Timetable Quotes & Sayings

Mother made sure her little kids were subjected to a strict routine. We were given a timetable which covered our every waking moment, copies of which were posted by our bedside, in the sitting room and in the kitchen. Story hour meant that mother would read us novels and short stories by Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde and Edmondo de Amicis. Soon we graduated to Tolstoy, Gogol and Turgenev. She read them to us in Chinese and I never realised until much later that the writers wrote them in different European languages. Comics were absolutely forbidden and so were Enid Blyton adventures and pop music ... Lee Cyn and I soon went to a primary school nearby ... After mother's rigorous timetable, school became fun and easy-going. — Ang Swee Chai

If you imagine that you will be able to achieve your ideal by ingeniously planning out a timetable with a pen on a piece of paper, you had better give up hope at once.If you are not prepared for discouragements and disillusions;
if you will not be content with a small result for a big effort, then do not begin. Lie down again and resume the uneasy doze which you call your existence. — Arnold Bennett

God is faithful to His word. All of His promises are "Yes" and "Amen." That means if you will do your part and believe even though it looks impossible, and not let your mind, your emotions, or other people talk you out of it, then God promises in due season and at the right time He will bring it to pass. It may not happen the way you expect it or on your timetable, but God is a faithful God. It will happen. — Joel Osteen

Ten years after the first commercial train service began operating between Liverpool and Manchester, in 1830, the first train timetable was issued. The trains were much faster than the old carriages, so the quirky differences in local hours became a severe nuisance. In 1847, British train companies put their heads together and agreed that henceforth all train timetables would be calibrated to Greenwich Observatory time, rather than the local times of Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow. More and more institutions followed the lead of the train companies. Finally, in 1880, the British government took the unprecedented step of legislating that all timetables in Britain must follow Greenwich. For the first time in history, a country adopted a national time and obliged its population to live according to an artificial clock rather than local ones or sunrise-to-sunset — Yuval Noah Harari

BEAUTIFUL CERTAINTY: I often need to be reminded that God's timetable is better than mine. The in-between, the meantime, the waiting - it can all be frustrating, but it is in those moments we are refined, redesigned, and realigned with God's will as He prepares us to be launched into our next chapter. — Mandy Hale

This worship, given therefore to the Trinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, above all accompanies and permeates the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy. But it must fill our churches also outside the timetable of Masses. Indeed, since the Eucharistic mystery was instituted out of love, and makes Christ sacramentally present, it is worthy of thanksgiving and worship. And this worship must be prominent in all our encounters with the Blessed Sacrament, both when we visit our churches and when the sacred species are taken to the sick and administered to them — Pope John Paul II

I think it's a mistake for people to rush out to set out a timetable right now for activating Article 50. The dust hasn't begun to settle. — Stephen Crabb

The cure for impatience with the fulfillment of God's timetable is to believe His promises, obey His will, and leave the results to Him. So often when God's timetable stretches into years we become discouraged and ... want to give up or try to work something out on our own. — Jerry Bridges

Now is the moment in the timetable of the Lord to carry the gospel farther than it has ever been carried before ... Many a person in this world is crying, knowingly and unknowingly, 'Come over ... and help us.' He might be your neighbor. She might be your friend. He might be a relative. She might be someone you met only yesterday. But we have what they need. Let us take new courage from our studies and pray, as did Peter, 'And now, Lord, ... grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word' — Spencer W. Kimball

Sorrow is not sickness-unless it becomes a permanent state of mental ill-health. The point is there are indeed stages of grief, as all the therapists tell us, but they do not obey some great unseen timetable. — Bel Mooney

Make your timetable according to your life but dont make your life according to your timetable — Hussain Rasheed

The comedy gods are smiling on me tonight, because for the longest time, I have said that president Bush must set a timetable for removing his head from his ass ... and, by god, last week they went in and looked for it. They didn't find it, so now we don't know where it is, but at least for once in my life, I get to see the words Bush, operation, and successful in the same sentence. — Bill Maher

At a time when the insurgents are saying that time is working against them, my Democratic colleagues are introducing a measure to set a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq that will undercut the momentum that the insurgents themselves say we have built in Iraq. — Kit Bond

Stars arrive on their own timetable. — Cameron Crowe

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Now, about your timetable. It may spread out a little more than you thought. They want me to visit the palace and see it for myself. We're to go in the Emir's yacht, leaving tonight. — Susan Leona Fisher

If I'm the British prime minister I won't be dictated to on the timetable or the manner of the negotiations. — Michael Gove

God has a way of working on His own timetable. And it usually is a lot different from ours. — Chris Fabry

Our soldiers have done a valiant effort in fighting terrorism and bringing a semblance of law and order to the chaos in the region and it would be shortsighted to lay out a specific timetable to bring U.S. troops home prematurely before their mission is accomplished. — James T. Walsh

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents. — William Hague

The first thing Gutenberg sought to publish, after the Bible, was a laxative timetable he called a "Purgation-Calendar." Then there is the astonishing number of anal German folk sayings. "As the fish lives in water, so does the shit stick to the asshole!," to select but one of the seemingly endless examples. — Michael Lewis

Planning is the mother of almost every other ability. Make your plan and set a timetable for its accomplishment in writing. — Sterling W. Sill

Dear friends, he began, there is no timetable for happiness; it moves, I think, according to rules of its own. When I was a boy I thought I'd be happy tomorrow, as a young man I thought it would be next week; last month I thought it would be never. Today, I know it is now. Each of us, I suppose has at least one person who thinks that our manifest faults are worth ignoring; I have found mine, and am content. When we are far from home we think of home; I, who am happy today, think of those in Scotland for whom such happiness might seem elusive; may such powers as listen to what is said by people like me, in olive groves like this, grant to those who want a friendship a friend, attend to the needs of those who have little, hold the hand of those who are lonely, allow Scotland, our place, our country, to sing in the language of her choosing that song she has always wanted to sing, which is of brotherhood, which is of love. — Alexander McCall Smith

Just because you believed and it didn't work out your way or according to your timetable, does not mean that it's over. — Jamie Larbi

For reasons known to the Lord, some women are required to wait to have children. This delay is not easy for any righteous woman. But the Lord's timetable for each of us does not negate our nature. — Sheri L. Dew

Resistance outwits the amateur with the oldest trick in the book: It uses his own enthusiasm against him. Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion. It knows we can't sustain that level of intensity. We will hit the wall. We will crash.
The professional, on the other hand, understands delayed gratification. He is the ant, not the grasshopper; the tortoise, not the hare ... The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work. He knows that any job, whether it's a novel or kitchen remodel, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts that. He recognizes it as reality. — Steven Pressfield

There is no timetable for grief," said Bronwen Morgan. "Grief isn't a train which you catch at the station. Grief has its own time, and grief's time is beyond time, and time itself ... isn't very important. — Susan Howatch

But a theory is not like an airline or bus timetable. We are not interested simply in the accuracy of its predictions. A theory also serves as a base for thinking. It helps us to understand what is going on by enabling us to organize our thoughts. Faced with a choice between a theory which predicts well but gives us little insight into how the system works and one which gives us this insight but predicts badly, I would choose the latter, and I am inclined to think that most economists would do the same. — Ronald H. Coase

The concept of an education centered upon the care of the living being alters all previous ideas. Resting no longer on a curriculum, or a timetable, education must conform to the facts of human life. — Maria Montessori

There are two things I don't care how smart you are, you will never understand. One is an alienist's testimony, and the other is a railroad timetable. — Will Rogers

Holmes laughed. "Watson insists that I am the dramatist in real life," said he. "Some touch of the artist wells up within me, and calls insistently for a well-staged performance. Surely our profession, Mr. Mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we did not sometimes set the scene so as to glorify our results. The blunt accusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder - what can one make of such a denouement? But the quick inference, the subtle trap, the clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold theories - are these not the pride and the justification of our life's work? At the present moment you thrill with the glamour of the situation and the anticipation of the hunt. Where would be that thrill if I had been as definite as a timetable? — Arthur Conan Doyle

I think we bring together that broad coalition including Russia to help us destroy ISIS and work on a timetable to get rid of Assad, hopefully through Democratic elections. First priority, destroy ISIS. — Bernie Sanders

The names of Northern railway stations in a timetable where he would like to imagine himself stepping from the train on an autumn evening when the trees are already bare and smelling strongly in the keen air, an insipid publication for people of taste, full of names that he has not heard since childhood, may have far greater value for him than five volumes of philosophy, and lead people of taste to say that for a man of talent, he has very stupid tastes. — Marcel Proust

The attacks of 9/11 were the biggest surprise in American history, and for the past ten years we haven't stopped being surprised. The war on terror has had no discernible trajectory, and, unlike other military conflicts, it's almost impossible to define victory. You can't document the war's progress on a world map or chart it on a historical timetable in a way that makes any sense. A country used to a feeling of being in command and control has been whipsawed into a state of perpetual reaction, swinging wildly between passive fear and fevered, often thoughtless, activity, at a high cost to its self-confidence. — George Packer

The life bears a likeness to a song, it, though low or high, pours the whole of itself into each musical note. The song will be only wonderful if a singer sings it in the perfect pitch. This resembles to the life, it overwhelms with tasks that you have to finish. Thus, you must come up with proper timetable to bring strength to your health before doing well everything. I consider health as the most important reward of this life. Just put it in priority, don't ruin it due to any reasons — AnhTri

GOD Doesn't Follow Your Timetable ... And You Will Never Know His Timetable. — Cyc Jouzy

I don't ever dream about you and me
I don't ever make up stuff about us
That would be considered insanity
I don't ever drive by your house
To see if you're in
I don't even have an opinion
On that tramp that you are still seeing
I don't know your timetable
I don't know your face off by heart
But I must admit that there's still a part of me
That thinks we might get on — Kate Nash

If responsibility is not in the hands of the Iraqi government, then I consider the responsibility for this event lies with the occupation forces which should either leave immediately or according to a timetable. — Muqtada Al Sadr

Then I started reading this timetable I had in my pocket. Just stop lying. Once I get started, I can go on for hours if I feel like it. No kidding. Hours. — J.D. Salinger

Much like trains in India, grief is a circular, irrational process with no discernible rhythm or timetable. Here it comes, there it goes. — Suzanne Finnamore

I work very regular hours, roughly 9 to 5:30. I think I have it much easier than a lot of parents. I just sit at home, I have a very flexible timetable, and I'm very fortunate in that I don't have money problems. I have lunch with my wife at home. I don't have to commute, so I have much more time with my family. — Kazuo Ishiguro

To wait is to wisely resign myself to the fact that my 'timetable' is too often a 'table' with two legs that won't stand up no matter how much 'time' I give it. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Our military commanders have said over and over again that a timetable for withdrawal sends the wrong message to our troops, but more importantly to our enemy. — Bill Shuster

I have a hatred of habit and routine. And what dogs love is just that. They like regular everything, and I don't have regular anything. I have a timetable, but no routine. — Lucian Freud

A book can be pocketed and discarded, scrawled and torn into pages, lost and bought again. It can be dragged out from a suitcase, opened in front of you when having a snack, revived at the moment of waking, and skimmed through once again before falling asleep. It needs no notice by phone if you can't attend the appointment fixed in the timetable. It won't get mad if awakened from its slumber during your sleepless nights. Its message can be swallowed whole or chewed into tiny pieces. Its content lures you for intellectual Why and What adventures and it satisfies your spirit of adventure. You can get bored of it - but it won't ever get bored of you. — Kato Lomb

President Obama decided to prematurely withdraw from Iraq for no other reason than politics. The artificial deadline for withdrawal was not determined for strategic goals but rather for a political one - his reelection timetable. — Michael Ramirez

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when she walked in on you two."
"Thanks for your compassion," I say dryly. "I'm hanging up now."
"No! I'm sorry for laughing. It's just that the more we talk, the more I see you as a totally different person than I thought you were. I guess I can understand why Alex likes you."
"Thanks, I think. Remember when I told you I wouldn't let anything happen between me and Alex?"
"Yeah. Just so I get my timetable straight, that was before you kissed him. Right?" She chuckles, then says, "I'm just kidding, Brittany. If you like him, girl, go for it. — Simone Elkeles

The scale of time for a politician runs between one primary and the next, and in Israel, this means two to three years because elections almost never take place once every four years as stipulated by law. The timetable for a system of research is completely different. — Aaron Ciechanover

Normal children of both sexes and all cultures will follow a more or less standard and universal developmental pattern and timetable, and reach approximately the same level of development at maturity. While a particular culture's need and expectations and teaching will shape the course of development and affect adult capabilities to some degree, normal individuals, whatever their native culture, if transplanted and taught, could learn to meet the normal demands of their adapted cultures. — Stella Chess

Spring, when the earth tilts closer to the sun, runs a strict timetable of flowers. — Alice Oswald

God doesn't work on our timetable. He has a plan that He will execute perfectly and for the highest, greatest good of all, and for His ultimate glory. — Charles R. Swindoll

I have a timetable, but no routine. — Lucian Freud

Love. He said he loved me. "Love," Furi whispered to himself. He didn't know if it had been a slip-up, like someone said they love pie. Or if he really meant love and freaked because he didn't want it out yet. Kind of like Furi. He felt it was too soon to say the words. But Furi would give Syn some time and then he'd tell the man it was okay, because he loved him right back. He didn't care about a goddamn timetable. — A.E. Via

Life Lesson 3: You can't rush grief. It has its own timetable. All you can do is make sure there are lots of soft places around
beds, pillows, arms, laps. — Patti Davis

There are four warring interests in spaceflight: ambitiousness of vision, urgency of timetable, reduction of cost, and safety to astronauts. These can never be entirely reconciled. In the sixties, urgency and ambitiousness were the driving factors, and because this was understood and accepted, the massive cost and risk were accepted as well. We now seem to be at a moment when reduction of cost is paramount, with safety coming in a very close second. This being the case, we should not be surprised that ambitiousness and urgency have had to be set aside altogether. But it's ludicrous to claim, as I often hear people do, that "NASA has lost its vision." NASA has lost support, not vision. Wernher — Margaret Lazarus Dean

No military timetable should compel war when a successful outcome, namely a disarmed Iraq may be feasible without war, for example by allowing more time to the UN inspectors. — Douglas Hurd

Grace is waiting for you. It's always there. It's always waiting. It doesn't pokes holes into our lives. We are the ones who poke the holes and let the light in, let the magic in. But there's no rush. There are no deadlines. There's comfort in staying in our cocoons. Only when we lose that comfort and feel overwhelmed do we feel forced to reach up for something greater. Or, we simply feel the calling for more. Either way, we start living on God's timetable and awaken to the beautiful mystery, and the things we had clinged to the most fade into pale substitutes. — Elizabeth Fox Brewer

There are as many approaches to unschooling as there are people, by design. A child is supported to read when ready and interested, not on another's timetable, for example. He can and will be encouraged to pursue a wide range of interests, based on his interests, such as free play, inventing, experimenting scientifically, video gaming, role modeling through friendship, spiritual development through inquiry of self and others, athletics, learning to trust himself and others. — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

There's no set timetable for acts of revenge — Giles O'Bryen

When your partner gets cancer, then life changes. Your timetable and reference for your normal routines and the way you view life, all this changes. Because you're dealing with death. You're dealing with the possibility of death and dying. — Pierce Brosnan

The Budget Act of 1974 established a timetable for the annual budget process. Under Title III of the Act, Congress is to complete action on the concurrent resolution on the budget by April 15. — Marsha Blackburn

We must have a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces - or at the very least a plan for it - something the administration has incredulously failed to do for over two years. — Sherrod Brown

Because life doesn't always happen according to a timetable or calendar. And feelings can't be scheduled. — Jerry Spinelli

Fortuna smiles and frowns according to a timetable surprising even to herself. — Mason Cooley

There is not a formula for the way that God heals. There's not a timetable. — Amy Grant

You're not behind in life. There's no schedule or timetable that we all must follow. It's all made up. Wherever you are right now is exactly where you need to be. Seven billion people can't do everything in exactly the same scheduled order. We are all different with a variety of needs and goals. Some get married early, some get married late, while others don't get married at all. What is early? What is late? Compared with whom? Compared with what? Some want children, others don't. Some want a career; others enjoy taking care of a house and children. Your life is not on anyone else's schedule. Don't beat yourself up for where you are right now. It's YOUR timeline, not anyone else's, and nothing is off schedule. — Emily Maroutian

In England, they say that Manchester is the city of rain. It's main attraction is considered to the timetable at the railway station, where trains leave for other, less rainy cities. — Nemanja Vidic

If I had been under ObamaCare, and a bureaucrat had been trying to tell me when I could get that CT scan, that would have delayed my treatment. I was able to get the treatment as fast as I could based upon my timetable, and not the government's timetable. That's what saved my life. — Herman Cain

We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We're just going to stay the course. — George W. Bush

It is becoming increasingly clear that the targets in the Kyoto Protocol cannot and will not be met on the established timetable in the United States and elsewhere. — Eileen Claussen

My goal in Korea is to win. There's no timetable when to set the American record. — Ashton Eaton

I've got no timetable. I'm sort of sick of timetables, to be honest. — Shirley Manson

The bus timetable sites are all run by an inbred cabal of malicious gnomes. Who don't speak English. And who don't count very well either. Or tell time. And they certainly can't read maps. — Robin McKinley

What we said publicly is that we know that Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons, he's used them; we know about his biological weapons programs; and in the nuclear equation, left to his own devices, with no fissile material, by the end of the decade, he'll have a nuclear weapon. But if fissile material is provided to Saddam Hussein, he'll have a nuclear weapon within a year, so I'd say the year is the outside timetable. — Richard Armitage

God has a timetable when seemingly miraculous happens. — Cliffie Stone

A group of women who valued motherhood, but valued it on their own timetable, began to make a new claim, one that had never surfaced in the abortion debate before this, that abortion was a woman's right. Most significantly, they argued that this right to abortion was essential to their right to equality
the right to be treated as individuals rather than as potential mothers. — Kristin Luker

Time is a hard-hearted rebel, we cannot fight him or can we beg him to slow down, wait for us or stop, all we have to do is to obey his strict rules, follow him and run, he doesn't get tired, and we musn't get tired too. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion. — Steven Pressfield

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

As I have been saying for more than a year now, turning this vital mission over to the Iraqi people as soon as possible should remain a topic of debate for Congress while relying on our military commanders to set up the timetable. — Howard Coble

Once solved, the severe handicaps imposed on space exploration by the weight and chemical limitations of rockets would no longer apply. The whole timetable of our conquest of the planets in our solar system would be tremendously speeded up, from hot Mercury all the way out to frigid Pluto. — Donald A. Wollheim

God may sometimes laugh at our plans. But if they are based on a Heavenly and eternal perspective, He will always support us. On His timetable, not ours. — Paul Turk

Lester del Rey told me repeatedly that the first and most important part of writing fiction is just to think about the story. Don't write anything down. Don't try to pull anything together right away. Just dream for a while and see what happens. There isn't any timetable involved, no measuring stick for how long it ought to take. For each book, it is different. But that period of thinking, of reflection, is crucial to how successful your story will turn out to be. — Terry Brooks

Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best - better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His. We can grow in faith only if we are willing to wait patiently for God's purposes and patterns to unfold in our lives, on His timetable. — Neal A. Maxwell

Everybody has a different kind of talent and a different timetable as to when they develop .. — Itzhak Perlman

The last occasions when the timetable of our lives would be interrupted for many years to come. — Sister Parish

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

Wars are fought on objectives, not on timetable, and that's why I've been so insistent upon not allowing ourselves to have policy driven by time table, but by objective. — George W. Bush

If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act. — Lee Iacocca

I struck down his evil no matter what name it took for itself, no matter that it called itself history or revolution, America or the son of God, no matter that it called itself righteous, a righteousness that presumed the license to bind the free word and thought, that presumed the wisdom to timetable the birth of a soul, that presumed the morality that offers its children up to the plague rather than teach them the language of love. A thousand righteous champions calcified into something venal and mean by their presumptions of something sacred and pure and undirtied by the blood and spit and semen of being human: I recognized all of them by the bit of him they carried, sometimes in one eye, sometimes under their nails. — Steve Erickson

The Book of Chuang Tzu is like a travelogue. As such, it meanders between continents, pauses to discuss diet, gives exchange rates, breaks off to speculate, offers a bus timetable, tells an amusing incident, quotes from poetry, relates a story, cites scripture. To try and make it read like a novel or a philosophical handbook is simply to ask it, this travelogue of life, to do something it was never designed to do. And always listen out for the mocking laughter of Chuang Tzu. — Zhuangzi

Because the Bush Administration will set no timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, both chambers of Congress acted to make sure our troops will not be left in Iraq indefinitely. — Jan Schakowsky

Technologically we can deliver the ability of parents to be able to log into a school intranet, be able to see what homework has been set or look at lesson planning, whether the child is attending, see what the timetable is like, all of that is possible and there are some schools that are doing it already. — Jim Knight

Buttressing this argument (that you can prevent children from learning to read or ride bicycles but you can't stop them from learning to talk), Chomsky had pointed to two other universals in human language: that its emergence in children follows a very precise timetable of development, no matter where they live or which particular language is the first they learn; and that language itself has an innate structure. Chomsky has recently reminded audiences that the origins of the structure of language - how semantics and syntax interact - remain as "arcane" as do its behavioral and neurologic roots. Chomsky himself finds nothing in classical Darwinism to account for human language.* And for that reason, says Plotkin, linguistics is left with a major theoretical dilemma. If human language is a heritable trait but one that represents a complete discontinuity from animal communicative behavior, where did it come from? — Frank R. Wilson

As for when to reform the yuan, there is no timetable yet. — Wu Yi

Humans, with the arrogance of a supposedly superior species (tell that to your cat!), expect domestic animals to fit into their lifestyle. They bring cats into their homes and expect them to follow a human timetable and human rules. — Celia Haddon

The work of God is done on God's timetable. His answers to our prayers come always in time
His time. His thoughts are far higher than ours, His wisdom past understanding. — Elisabeth Elliot

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

So far I had been travelling alone with my handbook and my Western Railway timetable: I was happiest finding my own way and did not require a liaison man. It had been my intention to stay on the train, without bothering about arriving anywhere: sight-seeing was a way of passing the time, but, as I had concluded in Istanbul, it was an activity very largely based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled. — Paul Theroux

Conventional wisdom holds that setting a timetable for getting American troops out of Iraq would be a mistake. — Nick Clooney