Quotes & Sayings About Timer

I think competition in any kind of activity like music, art, literature - anything that's not done with a timer - is actually impossible. So, in effect, what you're doing is you're entering the lottery. You're hoping that you play well (and that) you play your best on the day that you're heard, and you're hoping that the people who are judging will like what you do. — Emanuel Ax

Set a timer and compete to beat the clock to conquer procrastination. — Monika Kristofferson

She pushed the car. But I was so distracted that i forgot to push the button on the timer, so we had to do the whole thing again. Which Lindsey found hilarious. "Ok" she said. "Are you ready NOW, or do we have to send you back to Button Pushing one-oh-one?" "Um, what's Button Pushing One-oh-one?" I was wearing a button down shirt that day. Lindsey reached out and poked one of the buttons into my chest. "There, that's how you push a button. Any questions? — Jordan Sonnenblick

I'm an old-timer in the business from the sense that when you do something that you feel good about there might be another person out there who feels the same way, or a hundred or a couple million. — Herb Alpert

The timer dinged a few minutes later and Cinnamon sucked in her breath.
"You want me to check?" I asked.
"I'll do it."
I stood up and followed her into the bathroom.
Cinnamon gasped and said,"They're both positive!"
"What?" I grabbed the sticks from her hand and read them. I glared at her.
She chuckled. "You should have seen your face. — Barbra Annino

I'm not saying my wife's a bad cook, but she uses a smoke alarm as a timer. — Bob Monkhouse

ARIADNE: Do you use a timer?
ARTHUR: No, I have to judge it myself. Once you're all asleep in room 528, I wait 'til Yusuf starts his kick...
ARIADNE: How will you know?
ARTHUR: His music warns me it's coming, then the van hitting the barrier of the bridge should be unmistakable-that's when I blow the floor out from underneath us and we get a nice synchronized kick. Too soon, and we won't get pulled out; too late and I won't be able to drop us.
ARIADNE: Why not?
ARTHUR: The van will be in free fall. I can't drop us without gravity. — Christopher J. Nolan

Cope had caused office ripples when he first took over as county prosecutor and stunned all by promoting Muse to be his county chief investigator. The job was usually given to a gruff old-timer, always male, who was supposed to show the political appointee through the system. Loren Muse was one of the youngest investigators in the department when he selected her. When asked by the media what criteria he had used to select a young female over more seasoned male veterans, he answered in one word: "Merit." Now here she was, in a room with four of those same passed-by old-timers. "I — Harlan Coben

Memories are fallible and a timer can save a lot of hard work from going out of the window. — Delia Smith

Some trees love an ax, a drunk old-timer mumbled one night at the Tap, back when she still went there, and something in what he said rang true, but when she later remembered what he'd said, she disagreed and though instead that the tree gets used to the ax, which has nothing to do with love. It settles into being chipped away at, bit by bit, blade by blade, until it doesn't feel anything anymore, and then, because nothing else can happen, what's left crumbles to dust. — Bill Clegg

Leo gestured to the empty core. "The syncopator goes here. It's a multi-access gyro-valve to regulate flow. The dozen glass tubes on the outside? Those are filled with powerful, dangerous stuff. That glowing red one is Lemnos fire from my dad's forges. This murky stuff here? That's water from the River Styx. The stuff in the tubes is going to power the ship, right? Like radioactive rods in a nuclear reactor. But the mix ratio has to be controlled, and the timer is already operational."
Leo tapped the digital clock, which now read 65:15. "That means without the syncopator, this stuff is all going to vent into the chamber at the same time, in sixty-five minutes. At that point, we'll get a very nasty reaction."
Jason and Piper stared at him. Leo wondered if he'd been speaking English. Sometimes when he was agitated he slipped into Spanish, like his mom used to do in her workshop. But he was pretty sure he'd used English. — Rick Riordan

The child opened her beak even wider, and the stork let out a moan. "It really wouldn't hurt you to take an interest in others," she said. "I tell you I'm depressed, I tell you I feel cornered and lonely, and your response is 'Fine. Now feed me,' which is actually very insensitive of you. All mothers feel unconditional love for their children, but there's a timer on it, all right. It doesn't last forever, especially when you're selfish."

The child closed her beak. — David Sedaris

Excerpted From Chapter 18
The most famous sign in the world was only a few hundred yards above me, and the sight of it stopped me in my tracks. The light bulbs surrounding the letters must have been controlled by a timer of some kind because they were off now. But what shocked me was the scale. I was used to seeing the sign from a distance. From this perspective there was no sense of the word HOLLYWOODLAND. All I saw were gigantic letters looming dimly above me in the moonlight like ancient monoliths erected in tribute to the gods of some long-extinct tribe.
A primal feeling of foreboding prickled the hairs on the back of my neck. I could imagine the traveler of an earlier age coming across Stonehenge in the dark and experiencing a similar sensation. — H.P. Oliver

I set the timer. The silent countdown, with the not-so-silent alarm blast at the end of the twenty-minutes commenced. The ticking and tocking started its merciless countdown. — Jazz Feylynn

I guess I'm getting to the age where a lot of other people my age have real jobs, and when they're hard-up they refer to an old-timer like me. — Mike Patton

down with Bart for a few hours and sleep as best I could. Chapter 12 I was as tired as I could ever remember being as I pulled the station wagon up the narrow driveway and came to a stop twenty-five feet from my front door. I liked my simple house with two bedrooms and an attic a hobbit couldn't fit in. My front porch light was on a timer and illuminated the pathway, but the inside was pitch-black. That wasn't good. I always left one light on in my kitchen. Normally, I could see it through the front window, and it cast a little light across the whole house. I didn't want Bart walking into a wall in the dark. Someone had turned it off. The only defense I had was my Navy knife, which I dug out of my front pocket and flipped open. I use it as a tool, but its original purpose was as a weapon. The door was still locked, and I wondered if — James Patterson

It's a mere moment in a man's life between an All-Star game and an old-timer's game. — Vin Scully

I wouldn't mind someone lobbing hand grenades at me, but having to reset the timer on the video recorder puts me into a blood-spitting frenzy. — Stephen Bayley

I use a smoke alarm as a timer. — Joan Rivers

And, of course, one of the great true facts of the world is this: for every old-timer who dies, there's a new old-timer coming along. And a good story never dies; it is always passed down. — Stephen King

One time I told this lady to give me all her money, she said no. So I cut her and pulled her eyes out. I would do someone in and then take a camera and set the timer so I could sit them up next to me and take our picture together. — Richard Ramirez

I had started law school at Florida State University as a part-timer. I would go two quarters, and they allowed me to drop out to play baseball, and then I'd get readmitted in September. I was convinced I was going to be a lawyer and was using my baseball salary to pay my way through school. — Tony La Russa

Foundational design principles regarding aesthetics, symbolism and meaning of place were for the old-timer carpenter, simply routine.
Unfortunately, these principles began to lose their footing in the late 1800s, when building practices shifted toward more commercial technologies. — Shannon Taylor Scarlett

Also, please don't think I've forgotten about your outstanding service record, or about all the invaluable contributions that you've made to the company. Fire, the wheel, agriculture..It's an impressive list, old timer. A jolly impressive list. Don't get me wrong.
But well ... to be frank, we've had our problems , too. There's no getting away from it. Do you know what I think? A lot of it stems from? I'll tell you ...
It's your basic unwillingness to get on with the company. You don't seem to want to face up to any real responsibility, or to be your own boss. Lord knows you've been given plenty of opportunities. We've offered you promotion time and time again, and each time you've turned us down ...
To be frank, you're not really trying are you? — Alan Moore

It occurred to me what a simple thing reality is, how easy it is to make it work. It's just reality. Just housework. Just a home. Like running a simple machine. Once you learn to run it, it's just a matter of repetition. You push this button and pull that lever. You adjust a gauge, put on the lid, set the timer. The same thing, over and over. — Haruki Murakami

Obviously I'd love to have kids and all that. Luckily, as a man, there's not such an egg timer on it, but I'd like to be able to pick them up without Nurofen first. — Tom Hollander

Simon had shamelessly tried to curry favor with Isabelle's father by teaching Robert Lightwood how to use Simon's digital watch as a timer. Robert was now holding the watch in a death grip and studying it carefully. It would be Robert's turn with the baby again in sixteen minutes, and he had clasped Simon's shoulder and said, "Thanks, son," which Simon took as a blessing to date Robert's daughter. — Cassandra Clare

You begin always knowing nothing. You remain forever an amateur, a first timer. — Jeffrey Eugenides

I was in the game for love. After all, where else can an old-timer with one leg, who can't hear or see, live like a king while doing the only thing I wanted to do? — Bill Veeck

What?" The dread in her tone told Rob she knew what. "How much longer?"
"Thirty seconds."
She laughed with a panicked urgency. "I just tried to nod. I can't feel my body, but I keep reaching for it, you know?"
Rob nodded, feeling guilty he was able to.
"How about this? I'll just tell you when I'm nodding, or shaking my head, or punching you."
"Oh, no," Rob laughed, "are you planning on punching me often?"
"We'll see."
Rob couldn't help glancing at the timer, though he knew it would only make Winter more aware of what was about to happen. Seven seconds.
"I keep expecting this to get easier, taht it will start to feel as if I'm going to sleep. But it doesn't. Maybe it's not possible to get used to dying."
Rob reached out to comfort her, then remembered it was forbidden and drew back. If not for the surveillance, Rob would have reached under the silver cover and taken her hand, cold and stiff as it would have been. — Will McIntosh

People that never had a part-time job in their lives, people that have worked for a company 20 and 30 years are now working for the same company as a part-timer because of "Obama care," because of the basic advantages to doing that in terms of "Obama care" for an employer. — Donald Trump

Today, you are as old as you have ever been and as young as you will ever be! It is never too late, or too early to start working toward your goals and your dreams. Every moment, every situation, and every turn of events presents you with an opportunity to build the self you are capable of being, and the life you are worthy of living. It's just a matter of accepting, implementing ideas, taking action and actively expressing the purpose that is uniquely YOU.
Every word you speak and every action you take should be intended to make tomorrow a little bit better. There is no such timer, clock or watch that measures quality time. You are given 24 hours a day and it is up to you as to how you will use it! — John Geiger

Nanahara: Where are you going, Boss?
Yashiro: To the convenience store. Whenever I buy all the condoms they have in stock and bring it to the cashier, the part-timer there makes a funny face.
Nanahara: ... That's an interesting hobby. — Kou Yoneda

The No. 2 pencils had been handed out. The timer had been started. But we had not even registered that the test had begun. — Atul Gawande

Getting into the habit of switching a timer on will, I promise, save you from any number of kitchen disasters. — Delia Smith

It's a stupid question, really, as we've all got an expiration date. I guess the real question is not if, but when. As I was walking through the South Dakota Badlands - before I knew something was wrong with me - I had this thought: What if we all carried little timers that counted down the days of our lives? Maybe the timer's a bit dramatic. Just the date would do. It could be tattooed on our foreheads like the expiration date on a milk bottle. It might be a good thing. Maybe we'd stop wasting our lives worrying about things that never happen, or collecting things that we can't take with us. We'd probably treat people better. We certainly wouldn't be screaming at someone who had a day left. Maybe people would finally stop living like they're immortal. Maybe we would finally learn how to live. I've wondered — Richard Paul Evans

It hit me that being hip was a full-time job, and I was only a part-timer. I couldn't hide forever that I liked county fairs, particularly the goat booth at the 4-H tent, or that I once spent a week with my grandmother at her house in the giant retirement community of Sun City, Arizona, and it was one of the most carefree times of my life. — Jancee Dunn

I'd like to prove that if you take care of yourself, you can actually not regret the fact that you've become an old-timer, but you can just still improve and actually get better. — Tony Bennett

In my new IFC comedy game show, 'Bunk,' we actually use our intern Patrick as a human timer - giving contestants the time it takes for him to wade through a bag of broken glass for a razor blade, to get gum out of his hair, to pick up every strand from a box of spaghetti I spill on the floor, etc, etc. — Kurt Braunohler

I have a hard time writing, and I usually have to put a timer at my desk and put it on for an hour. But I love to illustrate, and I can hardly stop myself. — Jan Brett

Speed showering. Speed shaving. Speed dressing. Then it hit me. What a waste of energy. It was all for nothing. I was going to miss that meeting no matter what I did. I could be on the platform right now, waiting for the PATH train, and it would still be a no-go. I could be on the train, heading out of the station, and it still wouldn't work. So I took a minute for four or five gulps of too-hot coffee, which had already brewed on a timer. I wanted to call Sturgis and tell him I'd be late and I was sorry. But by then it was almost 8:35 a.m., and I thought it would be worse to interrupt his meeting. Crap. Crap. Crap. This was the worst. The absolute worst. The worst possible thing that could have happened to me. The job meant more to me than anything, than my own life, than the world. Why did I keep screwing up like this? — Catherine Ryan Hyde

A Japanese woman we'd met in Paris came to the apartment yesterday and spent several hours explaining our appliances. The microwave, the water kettle, the electric bathtub: everything blinks and bleeps and calls out in the middle of the night. I'd wondered what the rice maker was carrying on about, and Reiko told us that it was on a timer and simply wanted us to know that it was present and ready for duty. That was the kettle's story as well, while the tub was just being an asshole and waking us up for no reason. — David Sedaris

I've found that a well-fitting padded bra can transform me from a pear-shaped woman to an hourglass-shaped woman. Okay, maybe not hourglass-shaped, but definitely, say, an egg-timer-shaped woman. — Mindy Kaling

Normally my run leaves me feeling like nothing but long muscles streaming with strength able and beckoning for more, anything, bring it on. That feeling is what gets me through my shift. Today the strength is nowhere. I'm lurching like a flabby first-timer; my legs drag like they're wrapped in wet sandbags, my arms flop and my breathing can't find a rhythm. I push harder, till my chest feels like it's ripping and a thick red seethes up over my eyes. I hang on to a lamppost, doubled over, waiting for it to clear. — Tana French

I set the self-portrait timer on the camera to ten seconds, handed it to the zombie, and sent him into the grid and through the door to blow himself up. Then things got weird. — Charles Stross

Old Timer's Disease
The celebrity
with Alzheimer's
sued himself for writing his
unauthorized autobiography. — Beryl Dov

All marriages have a time limit if you enter them for the wrong reasons. Marriage doesn't get easier ... it only gets harder. If you marry someone hoping it will improve things, you might as well set your timer the second you say, 'I do. — Colleen Hoover

What we require of others so that we may live our lives of easy convenience. Dad, there are people who work all day every day for thirty years assembling the three wires that make a microwave timer beep. What are we supposed to think of this? How do they survive it? Why do we ask them to? — Sunil Yapa

Of course, God's Moldovan. Otherwise why would he give me so much help?" Jan whispered.
Just then, a policeman walked up and fined him three hundred euros for who-knows-what, which the old timer coughed up so as not to lose his entire stash. Jan Realizes that God is not only Moldovan, but also in some sense Romanian, too. The contradiction resolved itself when Jan recalled the close blood ties between the two nations. — Vladimir Lorchenkov

You're an old-timer if you can remember when setting the world on fire was a figure of speech. — Franklin P. Jones

Early on, they were timing my contract with an egg timer. — Conan O'Brien

I don't exactly know what it means to be ready. A cake when the oven timer goes off? Am I fully baked, or only half-baked? — Jessica Savitch

I don't know what the hell that freak just said, but we're not as backward as you cyborgs think! We know how to speak English!" The tableau continued a moment longer before Old-timer finally managed to utter, "You do?" "No! I'm lying to you! I don't speak a damn word of English! I memorized this phonetically just to piss you off at the right moment!" the Purist shouted back at him. — David Simpson

I wasn't a babe in the woods. I'd watched a lot of stars, from James Dean to Brando, and I'd seen everybody alive work at MGM. I had a certain old-timer's quality, even though I was young and new, and drew on what I believed before I made it. — Jack Nicholson

Television is like speed chess, as you have no time and no money. It is like trying to play Grandmaster chess with a 20 minute timer. The rewards are great, though, as it moves faster and you get to see the finished results much quicker. — Dean Devlin

Simply put: time is fluid. The faster your world spins out of control, the slower timer crawls. The more time you need, the less you're sure to get. It's all relative — Shannon Lee

Arden Banks The Timer — Arden Banks

As a kid, I did want to be an old-timer, since they were the ones with the big stories and the cool clothes. I wanted to go there. Now, I guess I want to bring that with me and go back in time. — Tom Waits

On the other side of St John's house is a fake egg timer who can't maintain an erection. He shares the property with a glossy beef burger called Tom, who has been painted by a seven year old magistrate in order to be entered for this year's Miss East Lancashire competition. Next door to them is a Dundee cake with a lisp. — St John Morris

I wrote every day throughout my twenties. For a while, I had a boyfriend who was a musician, and he practiced every day. He played scales; I wrote small fictional scenes. It was the same idea - to keep your hand in your craft, to stay close to it. On bad days, when I felt no inspiration at all, I would set the kitchen timer for thirty minutes and make myself sit there and scribble something, anything. I had read an interview with John Updike where he said that some of the best novels you've ever read were written in an hour a day; I figured I could always carve out at least thirty minutes somewhere to dedicate myself to my work, no matter what else was going on or how badly I believed the work was going. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I tagged a first-timer one night at fight club. That Saturday night, a young guy with an angel's face came to his first fight club, and I tagged him for a fight. That's the rule. If it's your first night in fight club, you have to fight. I knew that so I tagged him because the insomnia was on again, and I was in a mood to destroy something beautiful. — Chuck Palahniuk

What if we all carried little timers that counted down the days of our lives? Maybe the timer's a bit dramatic. Just the date would do. It could be tattooed on our foreheads like the expiration date on a milk bottle. It might be a good thing. Maybe we'd stop wasting our lives worrying about things that never happen or collecting things that we can't take with us. We'd probably treat people better. We certainly wouldn't be screaming at someone who had a day left. Maybe people would finally stop living like they're immortal. Maybe we could finally learn how to live. — Richard Paul Evans

I can't recall ever once having seen the name of a market timer on Forbes' annual list of the richest people in the world. If it were truly possible to predict corrections, you'd think somebody would have made billions by doing it. — Peter Lynch

My recipe for dealing with anger and frustration: set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes, cry, rant, and rave, and at the sound of the bell, simmer down and go about business as usual. — Phyllis Diller

I felt quite frankly having been raised during the depression and looking back at the roaring twenties, the jazz age, which was a very magic timer in my mind because it was something that I had missed. — Hugh Hefner

Escape the safety of the small by taking the risks to become part of something bigger. Your true self demands it. Listen for the timer on the oven to sound-that's when the memory curtain parts, flashing moments that really mattered. — Kirby Wright

Careful old-timer, your age is showing."
"Hey, I'm only thirty-two. I'm in my prime, woman!"
She harrumphed. "Well, I'm a mere twenty-five and you're way too old for me."
Jay's eyes smoldered as he whispered, "My experience is your gain. — Anne Rainey

I'm too much old-timer to be rude to a woman no matter what - they have so much of what we have none of. — Robert A. Heinlein

An old-timer is someone who can remember when a naughty child was taken to the woodshed instead of to a psychiatrist. — David Greenberg

I remembered my father's speech about what Jack was capable of and wasn't; he'd said, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW MUCH JACK LOVES YOU. I thought about all the girls he'd stopped loving; it was like he had a timer, and at a certain point it buzzed. — Melissa Bank

I was practically born and raised at 20th Century Fox studio, started to work there selling papers when I was around seven years old, and every summer vacation from school I would work in a various department at the studio. So I was an old-timer when I was 15. — Richard D. Zanuck

July is high burglary season because so many people leave town. To help avoid making that obvious, suspend your newspaper subscription and have your mail held. Another clear indication is if all your lights are off for an extended period. To fix that, you can buy a timer for about $30. — Jean Chatzky

The 16 years have gone so fast. I came to Minnesota as a 19-year-old kid. Marv Grissom was the pitching coach, an old-timer who taught me quite a bit. Marv didn't like the way I stepped toward the plate. I had a tendency to throw across my body. So, he took me off to the side at Met Stadium and put a chair on the mound. If I threw across my body, I would step on the chair. Marv was trying to hurt me. I fooled him. I started stepping the right way. — Bert Blyleven

Zaphod Beeblebrox, adventurer, ex-hippie, good-timer (crook? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch. — Douglas Adams

Do you think it's easy to just walk up to Joe DiMaggio and start up a
conversation? I've been around him at old-timers' games, and believe me, he's
someone special. It's not easy to walk over and say, 'How ya doin', Joe, whaddya
say?' You really feel as though this is the one old-timer you have to call
Mister. — Tom Seaver

Mr. Greer timed all our speeches with an oven timer. Things were nothing at Tribeca Alternative, considered one of Manhattan's finest prep schools, if not high tech. — Meg Cabot

When you can, avoid sitting, or even open up a direct attack. Set your phone or watch timer to go off every hour so that you get up out of your chair, mobilize for a minute or two, and then (if you have to go back to sitting) sit down with your butt and stomach muscles turned on and engaged. — Kelly Starrett

I need a minute to think, she said. I automatically started the timer on my watch. Suddenly Rosie started laughing. — Graeme Simsion

Well,' I said. 'I could strip off my clothes and reveal to you that under my jeans and sweatshirt I'm actually wearing a tank top and short-shorts, much like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider ... only mine are flame-retardant and covered in glow-in-the-dark dinosaur stickers.'
No one stirred. Not even Christopher, who actually has a thing for Lara Croft.
'I know what you're thinking,' I went on. 'Glow-in-the-dark dinosaur stickers are so last year. But I think they add a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole ensemble. It's true, short-shorts are uncomfortable under jeans and hard to get off in the ladies' room, but they make the twin thigh-holsters in which I hold my high-caliber pistols so easy to get to ... '
The oven timer dinged.
'Thank you, Em,' Mr. Greer said, yawning. 'That was very persuasive. — Meg Cabot