exist in real life. You trample on the past, you crush it. In the beginning it is like trampling on a garden. In the end you are just walking on ground. That is the way we have to learn to live now. The past is here." He touched his heart. "It isn't there." And he pointed at the dusty road. I — V.S. Naipaul

Do you know that when one who has influence with youth- be he teacher, leader or parent- seriously weakens the foundations upon which a young person has built, by faith-destroying challenges the youngster is not yet equipped to meet, he fashions a disciple who has been effectively cut loose from fundamentals at a time when he needs most to rely on them? The challenger may himself be a moral, educated, well-meaning person of integrity, doing what he does in the name of honesty and truth. His own character may have been formed in an atmosphere of faith and conviction which, through his influence, he may now help to destroy in his young follower. "Disenchanted" himself in his mature years, he turns his powers on an immature mind and leaves it ready prey for nostrums and superstitions and behavior he himself would disdain. — Marion D. Hanks

The death penalty serves no one. It doesn't serve the victims. It doesn't serve prevention. It's truly all about retribution ... There comes a time when you have to ask if a penalty that is so permanent can be available in such an imperfect system. The only guarantee against executing the innocent is to do away with the death penalty. — Jeanne Woodford

I'm a really good driver. I've been driving since I was very small, and I do like driving fast. I remember the first time my dad taught me that when you go into a corner you change down then put your foot right down on the way out. I'm very competitive about driving. — Jennifer Saunders

A little bird moves a mountain of sand one grain at a time it picks up one grain every million years and when the mountain has been moved the bird puts it all back again and that's how long eternity is and that's a very long time to be dead — Jenny Downham

When I look back on my childhood, I think of that short time in Beirut. I know that seeing the city collapse around me forced me to grasp something many people miss: the fragility of peace. — Greg Kinnear

Half an hour into the movie, Margot started giggling, but it wasn't a funny part or anything. When Quinn looked over at her, she was covering her mouth and nose with one hand while waving the other in front of her. He couldn't hide his shock. No fucking way!
"Margot! You did not just fart!" Quinn exclaimed. He was absolutely dumbfounded. No woman has ever farted in front of him, not even his mom.
"I am sorry!" She laughed. "You would have never known if it did not smell!"
Quinn burst out laughing. He caught a whiff and laughed harder as he clapped a hand over his nose. It wasn't that bad, but he decided to play along. He was laughing so hard that he had tears running down his face. He couldn't remember the last time he laughed until he cried. Margot too was laughing so hard that she had tears running down her face. She gave him a playful shove, which only made it harder for him to breathe. — Andria Large

was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. "Augrh!" said Father Wolf. "It is time to hunt again." He was going to spring down hill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: "Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children that they may never forget the hungry in this world." It was the jackal - Tabaqui, the Dish-licker - and the wolves of India — Rudyard Kipling

[There's] a joke that I've done forever: 'Nowadays they say that the largest majority of people will be Latino and you'll tell scary stories to your grandkids: "A long time ago when I was growing up, there used to be people who were white," and the kid says, "Really?" and you say, "Yeah, like the man who cuts our grass."' I've had that line forever and I love it. — George Lopez

Because time is not like space. And when you put something down somewhere, like a protractor or a biscuit, you can have a map in your head to tell you where you have left it, but even if you don't have a map it will still be there because a map is a representation of things that actually exist so you can find the protractor or the biscuits again. And a timetable is a map of time, except that if you don't have a timetable, time isn't there like the landing and the garden and the route to school. — Mark Haddon

Sometimes, when you're feeling you're lowest, the real you is summoned~And you understand, maybe for the first time ever, how grand you are, because you discover that vulnerable doesn't mean powerless, scared doesn't mean lacking in beauty, and uncertainty doesn't mean that you're lost~These realizations alone will set you on a journey that you will take you far beyond what you used to think of as extraordinary.~There is always a bright side, The Universe — Mike Dooley

When they put me in jail, that's when they turned me into an activist. Up until the time I went to jail, I was just a comedian. — Tommy Chong

The typewriter is neat and compact and sturdy and blue, just the right machine to pound out a missive of love. When you strike the keys it's a sound that hasn't been heard in the qorld world for thirty years (we are so far away from a time when typewriters won world wars). When you strike the keys they make a sound like a pistol shot, a sound so definite and sure you feel like a genius, or an orayor orator, or a beat poet. When you strike the keys you just want to keep on fucking writing. You have to wrestle with the thing, like I am doing now, steer it like an old manual car, keep the words together and right and on the page, but the blood and muscle of a typewriter, it is a beautiful thing. — Yvette Walker

There was one time they knocked me out and laid me in front of my mother's door. And in order for my mother not to be shocked they readjusted my clothes and they saw that nothing was rumpled and I looked very comfortable next to the apartment door, so when my mother would open the door it wouldn't be that much of a shock. — Jack Kirby

Others of them employ outward marks ... They style themselves Gnostics. They also possess images, some of them painted and others formed from different kinds of material. They maintain that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at that time when Jesus lived among them. They crown these images, and set them up along with the images of the philosophers of the world, such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest. They have also other modes of honoring these images just like the Gentiles. — Irenaeus Of Lyons

In the early '90s, I was hired to write educational dramas about HIV and AIDS in the shantytowns. I did that for two and a half years, and then I was hired on other films. When 'Tsotsi' presented itself, I thought, 'This is not a world I grew up in, but I've spent a great deal of time writing about it and researching it in my past.' — Gavin Hood

The trouble with babies is that they are made like a safe- no way to see what's inside and no guarantee that the effort will be worth the trouble. spin the numbers, crack the code, but the door won't swing open. Babies are safes on time-delay. It takes years for the door to swing open, and even when it does, the best minds are undecided as to the value of the contents — Jeanette Winterson

The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow
to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much
too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I love that quiet time when nobody's up and the animals are all happy to see me. — Olivia Newton-John

There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, 'May I come in?' is not true laughter. No! He is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person, he choose no time of suitability. He say, 'I am here. — Bram Stoker

It seemed my whole life was composed of these disjointed fractions of time, hanging around in one public place and then another, as if I were waiting for trains that never came. And, like one of those ghosts who are said to linger around depots late at night, asking passersby for the timetable of the Midnight Express that derailed twenty years before, I wandered from light to light until that dreaded hour when all the doors closed and, stepping from the world of warmth and people and conversation overhead, I felt the old familiar cold twist through my bones again and then it was all forgotten, the warmth, the lights; I had never been warm in the life, ever. — Donna Tartt

India went through a dramatic revolution after the '90s when our economy started opening up for the first time and Indians were now experiencing the Western life, if you will. Drugs and sex and a lot of those influences came in as the economy stabilized, and we were growing up and experiencing that. The Indian writing market was very small at that time. Our literature was very attuned to what Western audiences were interested in, so everybody was writing about the slums in India and magic realism or stories about Hindus and Muslims and partition. — Karan Bajaj

There is a time in each of our lives when we are hurled into the terrible understanding that bedrock can crumble in the blink of an eye. — Shannon Polson

You don't really mean that we got to be frightened all the time of nothing? Life," said Piggy expansively, "is scientific, that's what it is. In a year or two when the war's over they'll be traveling to Mars and back. I know there isn't no beast - not with claws and all that, I mean - but I know there isn't no fear, either. — William Golding

They lay listening. Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn't fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly. — Cormac McCarthy

Memories are weird. They never really leave you alone, no matter how much you try, and the funny part is--the more you try, the more they haunt you. The more you want to run away, the faster they seem to catch up, and then there comes a time when you are convinced that you have finally managed to leave them behind and move on. You rejoice. You celebrate. You have exorcised the ghosts of the past--you feel liberated, UNTIL one fine day, some old memory creeps up slowly from behind and taps you on your shoulder just to say "Hi. How's it going so far?". That is when everything comes rushing in, and you realize that maybe, just maybe, it had never really gone away. — Priyanka Naik

My Mother

My mother was not educated but she was the best teacher I've ever had in my entire life. She had what it's called natural wisdom, bless her precious soul. Here some of her teachings: Human Values:
Love: Learn to love because everything that's based on love has a deep rooted foundation.
Kindness: Be kind all the time but never let anyone take advantage of your kindness.
Peace: Learn to have peace with yourself when the world turns against you because it starts with you.
Honesty: Be honest to yourself and then to the others.
Respect: Respect others and they will respect you.
Openness: Be always transparent especially when you are hurting. Never pretend that it's all okay.
Loyalty: Always be loyal to your family and make sure your family comes before anything else.
She taught me to learn to compose myself when life gets tough and unfair to me.

I love you mama & Happy Mothers Day — Euginia Herlihy

Again and again we picture ourselves sitting together with the people we feel drawn to all our lives, precisely these so-called simple people, whom naturally we imagine much differently from the way they truly are, for if we actually sit down with them we see that they aren't the way we've pictured them and that we absolutely don't belong with them, as we've talked ourselves into believing, and we get rejected at their table and in their midst as we logically should get after sitting down at their table and believing we belonged with them or we could sit with them for even the shortest time without being punished, which is the biggest mistake, I thought. All our lives we yearn to be with these people and want to reach out to them and when we realize what we feel for them are rejected by them and indeed in the most brutal fashion. — Thomas Bernhard

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

I write in a hurry, because the little one, who has been sleeping a long time, begins to call for me. Poor thing! when I am sad, I lament that all my affections grow on me, till they become too strong for my peace, though they all afford me snatches of exquisite enjoyment. — Mary Wollstonecraft

I thought you said something about a wolf' I began.
'Yes. That black beast that gnaws at my bones whenever he gets a chance. He loiters in corners and behind doors most of the time, because he's afraid of these.' She indicated the white pills on the table beside her. 'But they don't last forever. It's nearly twelve and they are wearing off. He is sniffing at my neck. By half past he will be digging his teeth and claws in. Until one, when I can take another tablet and he will have to return to his corner. We are always clockwatching, he and I. He pounces five minutes earlier every day. But I cannot take my tablets five minutes early. That stays the same. — Diane Setterfield

I'm disappointed in myself. In my life. All my life, everything I tried, I only got halfway there. You try to take advantage of the time you have. That's what they tell you to do. But when you're old, you look back and you see all you did, with all that time, is waste it. All you have is a story of things you never started or couldn't finish. Things you fought with all your heart to build that didn't last or fought with all your heart to get rid of and they're all still around. I'm ashamed of myself. — Michael Chabon

Zoroastrianism? Oh, there's never been but a few hundred thousand of them at any one time, mostly located in Iran and India, but that's it. The one true faith. If you're not a Zoroastrian, I'm afraid you are bound for Hell."
The man looked stunned and shocked. "It's not fair."
The demon gave a mirthful laugh. "Well, it was fair when you were sending all the Chinese to Hell who had never heard of Jesus. Wasn't it? — Steven L. Peck

When I lived in New York, there wasn't as much TV or film around. I got asked to do a couple of indie films, just based on me being from The Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle. I did a couple of indie movies from Japan and one from Canada, and I thought it was an exciting, fun thing to do. I had a great time doing it, it was just that, in New York, there really wasn't as much. My studio in New York closed, so I moved out to L.A. and just started looking into composing as another thing to do, as a musician. I like it a lot. It's fun and it's a different way of thinking about music. — James Iha

It's funny that when people reach a certain age, such as after graduating college, they assume it's time to go out and get a job. But like many things the masses do, just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's a good idea. — Steve Pavlina

I just figured out what you are," he said.
"What?"
"You're a present." He nodded as if in satisfaction. "Tightly wrapped, with lots of tape, lots of beautiful shiny ribbon, all tied up in impossible knots. The kind of present that makes you half mad when you're trying to get it open. Because you know, the whole time, what's inside is going to be wonderful. — Sierra Donovan

Why are there such long words in the world, Miss?' enquires Sophie, when the mineralogy lesson is over.
'One long difficult word is the same as a whole sentence full of short easy ones, Sophie,' says Sugar. 'It saves time and paper.' Seeing that the child is unconvinced, she adds, 'If books were written in such a way that every person, no matter how young, could understand everything in them, they would be enormously long books. Would you wish to read a book that was a thousand pages long, Sophie?'
Sophie answers without hesitation.
'I would read a thousand million pages, Miss, if all the words were words I could understand. — Michel Faber

Diamonds are held under tons and tons of pressure, extremely high temperatures of fire and shuffled under shifting of tectonic plates, for a long, long time! Yet when they come out from there and are put on display for their beauty; does anybody stop to evaluate the diamond based upon all the shit it's been through and say "Remember that disgusting hole it used to be in? I bet it was hell in there!" No, people don't remember where a diamond has come from; they just see the beauty of it now. But it wouldn't have become so beautiful, you know, if not for all of that! So why should we look at other people, or at ourselves and evaluate them/ourselves based upon their/our pasts? Shouldn't we forget that? And only see the beauty that is in front of our eyes? Whatever it was, it made you beautiful! And that is what matters! — C. JoyBell C.

If you want twenty minutes of quality time with someone you love, schedule three or four hours with him or her one afternoon, and chances are, somewhere in the middle of that three or four hours you will have your twenty minutes of quality time. When — Matthew Kelly

Well, that was life. It was an old tree, and the old passed on. Probably they did not mind. There came a time when all sap ran slowly, and the peace of age with all things behind it merged easily into the peace of death. The difficult thing was to be young. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

Now is the time when you see people which you know... but they start ignoring you... and how do you deal with that? — Deyth Banger

When I get very stressed, I make jam. I like things that produce a quick result, because fashion has such a long lead time. With jam, you start, and two-three hours later, you have 36 little pots, all full. — Dries Van Noten

Lily knew then that Sheen was right. She would have a horse one day, but not for a long time. When she did, she would have control over what she could and could not have, although maybe she could right now, to an extent. She might not be able to have a horse, but she could choose to have Sheen as a friend, if he was willing to be her friend. — Jesse Haubert

Parlabane found the word 'pro-active' enormously useful, as it immediately exposed the speaker as an irredeemable arsehole, whatever previous impression might have been given. Once upon a time, he remembered, people and companies just did things. But that ceased to be impressive enough, and for a while they 'actively' did things. Now they 'pro-actively' did things, but it was still the same bloody things that they were doing when they just plain old did things. Meaningless wank-language. — Christopher Brookmyre

Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked. — J.M. Barrie

Indeed, when God's glory dwells in me, there is nothing too far away, nothing too painful, nothing too strange or too familiar that it cannot contain and renew by its touch. Every time I recognize the glory of God in me and give it space to manifest itself to me, all that is human can be brought there and nothing will be the same again. — Henri Nouwen

When people say right person, wrong time, or wrong person, right time, it's usually a cop-out. They think that fate is playing with them. That we're all just participants in this romantic reality show that God gets a kick out of watching. But the universe doesn't decide what's right or not right. You do. Yes, you can theorize until you're blue in the face whether something might have worked at another time, or with someone else. But you know what that leaves you?" "Blue in the face?" I asked. "Yup. — Rachel Cohn

Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are. — Epicurus

I never expect appreciation. I always set a deadline for the things I have to do to be a successful person, when I complete them, I give myself a piece of candy, a glass of tea and some free time to enjoy- that is how I honor my hardworking and appreciate my struggles. — M.F. Moonzajer

This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world. Thank you. Good night, and God bless America. — George W. Bush

Love hits you when you least expect it, grabs you, sucks you in whole, and twists you around until you could hardly breathe. Love hurts like a sucker punch, that's both glorious and beautiful. Falling for Summer was like that for me, every time. — Kailin Gow

Oh, my little sister. What have you done?" "What?" I asked innocently. "It seems that something of great value to the Scholar has disappeared. At exactly the same time you did. He and the Chancellor have turned the citadelle upside down looking for it. All surreptitiously of course, because whatever was taken apparently isn't a catalogued piece of the royal collection. At least that's the rumor among the servants." I pressed my hands together and grinned. I couldn't hide my glee. Oh, how I wish I had seen the Scholar's face when he opened what he thought was his secret drawer and found it empty. Almost empty, that is. I'd left a little something for him. — Mary E. Pearson

I went through a phase of eating dinner in the shower because I thought, 'Why don't we do that?' Then I realised, 'Because it doesn't make any sense.' It doesn't save any time, and you can't really get into a steak and baked potato when there's water pouring on you. — Brie Larson

The first time I ever saw people of any color was when D-Day left from my hometown in England, to go and free Europe from the war. And there was every color you could imagine, and I'd not seen that in England. — Richard Dawson

When you have a few cake formulas and filling ideas in your repertoire, you will find that it's pretty much an assembly job - you can mix and match a different way every time. — Julia Child

When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there ... now instead of then. — Blaise Pascal

He wonders if it's some sort of twisted joke the adults are having, shoving hormonal teens into tight quarters but making it impossible to do anything but breathe.
"I wouldn't mind suffocating if it was with you," the girl says, which is flattering, but makes him even less interested in her.
"There'll be a better time," he tells her, knowing that such a time will never come - at least not for her - but hope is a powerful motivator.
Eventually they settle into a sort of symbiotic breathing rhythm. He breathes in when she breathes out, so their chests don't fight for space.
After a while, there's a jarring motion. With his arm now around the girl, he holds her a little more tightly, knowing that easing her fear somehow eases his own. — Neal Shusterman

I started the first drafts of the book during my sophomore year of college. I wasn't thinking at all about kids at the time. But I was thinking. A lot. About everything. I wish I could capture that head-space again; everything meant something to me in college. Every leaf, every sound, every lecture, every textbook. It's like I was on drugs, 24/7. I am glad I was able to pair that ceaseless pondering with plenty of time to write. What came of that time was the first draft of the novel, a lengthy, unnecessarily angst-driven pile of crap. Years later, with Zoloft, I approached the novel with a more level head, and came away with a much, much better novel. My advice to writers, I suppose, is write your novel when you feel like shit; edit when you feel great. — Caleb J. Ross

The emphasis and the reason for a pure humility is to result in love for others; not always necessarily the belittlement of self. When there is pride and self-righteousness and being pretentiously too far above, generally, one has a difficult time reaching the compassionate side of love for others, the side that understands (or at least attempts to understand): 'I am aware that I am not so far from falling in the same way.' Humility seeks to understand, and sometimes even relate; and in result, the love lovingly, properly, effectively wills the removal of the destructive sins of another as from oneself. — Criss Jami

I did a show back when I was in high school - so I was about 17 - and it was the first time I was on stage. I never even thought about being an actor before that, but after that experience, I knew it was what I wanted to do. — Guillermo Diaz

The most effective alternative process [to punishment] is probably extinction. This takes time but is much more rapid than allowing the response to be forgotten. The technique seems to be relatively free of objectionable by-products. We recommend it, for example when we suggest that a parent 'pay no attention' to objectionable behavior on the part of his child. If the child's behavior is strong only because it has been reinforced by 'getting a rise out of' the parent, it will disappear when this consequence is no longer forthcoming. (p. 192) — B.F. Skinner