Time Wasted With You Quotes & Sayings

Susan sighed. And you had to remember that Time probably wasn't time, in the same way that Death wasn't exactly the same as death and War wasn't exactly the same as war. She'd met War, a big fat man with an inappropriate sense of humor and a habit of repeating himself, and he certainly didn't personally attend every minor fracas. She disliked Pestilence, who gave her funny looks, and Famine was just wasted and weird. None of them ran their ... call it their discipline. They personified it. — Anonymous

Think only of what you desire, and expect only what you desire, even when the very contrary seems to be coming into your life. Make it a point to have definite results in mind at all times. Permit no thinking to be aimless. Every aimless thought is time and energy wasted, while every thought that is inspired with a definite aim will help to realize that aim, and if all your thoughts are inspired with a definite aim, the whole power of your mind will be for you and will work with you in realizing what you have in view. That you should succeed is therefore assured, because there is enough power in your mind to realize your ambitions, provided all of that power is used in working for your ambitions. — Christian D. Larson

It wasn't the degree that counted but what you did with it; he believed that too many Americans wasted time and money on college simply for the sake of a fancy piece of paper. — Nell Freudenberger

Man is an enigma. This enigma must be solved, and if you spend all your life at it, don't say you have wasted your time; I occupy myself with this enigma because I wish to be a man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But for me, if we're talking about romance, cassettes wipe the floor with MP3s. This has nothing to do with superstition, or nostalgia. MP3s buzz straight to your brain. That's part of what I love about them. But the rhythm of the mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy human bodies. The cassette is full of tape hiss and room tone; it's full of wasted space, unnecessary noise. Compared to the go-go-go rhythm of an MP3, mix tapes are hopelessly inefficient. You go back to a cassette the way a detective sits and pours drinks for the elderly motel clerk who tells stories about the old days
you know you might be somewhat bored, but there might be a clue in there somewhere. And if there isn't, what the hell? It's not a bad time. You know you will waste time. You plan on it. — Rob Sheffield

I hate auditioning; it makes me more nervous than anything ever, and I always feel like I wasted my time and I could have been creating my own thing. With the Internet, you have so much freedom that 'gatekeepers' make me terrified. — Grace Helbig

She was uncomfortable with what the professors called "participation," and did not see why it should be part of the final grade; it merely made students talk and talk, class time wasted on obvious words, hollow words, sometimes meaningless words. It had to be that Americans were taught, from elementary school, to always say something in class, no matter what. They never said, "I don't know." They said, instead, "I'm not sure," which did not give any information but still suggested the possibility of knowledge. They avoided giving direct instructions: they did not say "Ask somebody upstairs"; they said "You might want to ask somebody upstairs." When you tripped and fell, when you choked, when misfortune befell you, they did not say, "Sorry." They said "Are you okay?" when it was obvious that you were not. And when you said "Sorry" to them when they choked or tripped or encountered misfortune, they replied, eyes wide with surprise, "Oh, it's not your fault. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Sergey and I founded Google because we're super optimisitc about the potential for technology to make the world a better place. Think about how many people are underserved by transportation today, like those with disabilities, and how self driving cars will transform their lives. Or the wasted time you sit in your car every day commuting to and from work. Or the deaths and injuries that could be avoided. — Larry Page

The ending of a book is, in my experience, both the best and worst part to read. For the ending will often determine whether you love or hate the book.
Both emotions lead to disappointment. If the ending was good, and the book was worth your time, then you are left annoyed and depressed because there is no more book to read. However, if the ending was bad, then it's too late to stop reading. You're left annoyed and depressed because you wasted so much time on a book with a bad ending.
Therefore, reading is obviously worthless, and you should go spend your time on other, more valuable pursuits. — Brandon Sanderson

Did you know that the average American spends six months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green? Six months wasted, waiting for permission to move on. Think of all the other stuff you could do with that time."
I was totally confused. "In the car?"
"In your life," he said. — Megan McCafferty

I've wasted a lot of time in my life. I've thought too much about what people will say or what they're gonna think. And sometimes it's over silly things like going to the grocery store or going to the post office. But there have been times when I really stopped myself from doing something special. All because I was scared someone might look at me and decide I wasn't good enough. But you don't have to bother with that nonsense. I wasted all that time so you don't have to. — Julie Murphy

You only get one life. And before you know it, it'll be over. You'll go to sleep one day in your twenties, then wake up in your fifties. The purpose of life isn't to sit around waiting for something to happen on a wing and prayer; you have to make it happen. You can spend your whole life searching for unsolved mysteries or waiting for someone to fall in love with you, but at the end of your life you'll realize you've wasted your time. You've missed all of the beauty in the world in search of a vague dream or an answer to a question that has none. The purpose of life isn't to wait for things to fall into your lap. The purpose of life is to live. — Brent Saltzman

Mortal man! You've wasted your time mostly with wrong and empty beliefs! And now you have started understanding that most important thing in life is existence! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Failure. Never before has a thing gotten such a bad rap as failure. And why wouldn't it? It's failure. In a video game, failure means to fucking die, to drop into a pit of lava while the princess remains unsaved (oh, sexist video games, when will the lady plumber save the prince instead of the other way around?). You fail a class and it's like
*poop noise*
you failed, you're held back, time is wasted, money is lost, you suck, you stupid person. Hell with that. Failure is brilliant. Failure is how we learn. Every great success and every kick-ass creator is the product of a hundred failures, a thousand, some epic-big, some micro-tiny. We learn the right moves by taking the wrong turns. Failure should not drag you into the pits of personal despair but rather leave you empowered. Failure is an instructional manual written in scar tissue. — Chuck Wendig

Time flies, whether you're wasting it or not. — Crystal Woods

You have not wasted your time; you have helped to save the world. We are not buffoons, but very desperate men at war with a vast conspiracy. — G.K. Chesterton

If at the end of our time together you find yourself walking out with just what you walked in with, you will have wasted your time. — Harrison Owen

I sometimes think you understand me better than I understand myself. We wasted so much stupid time. Time I can never get back with you. Maybe I let my ambitions get the better of me. Maybe we both let our insecurities paralyze us. God knows I haven't been the easiest person to be around lately ... All I can say is, you've got to believe it when I say it was only ever you. — Kim Askew

You see the profound effect literature can have on life? Who says it's all a waste of time? If only I could produce one book that left someone with that kind of ferocious grievance. If you have read one of my books, you probably feel cheated out of however much money it might have cost you, and you'll certainly begrudge the time you wasted on it. But even at my most bullish and self-aggrandizing, I can't quite make myself believe that I've actually wrecked someone's life. Any documentary evidence to the contrary will be gratefully received. — Nick Hornby

I don't regret a single second that I spent with you." I smiled wryly at him. "No time spent with you is wasted. — S.C. Stephens

And how rare is it to find someone who shares your tastes? The one real fight they'd ever had was over David Foster Wallace. It was around the time of Wallace's suicide. A.J. had found the reverent tone of the eulogies to be insufferable. The man had written a decent (if indulgent and overlong) novel, a few modestly insightful essays, and not much else. "Infinite Jest is a masterpiece," Harvey had said. "Infinite Jest is an endurance contest. You manage to get through it and you have no choice but to say you like it. Otherwise, you have to deal with the fact that you just wasted weeks of your life," A.J. had countered. "Style, no substance, my friend." Harvey's face had reddened as he leaned over the desk. "You say that about any writer who was born in the same decade as you! — Gabrielle Zevin

I've never gotten over you. Ever. Not
one day passed that I didn't think about you. For me,you're the love of my life. Wherever you are is exactly where
I want to be.I've wasted too much time already. I don't want to waste another single day without you. I want a future with you. - Colton Michaels — Kindle Alexander

Ginger: You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world? ... It's all the people who never find out what it is they really want to do or what it is they're really good at. It's all the sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It's all the people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without ever seeing a musical instrument, so they become bad plowmen instead. It's all the people with talents who never even find out. Maybe they are never even born in a time when it's even possible to find out. It's all the people who never get to know what it is that they can really be. It's all the wasted chances. — Terry Pratchett

I waited, Rachel. I waited until you were old enough. I wasted my time looking for girls who came even remotely close to looking like you." His hand brushed through my hair as he studied it. "Long legs. Long, straight, near-black hair. Eyes the exact color of sapphires." A heavy sigh left him and his forehead creased. "But none of them were you. None of them had your temper; none of them had your fire for life. So none of them deserved to have your beauty." "Like Jenn." I realized it with dread and watched his face twist with a look of disgust. "Everything I've done up until this point has been for you and our future together. I only wish," he said against my lips, "that you would stop being so goddamn difficult. — Molly McAdams

You can get away with breaking all of the other rules at least once in a while, but you can't get away with breaking this one. Readers will accept almost anything from you if you don't make them feel they have wasted their time and money. Remember, you can bore readers in a lot of different ways. It doesn't necessarily take a dearth of action; too much action can get you the same result. Everything in writing, like in life, requires balance. — Terry Brooks

All the time God ever spent on you was wasted, an' your mother's had the same luck. I s'pose God's used to having creatures 'at He's made go wrong, but I pity your mother. Goodness knows a woman suffers an' works enough over her children, an' then to fetch a boy to man's estate an' have him, of his own free will an' accord, be a liar! Young man, truth is the cornerstone o' the temple o' character. Nobody can put up a good buildin' without a solid foundation; an' you can't do solid character buildin' with a lie at the base. Man 'at's a liar ain't fit for anything! Can't trust him in no sphere or relation o' life; or in any way, shape, or manner. You passed out your word like a man, an' like a man I took it an' went off trustin' you, an' you failed me. — Gene Stratton-Porter

little sun little moon little dog
and a little to eat and a little to love
and a little to live for

in a little room
filled with little
mice
who gnaw and dance and run while I sleep
waiting for a little death
in the middle of a little morning

in a little city
in a little state
my little mother dead
my little father dead
in a little cemetery somewhere.

I have only
a little time
to tell you this:

watch out for
little death when he comes running

but like all the billions of little deaths
it will finally mean nothing and everything:

all your little tears burning like the dove,
wasted. — Charles Bukowski

America, I'm gonna shoot straight with you, I think I've wasted your time. I think this is the first time I have wasted an hour of your time. I apologize for that. — Glenn Beck

The best customers are the ones who just have to buy a record on a Saturday, even if there's nothing they really want; unless they go home clutching a flat, square carrier bag, they feel uncomfortable. You can spot the vinyl addicts because after a while they get fed up with the rack they are flicking through, march over to a completely different section of the shop, pull a sleeve out from the middle somewhere, and come over to the counter; this is because they have been making a list of possible purchases in their head ("If I don't find anything in the next five minutes, that blues compilation I saw half an hour ago will have to do"), and suddenly sicken themselves with the amount of time they have wasted looking for something they don't really want. — Nick Hornby

And then the kissing started again. There was no avoiding it, not when we were together like this, far away from the real world of our normal lives. The setting was too perfect. He was too perfect, despite being one of the most imperfect people I knew. And honestly, we'd wasted far too much time with doubts and games. The one thing you learn from constantly having your life in danger is that you'd better not waste it. — Richelle Mead

Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

No time spent with you is wasted. — S.C. Stephens

I'm sorry about ... .ever letting you go. I'm sorry for all the time we wasted. I'm sorry for being here with you right now when we can't do a damned thing about it. — T. Torrest

I've learned when to get out. I've never wasted too much time with the wrong person, and that's one thing I'm proud of. The longer you're with the wrong person, you could be completely overlooking or not having the chance to meet the right person. And if it doesn't feel right, it isn't right. How do you know if something feels right? I think the great defining factor for me is whether I want more. When they drive away, do I wish they would turn around at the end of the street and come back? Or am I fine that they're going home? — Taylor Swift

It isn't necessarily easier if you know what it is you're meant to do
but at least you don't waste time in questioning or doubting. If you're honest
well, that isn't necessarily easier, either. Though I suppose if you're honest with yourself and know what you are, at least you're less likely to feel that you've wasted your life, doing the wrong thing. — Diana Gabaldon

He smirks when he reaches my underwear. I smile when he slides a hand over the satin fabric. "It was laundry day." He removes the rest of the dress, and neither one of us moves. "I've wasted more study time than I'd like to admit wondering if you were wearing anything or not." "That's funny," I say. "I fantasized about stabbing you in the eye with your pen." His touch halts. "Wait, what?" I laugh. "You don't want to know." He — Rachel Schneider

When the time comes for you to leave this earth, if it doesn't become a lesser place with your absence, then you have wasted your life. — Shaun Hick

Time is what I'm giving you," he said, staring down at her. His hand curved beneath her chin, compelling her to look at him. "There's only one way for me to prove that I will love you and be faithful to you for the rest of my life. And that's by loving you and being faithful to you for the rest of my life. Even if you don't want me. Even if you choose not to be with me. I'm giving you all the time I have left. I vow to you that from this moment on, I will never touch another woman, or give my heart to anyone but you. If I have to wait sixty years, not a minute will have been wasted- because I'll have spent all of them loving you. — Lisa Kleypas

You've always asked me to wait, as if we had time in abundance. But time is too precious, Perry. We've wasted years, when we could have been with each other. Don't you understand how much even one day of loving each other is worth? Some people are separated by distances they can never cross. All they can do is dream about each other for a lifetime, never having what they want most. How foolish, how wasteful to have love within your reach and not take it! She clamped her teeth on her trembling bottom lip to steady herself — Lisa Kleypas

is it possible to love a human being?
of course, especially if you don't know them too well. I like to watch them through my window, walking down the street.
Stirkoff, you're a coward.
of course, sir.
what is your definition of a coward?
a man who would think twice before fighting a lion with his bare hands.
and what is your definition of a brave man?
a man who doesn't know what a lion is.
every man knows what a lion is.
every man assumes that he does.
and what is your definition of a fool?
a man who doesn't realize that Time, Structure and Flesh are being mostly wasted.
who then is a wise man?
there aren't any wise men, sir.
then there can't be any fools. if there isn't any night there can't be any day; if there isn't any white there can't be any black.
I'm sorry, sir. I thought that everything was what it was, not depending on something else — Charles Bukowski

You see, even though back when I was drinking I thought nothing bad ever happened to me, something did. Time passed. A lot of time passed. In bars, at parties with people I didn't care for. It was always the drink. It wasn't about love or reading the Sunday paper in bed. Or housebreaking a puppy. Or anything that people call 'life.' It was about drinking. So actually, something bad, very bad, did happen to me. I wasted my life. And now, what little I have left, I want. — Augusten Burroughs

More often than not, at the end of the day (or a month, or a year), you realize that your initial idea was wrong, and you have to try something else. These are the moments of frustration and despair. You feel that you have wasted an enormous amount of time, with nothing to show for it. This is hard to stomach. But you can never give up. You go back to the drawing board, you analyze more data, you learn from your previous mistakes, you try to come up with a better idea. And every once in a while, suddenly, your idea starts to work. It's as if you had spent a fruitless day surfing, when you finally catch a wave: you try to hold on to it and ride it for as long as possible. At moments like this, you have to free your imagination and let the wave take you as far as it can. Even if the idea sounds totally crazy at first. — Edward Frenkel

Staff silenced her with a hot kiss. "Hush," he whispered, taking her closer into his arms. "Mary, we have waited long enough. I want you, dearest, to make up for the lonely hours, and countless advice, and worry that your kings and cursed father would totally ruin our life together. And for the wasted years. Tonight, Mary, we are going to begin catching up-and it will take a long, long time for us to be even ... — Karen Harper

Paris is a city that might well be spoken of in the plural, as the Greeks used to speak of Athens, for there are many Parises, and the tourists' Paris is only superficially related to the Paris of the Parisians. The foreigner driving through Paris from one museum to another is quite oblivious to the presence of a world he brushes past without seeing. Until you have wasted time in a city, you cannot pretend to know it well. The soul of a big city is not to be grasped so easily; in order to make contact with it, you have to have been bored, you have to have suffered a bit in those places that contain it. Anyone can get hold of a guide and tick off all the monuments, but within the very confines of of Paris there is another city as difficult to access as Timbuktu once was. — Julien Green

Look you, there are only two classes of men, the magnanimous, and the rest; and I have reached an age when one has to take sides, to decide once and for all whom one is going to like and dislike, to stick to the people one likes, and, to make up for the time one has wasted with the others, never to leave them again as long as one lives. — Marcel Proust

But when it comes to most skills, failure is the only way to become better at something. Knitting teaches you that. You may have to unwind all of your stitches and start anew. That doesn't mean you've wasted your time. You learn from every stitch, even those that don't amount to anything. All writers should be made to knit a hat before they start writing a novel. It would help with understanding the importance of revision, and that the process is what can bring you the most — Alice Hoffman

Empowered Women 101: Forgive yourself for having chosen to expose yourself to people who don't care about your feelings and help others to do the same. Enjoy life! It is as simple as changing your focus or perspective when you start thinking about people from the past who hurt your feelings. Eventually, you will forget about those types of people because your time and attention will be taken up by more positive things/people/events/activities etc. When you understand how much time is wasted trying to make people see you, understand you, respect you, value you, like you or agree with you ... life becomes a pointless negative fight for validation that will drain your happiness. You are worth more than the indifference, inattention or crumbs people throw you. You are a queen that demands respect and God will bring the right person into your life to make you forget why you ever wasted your time on nothing important. — Shannon L. Alder

When it came time for me to give my talk on the subject, I started off by drawing an outline of the cat and began to name the various muscles.
The other students in the class interrupt me: "We *know* all that!"
"Oh," I say, "you *do*? Then no *wonder* I can catch up with you so fast after you've had four years of biology." They had wasted all their time memorizing stuff like that, when it could be looked up in fifteen minutes. — Richard Feynman

Red eyes, clogged vessels, tanned cells and septum holes,
She came up to me with an ashtray, and a bunch of tobacco rolls,
I mean, how can I fill the gap that you've created??
How could I switch the clock back to the past, for the time I have wasted?
I have gone a sedate now; the heart has stopped pumping zeal into my head,
And for the hole in my heart, which is so dead now, which has run out of life now,
I carry the loads of moments that you've endowed. — Nishikant

During this very, very long poem
You could have connected
Maybe you are connecting
Maybe we're connecting
See, I believe that the only things that really matter
In the grand scheme of life are God and people
And if people are made in the image of God
Then when you spend your time with people
It's never wasted

- A Very Long Poem, by Marty Schoenleber III — Colleen Hoover

Nor I. There was a time that I would have given my right hand to wield a sword like that. Now it appears I have, so the blade is wasted on me. Take it." Before she could think to refuse, he went on. "A sword so fine must bear a name. It would please me if you would call this one Oathkeeper. One more thing. The blade comes with a price. — George R R Martin

Thack seemed to sort something out for a moment.
"Sometimes I watch him when he's playing with Harry or digging in the yard. And I think: This is it, this is the guy I've waited for all my life. Then this other voice tells me not to get used to it, that it'll only hurt more later. It's funny. You're feeling this enormous good fortune and waiting for it to be over at the same time."
"You seem happy," Brian ventured.
"I am."
"Well ... that's a lot. I envy you that."
Thack shrugged. "All we've got is now, I guess. But that's all anybody gets. If we wasted that time being scared ... "
"Absolutely. — Armistead Maupin

True intelligence is pure love which does not exclude or waste anything.
Not even a grain of sand is excluded or wasted. There are no exceptions in what is set free and in what is in service to this setting free.
Life, the formless, form and fragrance, knows exactly what it is doing.
Life is pure, unfiltered Intelligence flowing as whatever shape is now appearing.
It is alive and it is all calling us Home.
Do you hear the grain of sand calling your name?
It says, "Love."
Do you sense the truth of it?
If not, lean in and 'listen' again -
this time with the whole of your being. — Dhyana Stanley

Wrath lowered himself into a chair. He stared straight ahead and watched the crowd gradually swallow up the path he'd made.
He waited. The pounding beat of Ludacris faded into old-school Cypress Hill.
This was going to be good. Darius was a real straight shooter who knew Wrath couldn't stand having his time wasted. If there was silence, something was up.
Darius tipped back his beer, then let out a deep breath. "My lord - "
"If you want something from me, don't lead with that," Wrath drawled.

-Darius & Wrath — J.R. Ward

Our whole life is a fooling around. You can do it because you are not aware of how you waste time, how you waste energy - how life is wasted you are not aware. It is going down the drain. Everything is going down the drain. Only when death comes to you, you may become aware, alert: What have I been doing? What have I done with life? A great opportunity has been lost. What was I doing fooling around? I was not sober. I never reflected upon what I was doing. — Rajneesh

Time is like a river flowing endlessly through the universe. And if you poled your flatboat in that river you might fight your way against the current and travel upstream into the past. Or go with the flow and rush into the future. This was in a less cynical time before toxic waste dumping and pollution filled the waterway of Chronus with the detritus of empty hours wasted minutes years of repetition and time that has been killed. — Harlan Ellison

In case you haven't heard, my girlfriends and I have declared the summer of 2012 as the best summer ever. The best way to document said 'best summer ever' is with a good ol' disposable camera. Smile, click, move on! Nobody gets pic approval, and there's no time wasted gathering around the camera to analyze a moment that just happened. — Candice Accola

I've learned one thing, and that's to quit worrying about stupid things. You have four years to be irresponsible here, relax. Work is for people with jobs. You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember the time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So stay out late. Go out with your friends on a Tuesday when you have a paper due on Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does ... — Tom Petty

You're like a brother to me. I would never do anything to hurt you. And I know I haven't been what a brother would consider good material for his wee sister, but I love Ellie, Braden. I have for a long time now, and I can't not be with her. I've wasted too much time as it is. — Samantha Young

The captain was experienced en8gh t8 kn8w how bad relationships worked. Your gut told you from the beginning to stay out of it. You got drawn in anyway, telling yourself your eyes were open to the good and the bad. There was just enough good to keep you interested butvnot enough to allow you to commit. One day you woke up with nothing but regrets and wasted time. — Kirsten Beyer

Already, in the last few decades, you have realized the utter futility of of encumbering yourselves with superfluous possessions that have no useful virtue, but which, for various sentimental reasons, you continue to hoard, thus lessening your life's efficiency by using for it time and attention that should have been applied to the practical work of life's accomplishments. (The Miracle of the Lily - 1928) — Clare Winger Harris

Love is precious, and shouldn't be wasted on every passing whim, or it will mean nothing by the time you truly wish to share it with someone who matters." I said softly.

Silvers, Shayne (2012-10-08). Obsidian Son: A Novel In The Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Series (The Temple Chronicles Book 1) (p. 194). Argento Publishing. Kindle Edition. — Shayne Silvers

(It starts with)
One thing, I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time
All I know
time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
It's so unreal
Didn't look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Trying to hold on but didn't even know
Wasted it all just to
Watch you go
I kept everything inside and even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter — Linkin Park

In the sciences, looking good was usually a negative. It implied you wasted time on outdoor activities instead of building something useful. Even using hair product or makeup implied misguided priorities. Like you thought how things looked mattered, instead of how they worked. We liked to look at attractive people. We expected it of our movie stars and TV characters. But we did not respect it. We knew physical attractiveness was inversely correlated with intelligence, because look at us. — Max Barry

Jesus, I'm sorry. I have wasted your time with a fake deal. I acknowledge that this means you are of the case, and that I am now totally on my own in saving the family from destruction. I shall go back to not believing in you again. We will revert to our former positions. Sorry about all that. Take care. Lots of love to God. Amen. — Caitlin Moran

When relationships have outlived their shelf life, people often realize that at some level, they are sticking it our because they once thought in the light of their divine love that the other person would change. Sorry for breaking the poetic hope here, but that doesn't happen. People are like rubber bands. They may be able to stretch from time to time and do some amazing things, but in general they are who they are. If manipulation and machinations on your side get them to behave the way you want, I will set my clock on the fact that they will return to their previous way of behaving, or they will keep faking it. To be in a relationship with someone who is not really there doesn't make sense. People who aren't cooperating feel like a project to us, like something for us to rescue or fix. Rescuing is the province of firefighters and fairy tales, but it's not real life. The stance of sticking it out in hopes of redemption is an old story and one that has wasted many lives. — Ramani Durvasula

Victor had always said that most of the time happiness crept up on you when you were doing something else. He also said no happiness was ever wasted, because every happiness stays with you, and you can revisit it in your memory any time you're sad, or lonely or depressed. It was kinda corny, but like a lot of corny things, it was true. Maybe that was what made it corny in the first place. — Charlie Fletcher

No time spent with a book is ever entirely wasted, even if the experience is not a happy one: there's always something to be learned. It's just that, every now and again, you hit a patch of reading that makes you feel as if you're pootling about ... But what can you do about it? We don't choose to waste our reading time; it just happens. The books let us down. — Nick Hornby