The Last Day I Saw You Quotes & Sayings

The last time I saw Ted Kennedy was a generation after my first meeting, at the Senate subway below the Capitol on Obama's Inauguration Day. He was his usual gregarious and gracious self - with beaming smile and booming voice wishing my husband and me good luck with our pregnancy and expressing his excitement about the new president. — Christine Pelosi

At lunch I turned my phone on to check my messages. Georgia always sent me a few inane texts during the day, and sure enough there were two messages from her: one complaining about her physics teacher and a second, also obviously sent from her phone: I love you, baby. V.
I wrote her back: I thought I told you to buzz off last night, you creep-o French stalker guy.
Her response came back immediately: As if! Your beet-red cheeks this morning suggest otherwise ... liar! You're so into him.
I groaned and was about to turn my phone off when I saw that there was a third text from UNKNOWN. Clicking on it, I read: Can I pick you up from school? Same place, same time?
I texted back: How'd you get my number?
Called myself from your phone while you were in the restaurant's bathroom last night. Warned you we were stalkers! — Amy Plum

On this perfect day, when everything is ripening and not only the grape turns brown, the eye of the sun just fell upon my life: I looked back, I looked forward, and never saw so many and such good things at once. It was not for nothing that I buried my forty-fourth year today; I had the right to bury it; whatever was life in it has been saved, is immortal. The first book of the Revaluation of All Values, the Songs of Zarathustra, the Twilight of the Idols, my attempt to philosophize with a hammer - all presents of this year, indeed of its last quarter! How could I fail to be grateful to my whole life? - and so I tell my life to myself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

THE OPENING OF EYES After R. S. Thomas That day I saw beneath dark clouds, the passing light over the water and I heard the voice of the world speak out, I knew then, as I had before, life is no passing memory of what has been nor the remaining pages in a great book waiting to be read. It is the opening of eyes long closed. It is the vision of far off things seen for the silence they hold. It is the heart after years of secret conversing, speaking out loud in the clear air. It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees before the lit bush. It is the man throwing away his shoes as if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished, opened at last, fallen in love with solid ground. — David Whyte

Watch this, Larry. The seeds I saved from last year bring forth plants this year. It's a death, burial, and resurrection. It's this way with the sun also. It comes up in the morning and brings us light all the day long. But in the evening it goes down. Is that the end of the sun? No... It comes up the very next day. Death, burial, and resurrection."
"I never saw it like that, Charlie. Tell me more."
"See Larry, let's go deeper with that. Just for instance, something must die for something to live. You and I eat live substance--whether it is corn or beans, it's a life. That life dies to give us life. Now watch this, Larry. If that works with the physical; then it also works in the spiritual. Jesus Christ had to die to give us life... — Jerrel C. Thomas

We used to go to the pictures every Saturday night but we had to leave a little bit early and get home and watch Match of the Day - and my wife still complains she missed the last five minutes of every film we saw. — Brian Clough

She was a whirlwind of steel and blood. As he watched her cut through the men as though they were stalks of wheat in a field, he understood how she had gotten so close to touching Endovier's wall that day. And at last-after all these months-he saw the lethal predator he'd expected to find in the mines. there was nothing human in her eyes, nothing remotely merciful. It froze his heart. — Sarah J. Maas

Almost every time i saw you, you were with him. But one day, you walked up to the building alone. I was holding the door for several girls in front of you, and i waited for you to catch up. When you reached me, you look pleased, and a little surprised. Unlike the others, you didn't expect the door to be held for you by some random guy. You smiled up at me and said, 'Thank you.' That was the last straw. I prayed you 'd never come to a session, and not with him. I didn't want you to know i was the tutor. — Tammara Webber

Oh, aye, it's grand! Last week I saw Swan on a Hot Tin Lake, a reinterpretation of a traditional theme by one of our up-and-coming young performance artists; and the day after that, of course, there was a reworking of Die Flabbergast at the Opera House; and ye ken, they had a whole week of porcelain at the Royal Art Museum, with a free thimble of sherry. — Terry Pratchett

Didn't," Chris told him. "She was also sedated when last we spoke?" "Yes, she was." "I thought I saw her at her window that day." "Well, you're mistaken." "It could be. Perhaps so. I'm not sure." "Listen, why are you asking all this?" "Well, a clear — William Peter Blatty

So they would't suffer too much from hunger, they slept and rested in bed for as long as they could. They lost all notion of time, and if Brossier hadn't come back they would never have left that room, not even the bed, where they listened to music and little by little drifted off. The last thing they saw from the outside world were the snowflakes falling all day on the sill of the open window. — Patrick Modiano

Linnaeus's last lesson, of which he himself was unaware, was that professorships kill philosophers. Oh, I'm vain enough to want my burgeoning Flora Japonica to be published one day
as a votive offering to human knowledge
but a seat at Uppsala, or Leiden, or Cambridge, holds no allure. My heart is the East's in this lifetime. This is my third year in Nagasaki, and I have work enough for another three, or six. During the court embassy I can see landscapes no European botanist ever saw. My seminarians are keen young men
with one young woman
and visiting scholars bring me specimens from all over the empire. — David Mitchell

You'll be great," Cole said, patting her shoulder. He took one last look at Sam's face. Whatever he saw there made him smile. "But maybe you should go a little easy on him; he's had it tough."
She looked at Sam's face, too. "Rough as in dating gorgeous blondes named Selena who yell at you in the alley, or rough as in getting to go boating all day long for a living?"
Cole tossed back his head and laughed. "You get a raise for that. I'll tell our accountant." He turned to Sam again. "Give her a raise. — Jill Shalvis

Curran was looking at her. Not in the same way he looked at me, but he was looking. An odd feeling flared in me, hot and angry, prickling my throat from the inside with hot sharp needles, and I realized it was jealousy. I guess there was a first time for everything. "Have you seen my father?" Lorelei asked. "How is he?" "I saw him last year," Curran said. "He's the same as always: tough and ornery." I came to stand next to him. Lorelei raised her eyebrows. Her eyes widened, and a sheen of pale green rolled over her irises. "You must be the human Consort." Yes, that's me, the human invalid. "My name is Kate." "Kate," she repeated, as if tasting the word. "It is an honor to meet you." Curran was smiling at her, that handsome hot smile that usually made my day better. Pushing Lorelei into the ocean wouldn't be diplomatic, even if I really wanted to do it. "Likewise. — Ilona Andrews

There was a man here, lashed himself to a spar as his ship went down, and for seven days and seven nights he was on the sea, and what kept him alive while others drowned was telling himself stories like a madman, so that as one ended another began. On the seventh day he had told all the stories he knew and that was when he began to tell himself as if he were a story, from the earliest beginnings to his green and deep misfortune. The story he told was of a man lost and found, not once, but many times, as he choked his way out of the waves. And the night fell, he saw the Cape Wrath light, only lit a week it was, but it was, and he knew that if he became the story of the light, he might be saved. With his last strength he began to paddle towards it, arms on either side of the spar, and in his mind the light became a shining rope, pulling him in. He took hold of it, tied it round his waist, and at that moment, the keeper saw him, and ran for the rescue boat. — Jeanette Winterson

Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into."
"You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up. — Franz Kafka

The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have taken place, admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of the ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon day, to all Jerusalem at least. A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal; and as the public visibility of this last related act was the only evidence that could give sanction to the former part, the whole of it falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given. Instead of this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it, and all the rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it appears that Thomas did not believe the resurrection; and, as they say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration himself. So neither will I; and the reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas. It — Thomas Paine

I did not tell him my decision, that would have broken my will. I did not wait to have breakfast with him but only drank some coffee and made an excuse to go home. I knew the excuse did not fool Joey; but he did not know how to protest or insist; he did not know that this was all he needed to have done. Then I, who had seen him that summer nearly every day till then, no longer went to see him. He did not come to see me. I would have been very happy to see him if he had, but the manner of my leavetaking had begun a constriction which neither of us knew how to arrest. When I finally did see him, more or less by accident, near the end of the summer, I made up a long and totally untrue story about a girl I was going with and when school began again I picked up with a rougher, older crowd and was very nasty to Joey. And the sadder this made him, the nastier I became. He moved away at last, out of the neighborhood, away from our school, and I never saw him again. — James Baldwin

In the evening, I walked alone down to the Lake by the side of Crow Park after sunset and saw the solemn coloring of night draw on, the last gleam of sunshine fading away on the hilltops, the seep serene of the asters, and the long shadows of the mountains thrown across them, till they nearly touched the hithermost shore. At distance hear the murmur of many waterfalls not audible in the day-time. Wished for the moon, but she was dark to me and silent, hid in her vacant interlunar cave. — Thomas Gray

She saw him the first day on board, and then her heart sank into her shoes as she realized at last how much she wanted him. No matter what his past was, no matter what he had done. Which was not to say that she would ever let him know, but only that he moved her chemically more than anyone she had ever met, that all other men seemed pale beside him. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I saw the first light, fore-running the sun, gather in a cup of the eastern cloud, gather and grow and brim, till at last it spilled like milk over the golden lip, to smear the dark face of heaven from end to end. From east to north, and back to south again, the clouds slackened, the stars, trembling on the verge of extinction, guttered in the dawn wind, and the gates of day were ready to open at the trumpet ... — Mary Stewart

It had been a damned nice thing - the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. (Waterloo 18 June 1815)

'I hope to God,' he said one day,'that I have fought my last battle.It is a bad thing to be always fighting.While in the thick of it,I am much too occupied to feel anything;but it is wretched just after.It is quite impossible to think of glory.Both mind and feeling are exhausted.I am wretched even at the moment of victory,and I always say that next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.Not only do you lose those dear friends with whom you have been living,but you are forced to leave the wounded behind you.To be sure one tries to do the best for them,but how little that is!At such moments every feeling in your breast is deadened.I am now just beginning to retain my natural spirits,but I never wish for any more fighting. — Arthur Wellesley

He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless. And as I walked back to give Takumi's note to the Colonel, I saw that I would never know. I would never know her well enough to know her thoughts in those last minutes, would never know if she left us on purpose. But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart. — John Green

I have carried that ring every moment of the last twelve years. I bought it the day after I first saw you at the ball. The ruby reminded me of the rose gleaming in your black hair."
~Lord Malcom Ashford — Celeste Bradley

In it {a film Peter saw} a sadistic sergeant broke the spirit of soldier in a military prison by beating him up at systematically random intervals, from more than a day down to a quarter of an hour, so that the victim never knew when the next attack was coming, never felt safe. Life with Muriel, it seemed to Peter, had over the last seven or eight years turned into a decreasingly bearable version of that. — Kingsley Amis

I couldn't help wondering where porpoises had learned this game of running on the bows of ships. Porpoises have been swimming in the oceans for seven to ten million years, but they've had human ships to play with for only the last few thousand. Yet nearly all porpoises, in every ocean, catch rides for fun from passing ships; and they were doing it on the bows of Greek triremes and prehistoric Tahitian canoes, as soon as those seacraft appeared. What did they do for fun before ships were invented?
Ken Norris made a field observation one day that suggests the answer. He saw a humpback whale hurrying along the coast of the island of Hawaii, unavoidably making a wave in front of itself; playing in that bow wave was a flock of bottlenose porpoises. The whale didn't seem to be enjoying it much: Ken said it looked like a horse being bothered by flies around its head; however, there was nothing much the whale could do about it, and the porpoises were having a fun time. — Karen Pryor

And Iseult rose up where she sat apart,
And with her sweet soul deepening her deep eyes
Cast the furs from her and subtle embroideries
That wrapped her from the storming rain and spray,
And shining like all April in one day,
Hair, face, and throat dashed with the straying showers,
She stood the first of all the whole world's flowers,
And laughed on Tristram with her eyes, and said,
"I too have heart then, I was not afraid."
And answering some light courteous word of grace
He saw her clear face lighten on his face
Unwittingly, with unenamoured eyes
For the last time. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Aaaand we have a winnerrrrr!" a man shouts into the mic in a singsong carnival voice as I lick the last of Patrick's ice cream from my fingers. "Pick out a prize for the beautiful girl."
"For you," Patrick says, kneeling in front of me with a moose in his outstretched hands.
I pull the stuffed animal to my chest. "Thank you. I shall love him always. I shall call him Holden Caulfield."
"From the book?"
"Yes, from the book. You were reading it when I saw you my first day here."
"You remember that?"
"It's one of my favorite books," I say.
"You were totally checking me out."
"Patrick! Not in front of Holden Caulfield!" I cover the moose's floppy ears with my hands, hoping neither he nor Patrick sees the red flooding my cheeks. — Sarah Ockler

But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you. — Stephen King

I was really unfit last year, so I worked out for a long time, then spent time by myself in Oregon. For about two months the only person I saw was my trainer. Every day I did a lot of running and I just didn't want to talk to anyone for two months. So when I started talking again, it was like you would communicate wrongly, like you wouldn't really remember how to speak. That was one of the key things as well as just reading the book, reading the script a million times, just figuring things out. — Robert Pattinson

Jesus saw the eternal in the everyday. Your last day on earth should be spent as you spent all your others
doing your daily tasks with love and honesty ... An ordinary day is, perhaps, the most holy of all. — Margaret George

.. when she looked at Nate she saw a kid who'd been shoved into lockers during high school. And now he wanted the last laugh, taking every opportunity to throw his (nerdy) weight around. He'd bought a hockey team, and he was going to make the jocks do his bidding, at least until the day he realized that vindication wasn't everything in life. — Sarina Bowen

We talk of strong personalities, and they are strong, until the not-every-day when we see them as we might see one woman alone in a desert, and know that all the strength we thought we knew was only courage, only her lone song echoing among the stones; and then at last when we have understood this and made up our minds to hear the song and admire its courage and its sweetness, we wait for the next note and it does not come. The last word, with its pure tone, echoes and fades and is gone, and we realize - only then - that we do not know what it was, that we have been too intent on the melody to hear even one word. We go then to find the singer, thinking she will be standing where we last saw her. There are only bones and sand and a few faded rags. — Gene Wolfe

The day waned, and dusk was twined about the boles of the trees. At last the hobbits saw, rising dimly before them, a steep dark land: they had come to the feet of the mountains, and to the green roots of tall Methedras. Down the hillside the young Entwash, leaping from its springs high above, ran noisily from step to step to meet them. On the right of the stream there was a long slope, clad with grass, now grey in the twilight. No trees grew there and it was open to the sky; stars were shining already in lakes between shores of cloud. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I remembered Daemon's feather soft kisses on my cheek, and I remembered the clouds parting and the sun shining on a cold February day in Ireland. And as my baby girl was laid on my chest and my husband held my hand, I saw my best friend Kat walk into the sun kissed part in the clouds, hand in hand, along with the last regrets of my past. — Rebecca Boucher

A Little Fable
"Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must ... — Franz Kafka

My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of the Unamis happy and strong; and yet, before the sun has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans. — James Fenimore Cooper

For more than half a century they belonged to one another. She detested the same characteristics in him that last day as she had the first time she saw him under that tree, and still adored all the others. — Fredrik Backman

The imprudent Maximus disregarded these salutary considerations: he gratified his resentment and ambition; he saw the bleeding corpse of Valentinian at his feet; and he heard himself saluted Emperor by the unanimous voice of the senate and people. But the day of his inauguration was the last day of his happiness. — Edward Gibbon

My stomach lurched; it was the day of the rehearsal. It was the day I'd see not just my friends and family who, I was certain, would love me no matter what grotesque skin condition I'd contracted since the last time we saw one another, but also many, many people I'd never met before--ranching neighbors, cousins, business associates, and college friends of Marlboro Man's. I wasn't thrilled at the possibility that their first impression of me might be something that involved scales. — Ree Drummond

It was hard to stay angry when I felt so sad. I would rather have felt angry, but instead, all I could do was sob. Even though people had been coming over all day, the house seemed so lonely that I couldn't stand it.
The room grew somewhat dimmer. I didn't move as it grew dimmer still. Then, with a start, I hurried outside and ran to the alley in back of our house. Through a break between the buildings, I saw that the sun hung low over the horizon. I watched it until it started to hide between two trees in the distance. Then I climbed on a car and watched until only half of the sun was visible, and then a quarter, and then I felt a huge sickening panic inside of me and ran as hard as I could to a ladder I saw down the alley. I rushed up the ladder and climbed on the roof of somebody's garage. I saw the sun again, a quarter of it, and then a slice, and then it disappeared, the last time ever that the sun would set on a day my sister had lived. — Cynthia Kadohata

The story of a man who saw three fellows laying bricks at a new building:
He approached the first and asked, What are you doing?
Clearly irritated, the first man responded, What the heck do you think I'm doing? I'm laying these darn bricks!
He then walked over to the second bricklayer and asked the same question.
The second fellow responded, Oh, I'm making a living.
He approached the third bricklayer with the same question, What are you doing?
The third looked up, smiled and said, I'm building a cathedral.
At the end of the day, who feels better about how he's spent his last eight hours? — Bill Vaughan

Make me an offer, " I said at last. "Write it up, and give me a point-by-point outline of why you're a good would-be suitor. "
He started to laugh, then saw my face. "Seriously? That's like homework. There's a reason I'm not in college. " I snapped my fingers. "Get to it, Ivashkov. I want to see you put in a good day's work. "
I expected a joke or a brush-off until later, but instead, he said, "Okay. "
"Okay?"
"Yep. I'm going to go back to my room right now to start drafting my assignment. "
I stared incredulously as he reached for his coat. I had never seen Adrian move that fast when any kind of labor was involved. Oh no. What had I gotten myself into? — Richelle Mead

It has been a year, two months, and seventeen days since I last saw him.Two years, ten months and five days since he broke my heart.Technically, he began breaking my heart the moment I met him, five years, eleven months, and one day ago. — Willow Aster

Say, I was on The Craig Kilbourne Show and the next day I flew to Minneapolis. I was at the airport and a guy came up. He said, 'Dude, I saw you on TV last night.' But he did not say whether or not he thought I was good, he just confirmed that I was on television. So I turned my head away from him for about a minute, then I turned it back. I said, 'Dude, I saw you at the airport about a minute ago. And you were good.' — Mitch Hedberg

The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrow-minded trader, and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce. — Mary Shelley

Hope Was but a timid friend;
She sat without the grated den,
Watching how my fate would tend,
Even as selfish-hearted men.
She was cruel in her fear;
Through the bars one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
And she turned her face away!
Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
If I listened, she would cease.
False she was, and unrelenting;
When my last joys strewed the ground,
Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
Those sad relics scattered round;
Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
Went, and ne'er returned again! — Emily Bronte

Big deal, so he scored. The last time I saw someone dance like that I had to pay her $20 and have my pants dry cleaned the next day. — Dennis Miller

All this last day Frodo had not spoken, but had walked half-bowed, often stumbling, as if his eyes no longer saw the way before his feet. Sam guessed that among all their pains he bore the worst, the growing weight of the Ring, a burden on the body and a torment to his mind. Anxiously Sam had noted how his master's left hand would often be raised as if to ward off a blow, or to screen his shrinking eyes from a dreadful Eye that sought to look in them. And sometimes his right hand would creep to his breast, clutching, and then slowly, as the will recovered mastery, it would be withdrawn. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The last time I saw him, I didn't breath again until he had dressed himself completely. From the crack in my sister's door, I saw him get out of her bed and inhale, as if he had accomplished his mission for the day. — Jennifer Loren

I have no words for you, Rook Walsh." "Try," I whisper back as I stare hungrily into his eyes. He brings his palms to my face and tilts my chin. "I could describe what you look like, but that's not what I see. You are so much more than a body inside a dress, Rook. You fit me. When I saw you crouching in that stairwell last week I felt like I knew you. You stopped me dead in my tracks, you wiped my mind. And I reached out to touch you that day because I couldn't resist. I needed to do it and I plan on touching you all night, on the way there in the car, through dinner, as we walk around the zoo and do whatever the hell it is they do at a nighttime fundraiser, and all the way home. — J.A. Huss

His hand closed automatically around the fake Horcrux but in spite of everything, in spite of the dark and twisting path he saw stretching ahead for himself, in spite of the final meeting with Voldemort he knew must come whether in a month in a year or in ten, he felt his heart lift at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with Ron and Hermione. — J.K. Rowling

Last day I saw him human, he was sad about the world. — Aimee Bender

ALAS," said the mouse, "the world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into." "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up. Translated — Franz Kafka

Clov: Why this farce, day after day?
Hamm: Routine. One never knows. [Pause.] Last night I saw inside my breast. There was a big sore.
Clov: Pah! You saw your heart.
Hamm: No, it was living. [Pause. Anguished.] Clov!
Clov: Yes.
Hamm: What's happening?
Clov: Something is taking its course. [Pause.]
Hamm: Clov!
Clov: [impatiently] What is it?
Hamm: We're not beginning to ... to ... mean something?
Clov: Mean something! You and I, mean something! [Brief laugh.] Ah that's a good one!
Hamm: I wonder. [Pause.] — Samuel Beckett