Time Thieves Quotes & Sayings

Clubs shook his head. "Kelsier. Gave us a city, made us think we were responsible for protecting it."
"But we aren't that kind of people," Breeze said. "We're thieves and scammers. We shouldn't care. I mean ... I've gotten so bad that I Soothe scullery maids so that they'll have a happier time at work! I might as well start dressing in pink and carrying around flowers. I could probably make quite a bundle at weddings."
Clubs snorted. Then he raised his cup. "To the Survivor," he said "May he be damned for knowing us better than we knew in ourselves."
Breeze raised his own cup. " Damn him," he agreed quietly. — Brandon Sanderson

The time will come when human drones will be ostracized from society as nobodies, as thieves of honest men's efforts, thieves of the results of honest men's labor. The coming civilization will not tolerate these thieves of society, these lazy vagabonds who do nothing but steal the products of their labor and demoralize society by their vicious example. — Orison Swett Marden

These thieves defend themselves by saying, 'I was there all the time, and the officials missed me.' Favorite excuses for missing surveillance checkpoints: jacket covered the number took off the shirt with the number hidden in a crowd. — Joe Henderson

Be very careful that you do not unconsciously assume that nervous tension is power. This is vital. Watch yourself the next time you work toward some goal. Look very closely to discover tense feelings and nervous thoughts whirling around inside. Do not let them deceive you into assuming that they are creative forces; they are not. They are thieves of genuine powers. As always, your awareness of their thievery is your first fine step toward casting them out. — Vernon Howard

Procrastination-thou wretched thief of time and opportunity! — Spencer W. Kimball

People who violate your boundaries are thieves. They steal time that doesn't belong to them. — Elizabeth Grace Saunders

Time is the subtle thief of youth. — John Milton

Time is not a thief but the giver of all things. Apathy, sloth and indifference are the thieves that loot the chest of wealth that time has given you"

Christopher Sharp — Christopher Sharp

I'd rather have the thieves than the neighbors - the thieves don't impose. Thieves just want your things, neighbors want your time. — Larry David

Life is so brief and time is a thief when you're undecided. — Rod Stewart

I discovered John Truby ten years ago when a friend told me about his screenwriting course. I studied Truby's principles for a year and
using them
I wrote the first draft of The Thieves of Ostia in two weeks. I go back to his teachings before each new book I write. Each time I study Truby, I learn something new. — Caroline Lawrence

Do not despair - many are happy much of the time; more eat than starve, more are healthy than sick, more curable than dying; not so many dying as dead; and one of the thieves was saved. Hell's bells and all's well - half the world is at peace with itself, and so is the other half; vast areas are unpolluted; millions of children grow up without suffering deprivation, and millions, while deprived, grow up without suffering cruelties, and millions, while deprived and cruelly treated, none the less grow up. No laughter is sad and many tears are joyful. At the graveside the undertaker doffs his top hat and impregnates the prettiest mourner. Wham, bam, thank you Sam. — Tom Stoppard

The Larks were bumbling entrepreneurs and petty thieves, but they were also self-deceived. While their moral standards for the rest of the world were rigid, they were always able to find excuses for their own shortcomings. It is these people really, said my father, small-time hypocrites, who may in special cases be capable of monstrous acts if given the chance. — Louise Erdrich

It has been said that most people in our world are being "crucified between two thieves": the regrets of yesterday and the worries about tomorrow. That's why they can't enjoy today. Relying on modern means of transportation and communication, we try to live two or three days at a time, only to run headlong against the creation cycle of the universe, and the results are painful and often disastrous. — Warren W. Wiersbe

I'll have you know there is adventure and then there is crime. And crime, such as you are suggesting, my pretty little filching mort, will see you standing in the Old Bailey being consigned to a hanging." "Then I daresay it would be best if we weren't caught." "Not caught!" He shook his head. "At least now I know where you live." "However do you know that?" "Because I'm quite certain the place you escaped from earlier was Bedlam." "Bedlam, indeed," she sniffed. "Whyever would you want to break into someone's house?" She shrugged. "I just merely want to try. It can't be that difficult. Thieves do it all the time." "And are hung all the time. — Elizabeth Boyle

The work of the philosophical policeman," replied the man in blue, "is at once bolder and more subtle than that of the ordinary detective. The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime. We were only just in time to prevent the assassination at Hartlepool, and that was entirely due to the fact that our Mr. Wilks (a smart young fellow) thoroughly understood a triolet. — G.K. Chesterton

People create all kind of fancy watches and clocks, never stopping to realize they're building monuments to the greatest of all thieves. — K. Martin Beckner

We're both thieves, Harvey Swick. I take time. You take lives. But in the end we're the same: both Thieves of Always. — Clive Barker

The gospel of Jesus Christ solves the innate problem we have of "glory greed." We are, every one of us from birth, incompetent thieves of the glory that belongs only to God. We know in our insidest insides that we fall short of his glory, and so we are constantly clawing and scratching to make up that difference in some way. This is how all sin is fundamentally idolatry and how all accumulations of worldly treasures - be they material goods or religious merit - are fundamentally acts of self-worship. Then in the gospel of Christ, God forgives our petty theft, sets us free from the bondage of our idols, and unites us Spiritually, irrevocably, and satisfyingly to himself. Now the glory we tried to steal is shared with us freely, and it is real glory this time, not these pathetic knockoffs we think will do the trick. — Jared C. Wilson

Don't let a thief into your house three times. The first time was enough. The second time was a chance. The third time means you're stupid. — C. JoyBell C.

Shun such as lounge through afternoons and eves,
And on thy dial write, "Beware of thieves!"
Felon of minutes, never taught to feel
The worth of treasures which thy fingers steal,
Pick my left pocket of its silver dime,
But spare the right,
it holds my golden time! — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Time is the thief you cannot banish. — Phyllis McGinley

The picaresque path can probably also be a metaphor for the passage of the soul back to its creator. The thieves along the way
the thieves of money, of love, of magic, of time
are merely human obstacles to keep the traveller from perceiving that she herself is the path.
The path is as steep and as precipitous as we make it, as level and rolling as we can grade it, as steady as we are steady, as passable or impassable as our own will to pass.
In a true picaresque, the hero stops struggling and becomes the path.
At fifty, we need this knowledge most of all. — Erica Jong

Experimental investigation, to borrow a phrase employed by Kepler respecting the testing of hypotheses, is "a very great thief of time." Sometimes it costs many days to determine a fact that can be stated in a line. — John William Draper

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen, the seven masks I have fashioned an worn in seven lives, I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.
And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, "He is a madman." I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."
Thus I became a madman. — Kahlil Gibran

As it was all was lost. He was alive, yes, he was alive, he felt this for the first time. But he knew now that he was living in a prison, that he had to make the best of it in there and would soon rage and would have to speak this thieves' cant, the only language at his disposal, in order not to be so abandoned. — Ingeborg Bachmann

It was always better to have friends in low places, often far better, than having them in high places. At least when it came to Sorilla's line of work. Friends in high places tended to forget your name as soon as things got inconvenient, but she'd been consistently surprised by how loyal thugs and thieves could be in the right circumstances. They might literally stab you in the back, true, but they'd never just forget your name and ignore you in a crisis. Sorilla learned a long time past that she preferred an honest betrayal over a political one. — Evan Currie

Michael Corleone understood for the first time why men like his father chose to become thieves and murderers rather than members of the legal society. The poverty and fear and degradation were too awful to be acceptable to any man of spirit. — Mario Puzo

Do you think that the punishment for our sins was to die on the cross? If that was the case the two thieves could have paid the price. No, the punishment was to go to hell itself and to serve time in hell separated from God. — Frederick K. C. Price

To be connected with the church is to be associated with scoundrels, warmongers, fakes, child-molesters, murderers, adulterers, and hypocrites of every description. It also, at the same time, identifies you with saints and the finest persons of heroic soul within every time, country, race, and gender. To be a member of the church is to carry the mantle of both the worst sin and the finest heroism of soul ... because the church always looks exactly as it looked at the original crucifixion, God hung among thieves. — Ronald Rolheiser

No thieves, no traitors, no interventionists! This time the revolution is for real! — Fidel Castro

Procrastinatio n is still the thief of time. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Of all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Our extroverted culture makes introverts feel despicable for wanting to be alone. Like thieves snatching something that doesn't belong to them, we have to "steal" a moment of solitude. If only introverts could see that we have a right to our alone time. We have a right to enjoy it too. Think — Michaela Chung

Shhhh," Johnny soothed, sliding his hands up and down her back, nuzzling her hair. "Car thieves don't cry, baby. You gotta toughen up if you're gonna have a future with good old Clyde here."

"I like it when you do that."

"What?"

"Call me baby," Maggie whispered.

"You liked it when I called you Bonnie too," he replied with a smile in his voice. "Why?"

"You used to call me baby all the time. It makes me believe you can love me again."

Johnny wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and lifted her to him, kissing her tear-streaked cheeks before he touched his lips to hers.

"I'm already there Maggie. I fell in love when you begged me to help you escape the cops. I fell in love when we danced to Nat King Cole singing 'Stardust' on a moonlit beach. Hell, I fell in love when you told me how blondes spell farm."

"E-I-E-I-O," Maggie quipped wetly.

Johnny laughed and held her tightly. — Amy Harmon

No one, no one at all, ever set out to torture us on purpose! ... After all, was it because Pontius Pilate wanted to humiliate him that Christ was crucified between two thieves? It just happened to be crucifixion day that day - and there was only one Golgotha, and time was short. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Two hours. More than enough time to kidnap a man. Or to slice his throat, bury him in the forest, and steal his magic project. How the hell did de Harven fit into it? Did he surprise the thieves? Of course, Adam Kamen could've killed his uber-bodyguard and bolted with the goods. Because he was secretly a ninja, adept at mortal combat and vanishing into thin air. Yes, that was it. Case solved. — Ilona Andrews

This time, he fumbled for Collin's hand in the elevator. He still felt like a thief, there was no denying it, but sometimes thieves stole things because they needed them to live. — Amy Lane

You see," said Colon, "thieves are organized here. I mean, it's official. They're allowed a certain amount of thieving. Not that they do much these days, mind you. If you pay them a little premium every year they give you a card and leave you alone. Saves time and effort all around."
"And all thieves are members?" said Angua.
"Oh, yes," said Carrot. "Can't go thieving in Ankh-Morpork without a Guild permit. Not unless you've got a special talent."
"Why? What happens? What talent?" she said.
"Well, being able to survive being hung upside down from one of the gates with your ears nailed to your knees," said Carrot. — Terry Pratchett

Insist on time with the person you love and make extended time for one another. learn to say no to desirable offers. get wise to the tricks of the multitude of thieves of your time and attention that swarm around you like gnats every second. have a clear vision of the life you want. You have to know what matters most to you, and you have to make time for that, with iron-fisted determination. Here is a hard and fast Law of Modern Life: if you do not take your time, it will be taken from you. If you do not insist on making time for what matters, you will not do what matters. If — Edward M. Hallowell

[Alexander] Hamilton estimated portrait painters as thieves of time. — Gertrude Atherton

Do you know what I think Jesus Christ would do if He came now? He would go to church and chapel ever so many times and listen, and no one would speak to him. He would look to see who sat round Him and He would see no ragged people, no thieves, no harlots, only respectable people. And He would hear all these respectable people singing hymns to Christ, and giving all the glory to Christ, and then after standing it a long time, Jesus would stand up some day in the middle of the church and just say two words, 'Damn Christ! — W. Sydney Robinson

Squires thought her need for alone time was a sign of depression. In the end, it was a lack of solitude that triggered her descent into depression. Like Squires, many introverts receive the wrong message about solitude.

Our extroverted culture makes introverts feel despicable for wanting to be alone. Like thieves snatching something that doesn't belong to them, we have to "steal" a moment of solitude. If only introverts could see that we have a right to our alone time. We have a right to enjoy it too. — Michaela Chung

The Samaritans and the Jews were enemies, two tribes caught in an ancient argument about birthright and ethnicity who lived in segregated neighborhoods. By Jesus's time they were forbidden to have contact with each other, and violent squabbles sometimes erupted. The lawyer, who was a Jew, surely knew of both the informal customs and formal laws separating the two groups. Samaritans and Jews were not good neighbors. Yet Jesus turns the ancient Jewish command to love your neighbor into a story about these hostile groups. The man in the ditch, who is Jewish, is bypassed by those close to him by tribal ties (most likely the priest and the Levite were afraid the thieves were still about in the area and that they might be the next victim) and is eventually rescued by a Samaritan. Thus Jesus enlarges the sphere of neighborhood to include those we deem objectionable. — Diana Butler Bass

Whoever you are, be that person with all your might. Time goes by faster than we thought. It is a thief so quiet. You must let yourself be loved and you must love, parts of you that never loved must open and love. You must announce yourself in all particulars so you can have yourself. — Barry Hannah

The Lake Isle
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop,
With the little bright boxes
piled up neatly upon the shelves
And the loose fragrant cavendish
and the shag,
And the bright Virginia
loose under the bright glass cases,
And a pair of scales not too greasy,
And the whores dropping in for a word or two in passing,
For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit.
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,
or install me in any profession
Save this damn'd profession of writing,
where one needs one's brains all the time. — Ezra Pound

Ours is the only civilization in history which has enshrined mediocrity as its national ideal. Others have been corrupt, but leave it to us to invent the most undistinguished of corruptions. No orgies, no blood running in the street, no babies thrown off cliffs. No, we're sentimental people and we horrify easily. True, our moral fiber is rotten. Our national character stinks to high heaven. But we are kinder than ever. No prostitute ever responded with a quicker spasm of sentiment when our hearts are touched. Nor is there anything new about thievery, lewdness, lying, adultery. What is new is that in our time liars and thieves and whores and adulterers wish also to be congratulated by the great public, if their confession is sufficiently psychological or strikes a sufficiently heartfelt and authentic note of sincerity. Oh, we are sincere. I do not deny it. I don't know anybody nowadays who is not sincere. — Walker Percy

Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt's eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina. I often think of that when I hear people say they haven't time to read. — David McCullough

I haven't much time to be fond of anything ... but when I have a moment's fondness to bestow, most times ... the roses get it. I began my life among them in my father's nursery garden, and I shall end my life among them, if I can. Yes. One of these days (please God) I shall retire from catching thieves, and try my hand at growing roses. — Wilkie Collins

She was tired in her bones, but she rallied her energy one last time and told him of they years in Rifthold, of stealing Asterion horses and racing across the desert, of dancing until dawn with the courtesans and thieves and all the beautiful, wicked creatures in the world. And then she told him about losing Sam, and of that first whipping in Endovier, when she'd spat blood in the Chief Overseer's face, and what she had seen and endured in the following year. She spoke of the day she had snapped and sprinted for her own death. Her heart grew heavy when at last she got to the evening when the Captain of the Royal Guard prowled into her life, and a tyrant's son had offered her a shot at freedom. She told him what she could about the competition and how she'd won it, until her words slurred and her eyelids drooped. — Sarah J. Maas

The writer doesn't need economic freedom. All he needs is a pencil and some paper. I've never known anything good in writing to come from having accepted any free gift of money. The good writer never applies to a foundation. He's too busy writing something. If he isn't first rate he fools himself by saying he hasn't got time or economic freedom. Good art can come out of thieves, bootleggers, or horse swipes. People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. — William Faulkner

It shouldn't have happened at all, but their friendship had been cemented in only the time it took to get to school that morning - Adam demonstrating how to fasten the Camaro's ground wire more securely, Gansey lifting Adam's bike halfway into the trunk so they could ride to school together, Adam confessing he worked at a mechanic's to put himself through Aglionby, and Gansey turning to the passenger seat and asking, What do you know about Welsh kings? — Maggie Stiefvater

She was decidedly uncomfortable with the switchblade. Although she very much liked the idea of it---Blue Sargent, desperado; Blue Sargent, superhero; Blue Sargent, badass---she suspected that the only thing she would cut the first time she opened it was herself. — Maggie Stiefvater

Don't worry,don't worry.Look at the Astors and the Vanderbilts,all those big society people.They were the worst thieves-and now look at them.It's just a matter of time. — Meyer Lansky

Economy is the thief of time. — Ethel Mumford

But in a time of war, knowledge made interesting friendships. Soon, the scholars and the thieves were . . . well, thick as thieves. — Ken Liu

Looters become looted, while time and tide make us mercenaries all. — Patrick Rothfuss

At this time of day it should have been open and full of fifty fellow smackheads, crackheads, psychotics, epileptics, schizophrenics, self-harmers, beggars, buskers, car thieves, sherry pushers, ciderheads, just-released-that-morning convicts, ex-army, ex-married-men-with-young-children-who'd-discovered-their-wife-in-bed-with-two-members-of-the-university-rowing-team-at-the-same-time. — Alexander Masters

Time is so old and love so brief, love is pure gold and time a thief. We're late, darling, we're late, The curtain descends, everything ends, too soon, too soon. — Ogden Nash

Friends are thieves of time — Sajjad Ali Noor

Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out! — Andrew Jackson

For each of us, time is a thief of flory. What give meaning to our lives and deaths is love and hope, if we are willing to share and accept — Sigmund Brouwer

Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. — Andrew Jackson

It's a funny life," Augustus said. "All these cattle and nine-tenths of the horses is stolen, and yet we was once respected lawmen. If we get to Montana we'll have to go into politics. You'll wind up governor if the dern place ever gets to be a state. And you'll spend all your time passing laws against cattle thieves. — Larry McMurtry

Excerpt from Cracking the Safe:
Thus what the world calls good business is only a way
To gather up the loot, pack it, make it secure
In one convenient load for the more enterprising thieves.
Who is there, among those called smart,
Who does not spend his time amassing loot
For a bigger robber than himself? — Thomas Merton

Good art can come out of thieves, bootleggers, or horse swipes. People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich. Success is feminine and like a woman; if you cringe before her, she will override you. So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling. — William Faulkner

What a lot of graves there are laid out as far as the eye can see!. Their headstones are like hands raised in surrender, though they are beyond being threatened by anything. A city of silence and truth, where success and failure, murderer and victim come together, where thieves and policeman lie side by side in peace for the first and last time. — Naguib Mahfouz

So tired of this straight line, and everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back
The storm keeps on twisting, you keep on building the lies
That you make up for all that you lack.
It don't make no difference, escaping one last time
It's easier to believe
In this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees. — Sarah McLachlan

Most of our lives are crucified between two thieves, yesterday and tomorrow. We never live today. But the time to live is now. It is today. — W. Oscar Thompson