Quotes & Sayings About Turn Back Time

The asymmetry of time, the arrow that points from past to future, plays an unmistakable role in our everyday lives: it accounts for why we cannot turn an omelet into an egg, why ice cubes never spontaneously unmelt in a glass of water, and why we remember the past but not the future. And the origin of the asymmetry we experience can be traced all the way back to the orderliness of the universe near the big bang. Every time you break an egg, you are doing observational cosmology. — Sean M. Carroll

The time when a nation most craves ease may be the moment when it can least afford to let down its guard. The moment when it most wishes it could address its domestic needs may be the moment when it most urgently has to confront an external threat. The nation that survives is the one that rises to meet that moment: that has the wisdom to recognize the threat and the will to turn it back, and that does so before it is too late. The naive notion that we can preserve freedom by exuding goodwill is not only silly, but dangerous. The more adherents it wins, the more it tempts the aggressor. — Richard M. Nixon

She groaned and tucked her fingers between my side and the mattress. "I don't think I'm ever going to get used to the cold air here."
I chuckled and kissed her forehead. "Just wait 'til it snows."
"Ugh," she moaned.
"I'll turn the heat up," I said and started to move from beneath her. She clutched me closer and made a sound of determination. I laughed. It thrilled the shit out of me that she liked having me so close. "I thought you were cold," I said affectionately.
"But you're warm."
"I'll come right back."
"Kiss me," she demanded. She was definitely a shy person, but the more time we spent together, the less shy she was with me when we were alone. I loved it. It was like getting a glimpse of the person no one else saw. — Cambria Hebert

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

All we did was to turn back the time to a photography of precision which is superior to the human eye. — Bernd Becher

Without you, I'm lost, fumbling and falling
Missing so much of who you were
If I could change the past, I'd take it all back
I'd turn back time, I'd take away the pain
I'd make sure I didn't leave without you — Monica Alexander

187. Is it a related form of aggrandizement, to inflate a heartbreak into a sort of allegory? Losing what one loves is simpler, more common, than that. More precise. One could leave it, too, as it is.
Yet how can I explain, that every time I put a pin in the balloon of it, the balloon seems to swell back up as soon as I turn away from it? — Maggie Nelson

Aedus reached into the center console and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. He drove for ten minutes before the helicopter came in sight, gradually descending towards the airport in his opposite direction. He looked around for a place to make a U-turn, but there was no legal turn available. Aedus sighed. The things a good guy has to do. He made a turn onto a side road and looped back around, tires squealing. In an action movie he'd just make a U-turn wherever, speed down the road, and weave in and out of traffic. Alas, this wasn't an action movie and he wasn't a certain Jason Bour - no time to think about that. The airport was coming up quick and as bustling as ever. — Zechariah Barrett

Ben Says: No matter how long you've been traveling down a wrong road ... you always have time to turn back.
Now ... just do it! — Timothy Pina

I realize we can't turn back the hands of time, and sometimes it doesn't help to dwell on things we can't control. However, there are still many wonderful aspects of Hawai'i that we tend to neglect. It's a matter of priorities. I guess. But when we don't give these islands a chance. I think we really lose out.
("Mele Mele" Mango Memorie WITH SAM CHOY: COOKING FROM THE HEART) — John Richard Stephens

He always found it a miracle that anyone wanted his company. Women especially - men will cuddle a rock. When he first started getting laid he couldn't quite believe that the women in his bed weren't there by mistake. Sometimes he'd leave the room and then peer back in, and then peer in again, incredulous that a woman was actually lying there naked, waiting for him. As if. In time he found his thing: fly in like a fool to start, then turn on the silver tongue. Talk and cock, talk and cock, yessir. One time a girl confessed that Vicky, his friend the nurse, had given her a warning before she introduced them. Take one look and if you don't like what you see don't even say hi or you'll end up wanting to fuck. Best thing anyone ever said about him. It didn't matter that they never came back, or rarely. He didn't mind being disposable. — Yuri Herrera

Summers past love company, seems every time you turn around there's more o' the bastards at your back. — Joe Abercrombie

One day Lal shahbaz was wandering in the desert with his friend Sheikh Bhaa ud-Din Zakariya. It was winter, and evening time, so they began to build a fire to keep warm. They found some wood, but then they realised they had no fire. So Baha ud- Din suggested that Lal Shahbaz turn himself into a falcon and get fire from hell. Off he flew, but an hour later he came back empty handed. "There is no fire in hell," he reported. "Everyone who goes there brings their own fire, and their own pain, from this world. — William Dalrymple

He felt a strange urge, right then, just to put his head down and walk past, off into the night and never look back. Then he wouldn't have to be the Bloody-Nine again... He could've gone far away, and started new, and been whoever he wanted. But he'd tried that once already, and it had done him no good. The past was always right behind him, breathing on his neck. It was time to turn around and face it. — Joe Abercrombie

By concentrating single-mindedly on your most important task, you can reduce the time required to complete it by 50 percent or more. It has been estimated that the tendency to start and stop a task - to pick it up, put it down, and come back to it - can increase the time necessary to complete the task by as much as 500 percent. Each time you return to the task, you have to familiarize yourself with where you were when you stopped and what you still have to do. You have to overcome inertia and get yourself going again. You have to develop momentum and get into a productive work rhythm. But when you prepare thoroughly and then begin, refusing to stop or turn aside until the job is done, you develop energy, enthusiasm, and motivation. You get better and better and more productive. You work faster and more effectively. — Brian Tracy

Six months ago when she first came up with the idea to kill Wilson, back when she was living in Memphis, she'd started going to church again. Since she was spending so much time thinking about sinister things, the least she could do, she reasoned, was to think about God and his love twice a week at church so that she wouldn't become a total sociopath. And rather than kill other people who were stand-ins for the person she really wanted to kill, like serial killers did, she'd be kind and generous to others and hone in on the one who deserved to die. And her plan had worked extremely well. Since she'd started planning to kill Wilson, and then decided to destroy his family instead, she felt no animosity toward anyone but him. Almost none at all! — Elizabeth Stuckey-French

You remind me of a boy I used to know
Same Smile, same easy, laid-back style
And man, could he kiss
Blew my mind the very first time
His lips touched mine.
You remind me

You remind me of a boy I used to like.
Same eyes, strong arms, same open mind
And man, could he dance
Arms around me, lost in a trance
I'd hear his heart
You remind me

I'm scared of you
How did you find me?
Turn and walk away
'Cause you remind me

You remind me of a boy I used to love
Same laughter and tears, shared through the years
And man, how he felt

Made my bones more than melt
He touched my soul.
You remind me

I'm scared of you
How did you find me?
Turn and walk away
'Cause you remind me — Malorie Blackman

You're punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't have a fully loaded weapon next to you round the clock. But I think it's time you flipped this little scenario in your head. If you'd been taken by the Capitol, and hijacked, and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way he would be treating you? demands Haymitch.
I fall silent. It isn't. It isn't how he would be treating me at all. He would be trying to get me back at any cost. Not shutting me out, abandoning me, greeting me with hostility at every turn. — Suzanne Collins

He had in his Bronx apartment a lodger less learned than himself, and much fiercer in piety. One day when we were studying the laws of repentance together, the lodger burst from his room. "What!" he said. "The atheists guzzles his whiskey and eats pork and wallows with women all his life long, and then repents the day before he dies and stands guiltless? While I spend a lifetime trying to please God?" My grandfather pointed to the book. "So it is written," he said gently. - "Written!" the lodger roared. "There are books and there are books." And he slammed back into his room.
The lodger's outrage seemed highly logical. My grandfather pointed out afterward that cancelling the past does not turn it into a record of achievement. It leaves it blank, a waste of spilled years. A man had better return, he said, while time remains to write a life worth scanning. And since no man knows his death day, the time to get a grip on his life is the first hour when the impulse strikes him. — Herman Wouk

If woman has always functioned "within" the discourse of man, a signifier that has always referred back to the opposite signifier which annihilates its specific energy and diminishes or stifles its very different sounds, it is time for her to dislocate this "within," to explode it, turn it around, and seize it; to make it hers, containing it, taking it in her own mouth, biting that tongue with her very own teeth to invent for herself a language to get inside of. And you'll see with what ease she will spring forth from that "within" - the "within" where once she so drowsily crouched - to overflow at the lips she will cover the foam. — Helene Cixous

Why would anyone want to turn back time? There is no meaning in regret, no point in thinking about thing I could have done. Because there is no guarantee that any decision is the right one. — Kazuya Minekura

Sometimes our thoughts turn back toward a corner in a forest, or the end of a bank, or an orchard powdered with flowers, seen but a single time on some happy day, yet remaining in our hearts and leaving in soul and body an unappeased desire which is not to be forgotten, a feeling that we have just rubbed elbows with happiness. — Guy De Maupassant

All the time. A few months ago I came really close to losing it, I was getting really paranoid. And then I started a new job, things fixed themselves. I can't turn my back on the situation and ignore it. If tomorrow I say: "Okay, I've had enough, we're stopping everything" it won't change anything. Might as well try to accept it and stay zen as I have no control over it. — Robert Pattinson

Before another century is done it will be hard for people to imagine a time when humanity was confined to one world, and it will seem to them incredible that there was ever anybody who doubted the value of space and wanted to turn his or her back on the Universe. — Isaac Asimov

One of the themes in my novels is that our crises can turn into blessings. We can feel like our world has crumbled, but ten years down the road when we look back on that time, we can see God's hand at work. I love writing that theme into my books. — Terri Blackstock

You said to us once before," said Hermione quietly, "that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we? — J.K. Rowling

The Darkling smiled, but this time the turn of his lips was cold. He shoved off the table and stalked toward me.

"I will enter the Fold, Alina, and I will show West Ravka what I can do, even without the Sun Summoner. And when I have crushed Lantsov's only ally, I will hunt you like an animal. You will find no sanctuary. You will have no peace." He loomed over me, his gray eyes glinting. "Fly back home to your otkazat'sya," he snarled. "Hold him tight. The rules of this game are about to change. — Leigh Bardugo

The distance we set between ourselves and the events of our past life, which reduces their scale, the backlog of things we failed to notice at the time, the logic which connects them, which back then was invisible, the light shed on them by the epoch they belong to, which mankind already considers a moribund piece of history, their ultimate strangeness, which makes us look back on the person we were as though they were a different being, all these things conspire to turn our past into a dream. — Catherine Millet

Visitors say, 'Real shrunken heads! Wow! How were they made? By slitting the skin, taking out the skull and brains and steaming them with hot sand? Gross!' But what no one asks is: how did they get here? What are they doing hanging up in a university museum in the south of England? Once you start to answer that question, you realize that shrunken heads like these are a product as much of European curiosity, European taste and European purchasing power as they are of an archaic tribal custom. It is time to turn the spotlight round and point it back at people like you and me, and at our ancestors, who were responsible for bringing hundreds of these heads into museums and people's homes and who delighted in them as much as -- if not more than -- the people who created them in the first place. After all, it is not the Shuar who are pressing their noses to the glass of an exhibition case in an Oxford University museum. — Frances Larson

Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. As the man looks back to the days of his childhood and his youth, and recalls to his mind the strange notions and false opinions that swayed his actions at the time, that he may wonder at them; so should society, for its edification, look back to the opinions which governed ages that fled. — Charles Mackay

As Lacy waited for her turn to speak on Peter's behalf, she thought back to the first time she realized she could hate her own child. — Jodi Picoult

Mother to Son

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor -
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a'climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now -
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
- Langston Hughes (112) — Sapphire.

SOMETIMES, BUT NOT OFTEN, a rain comes to the Salinas Valley in November. It is so rare that the Journal or the Index or both carry editorials about it. The hills turn to a soft green overnight and the air smells good. Rain at this time is not particularly good in an agricultural sense unless it is going to continue, and this is extremely unusual. More commonly, the dryness comes back and the fuzz of grass withers or a little frost — John Steinbeck

We drove out along the coast road. There was the green of the headlands, the white, red-roofed villas, patches of forest, and the ocean very blue with the tide out and the water curling far out along the beach. We drove through Saint Jean de Luz and passed through villages farther down the coast. Back of the rolling country we were going through we saw the mountains we had come over from Pamplona. The road went on ahead. Bill looked at his watch. It was time for us to go back. He knocked on the glass and told the driver to turn around. The driver backed the car out into the grass to turn it. In back of us were the woods, below a stretch of meadow, then the sea. — Ernest Hemingway,

He'd been about to turn away when she lifted her face to the moon and sang.
It was not in any language that he knew. Not in the common tongue, or in Eyllwe, or in the languages of Fenharrow or Melisande, or anywhere else on the continent
This language was ancient, each word full of power and rage and agony.
She did not have a beautiful voice. And many of the words sounded like half sobs, the vowels stretched by the pangs of sorrow, the consonants hardened by anger. She beat her breast in time, so full of savage grace, so at odds with the black gown and veil she wore. The hair on the back of his neck stood as the lament poured from her mouth, unearthly and foreign, a song of grief so old that it predated the stone castle itself.
And the the song finished, its end as butal and sudden as Nehemia's death had been.
She stood there a few moments, silent and unmoving. — Sarah J. Maas

Only In Sleep
Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.
Only in sleep Time is forgotten
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.
The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child? — Sara Teasdale

Remember to act always as if you were at a symposium. When the food or drink comes around, reach out and take some politely; if it passes you by don't try pulling it back. And if it has not reached you yet, don't let your desire run ahead of you, be patient until your turn comes. Adopt a similar attitude with regard to children, wife, wealth and status, and in time, you will be entitled to dine with the gods. Go further and decline these goods even when they are on offer and you will have a share in the gods' power as well as their company. That is how Diogenes, Heraclitus and philosophers like them came to be called, and considered, divine. — Epictetus

The whole island was exactly what a kid growing up in some trailer park
say some dump like Tecumseh Lake, Georgia
would dream about. This kid would turn out all the lights in the trailer while her mom was at work. She'd lie down flat on her back, on the matted-down orange shag carpet in the living room. The carpet smelling like somebody stepped in a dog pile. The orange melted black in spots from cigarette burns. The ceiling was water-stained. she'd fold her arms across her chest, and she could picture life in this kind of place. It would be that time
late at night
when your ears reach out for any sound. When you can see more with your eyes closed than open. The fish skeleton. From the first time she held a crayon, that's what she'd draw. — Chuck Palahniuk

The aspirant who frequently measures how far he has advanced, or retrograded, upon this path, or how long he has stood still, is seeking something to be gained for himself, is looking all the time at himself. He is measuring the ego instead of trying to transcend it altogether. He is clinging to self, instead of obeying Jesus' injunction to deny it. Looking at the ego, he unwittingly stands with his back to the Overself. If he is ever to become enlightened, he must turn round, cease this endless self-measurement, stop fussing over little steps forward or backward, let all thoughts about his own backwardness or greatness cease, and look directly at the goal itself. — Paul Brunton

What for?" Mildred squints up at him, staring at his hat. "You gonna marry him?"
My jaw drops open and my face burns red. "Uhhh ... " Ian and I haven't talked marriage. Yes, we've discussed him living out here, but that was it. I'm so embarrassed right now it's not even funny. I wish I could turn back time and bring Ian in here on a day that Mildred wasn't going to be around.
Ian walks over and takes a seat in the chair next to Mildred. "Maybe. If I can convince her it's a good idea. — Elle Casey

The people around me had gone on ahead long before, while my time and I hung back, struggling through the mud. I trudged along through each day in its turn, rarely looking up, eyes locked on the never-ending swamp that lay before me, planting my right foot, raising my left, planting my left foot, raising my right, never sure where I was, never sure I was headed in the right direction, knowing only that I had to keep moving, one step at a time. — Haruki Murakami

-Humph! Said Ami as she then quickly pulled ahead of me, having grown tired of my silent treatment. However, as she slipped by, I couldn't resist quickly reaching over and flipping-up the back of her skirt, just enough to see that she had a panda on the back of her panties, my fingers never touching her ass, yet I could feel the warmth underneath.
-Nice bear behind you got there! So I said
She froze in mid step, and looked as if she was going to turn around, but instead she shuttered as if a tingling electric shock had gone all through her body. I then noticed that the back of her neck to the roots of her hair had turned a lobster red! Though whether that was because of embarrassment or anger or both I'm not sure. In any case, Ami's hands became tight fists, and then with a growl like a tigress she quickly stomped off. I have actually heard a growl like that since that time. It's the sound of a female Nepali snow leopard, in heat, just before it pounces on a potential mate. — Andrew James Pritchard

Over the hum of the appliances, she heard the knocking on the back door. The pain pill must not have knocked Spender out for very long! This time she wouldn't make him stand there and wait. She jumped up, and rushed to unlock the door.
Just her luck. It wasn't Spencer who stood there, but Zeke, scowling at her through the glass. She supposed it was too late to turn around, take a sip of coffee, and head this way again, taking her time.
"Didn't find your key, I see," she said as she opened the door.
"Found it," he said through clenched teeth. "Left it in my room this morning."
"Early-onset Alzheimer's? — Linda Howard

I think London is made up of tiny little pockets and villages, and lots of little sub-cultures. So, especially for an actor, it's a brilliant place to live because you've got inspiration all the time, wherever you are. You can turn a corner and you'll be in mansion houses with beautiful gardens and Ferraris, and you'll turn back on yourself and it'll be ghetto land. But I think that's brilliant. — Scarlett Alice Johnson

Twenty unsettling minutes later she dropped the
pen on her stack of papers, and then leaned back in her chair. The time seemed to be dragging like a immobile car without tires hooked to a tow-truck with square wheels traveling cautiously down a road of fresh gravel. Tess struggled to maintain focus, similar to how an alternator belt would struggle if it had to try to keep traction on a turn spindle that had been lubricated after an antifreeze leak. And similar to the - would be - alternator on the sidelines of that metaphor, Tess's enthusiasm for her after hours work was having difficulty in keeping charged up also. — Calvin W. Allison

I'm quickly approaching the moment of discovery: of myself by myself, which was something I knew all along and yet didn't know; and the discovery by poor half-blind Dr. Philobosian of what he'd failed to notice at my birth and continued to miss during every annual physical thereafter; and the discovery by my parents of what kind of child they'd given birth to (answer: the same child, only different); and finally, the discovery of the mutated gene that had lain buried in our bloodline for two hundred and fifty years, biding its time, waiting for Ataturk to attack, for Hajienestis to turn into glass, for a clarinet to play seductively out a back window, until, comint together with its recessive twin, it started the chain of events that led to me, here, writing in Berlin. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Her Yankees-loving, bottle cap-giving, dimpled smile other half was gone, and there wasn't anything she wouldn't do to turn back time. — Gail McHugh

Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what are we going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do. — Ulysses S. Grant

I wish I could turn back time, but I can't. I made a stupid decision because I thought I was invincible, and I'll pay for it the rest of my life. — Simone Elkeles

Ruefully admitting we can neither remain children nor all become artists still less saints and mystics, we turn back, regretfully, but massively, to the time-ridden world. — Alan McGlashan

The beautiful unruliness of literature is what makes it so much fun to wander through: you read Jane Austen and you say, oh, that is IT. And then you turn around and read Sterne, and you say, Man, that is IT. And then you wander across a century or so, and you run into Kafka, or Calvino, or Cortazar, and you say, well that is IT. And then you stroll through what Updike called the grottos of Ulysses, and after that you consort with Baldwin or Welty or Spencer, or Morrison, or Bellow or Fitzgerald and then back to W. Shakespeare, Esq; the champ, and all the time you feel the excitement of being in the presence of IT. And when you yourself spend the good time writing, you are not different in kind than any of these people, you are part of that miracle of human invention. So get to work. Get on with IT, no matter how difficult IT is. Every single gesture, every single stumble, every single uninspired-feeling hour, is worth IT. Richard Bausch — Kathy Fish

I'll be on another case soon. You won't need me anymore. You'll be walking, though I think you should wait a while before climbing another mountain."

"You're my therapist," Blake snapped.

Dione gave a little laugh. "For months you've depended on me more than any other person in your life. Your perspective is distorted now.
Believe me, by the time I've been gone a month, you won't even think about me."

'Do you mean you'd just turn your back on me and walk away?" he asked disbelievingly. — Linda Howard

All men must sleep, Bran. Even princes."
"When I sleep I turn into a wolf." Bran turned his face away and looked back out into the night. "Do wolves dream?"
"All creatures dream, I think, yet not as men do."
"Do dead men dream?" Bran asked, thinking of his father. In the dark crypts below Winterfell, a stonemason was chiseling out his father's likeness in granite.
"Some say yes, some no," the maester answered. "The dead themselves are silent on the matter."
"Do trees dream?"
"Trees? No ... "
"They do," Bran said with sudden certainty. "They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. The wolf dreams are better. I smell things, and sometimes I can taste the blood."
Maester Luwin tugged at his chain where it chafed his neck. "If you would only spend more time with the other children - "
"I hate the other children," Bran said, meaning the Walders. "I commanded you to send them away. — George R R Martin

Fain would I turn back the clock and devote to French or some other language the hours I spent upon algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, of which not one principle remains with me. Stay! There is one theorem painfully drummed into my head which seems to have inhabited some corner of my brain since that early time: "The square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides!" There it sticks, but what of it, ye gods, what of it? — Jessie Belle Rittenhouse

You remember the dialogue you had with yourself, you can quote the emotion word for word, as if you're still there, as if it matters that you can map in detail the geographies of regret.

It starts with a hope and ends with a turn of the stomach: a cringe at the excuses you make for your heart, a momentary forever you remember on alternate days over coffee and novels that hit too close to home.

You cry because you know the point at which you could have turned back but didn't, could have taken time by the throat and resisted, could have ignored the phone, answered that message, said no, said yes, said nothing, smiled - whatever it is that you didn't do. But by the time that moment ends, it is over and you are in too deep, wondering why there exists no rewind button for the soul, no second chance for the petty player, no backup plan for those who risk everything on nothing, all at once. — Tania De Rozario

I lean in this time, and she doesn't turn away. It's cold, and our lips are dry, noses a little wet, foreheads sweaty beneath wool hats. I can't touch her face, even though I want to, because I'm wearing gloves. But God, when her lips come apart, everything turns warm and her sugar sweet breath is in my mouth, and I probably taste like hot dogs but I don't care. She kisses like a sweet devouring, and I don't know where to touch her because I want all of her. I want to touch her knees and hips and her stomach and her back and her everything, but we're encased in all these clothes, so we're just two marshmallows bumping against each other, and she smiles at me while still kissing because she knows how ridiculous it is, too. — John Green

Kellum reminded the jury that special prosecutor Robert Smith, "a gentleman I don't know," would have the final argument, and that this was a powerful advantage. He then closed with a dramatic message that the jury's verdict would have eternal consequences. I want you to think of the future. When your summons comes to cross the Great Divide, and, as you enter your father's house - a home not made by hands but eternal in the heavens, you can look back to where your father's feet have trod and see your good record written in the sands of time and, when you go down to your lonely silent tomb to a sleep that knows no dreams, I want you to hold in the palm of your hand a record of service to God and your fellow man. And the only way you can do that is to turn these boys loose.123 — Devery S. Anderson

We went back on a very similar manifesto to things I believe in. The difference is that after eighteen months to two years he did the biggest U-turn on policy of all time and started to go the wrong way. In the end, that cost us the next election. — Margaret Thatcher

John Carter was also one of our first recognizable superhumans and there is little doubt that his extraordinary physical feats inspired Superman's creators. Remember: before Superman could fly or turn back time, he was nothing less than an earthbound crime-fighting John Carter in tights. — Junot Diaz

It is the task of the First Order to remove the disorder from our own existence, so that civilization may be returned to the stability that promotes progress. A stability that existed under the Empire, was reduced to anarchy by the Rebellion, was inherited in turn by the so-called Republic, and will be restored by us. Future historians will look upon this as the time when a strong hand brought the rule of law back to civilization. Mitaka — Alan Dean Foster

If I had to wish for something, just one thing, it would be that Hannah would never see Tate the way I did. Never see Tate's beautiful, lush hair turn brittle, her skin sallow, her teeth ruined by anything she could get her hands on that would make her forget. That Hannah would never count how many men there were, or how vile humans can be to one another. That she would never see the moments in my life that were full of neglect, and fear, and revulsion, moments I can never go back to because I know they will slow me down for the rest of my life if I let myself remember them for one moment. Tate, who had kept Hannah alive that night, reading her the story of Jem Finch and Mrs. Dubose. And suddenly I know I have to go. But this time without being chased by the Brigadier, without experiencing the kindness of a postman from Yass, and without taking along a Cadet who will change the way I breath for the rest of my life. — Melina Marchetta

Sometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It's bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back. — Michael Crichton

If I could turn back time, I would tell myself that I'm beautiful every day, because we all are! And we need to start believing it! — Demi Lovato

I'm trying to decide
Which way to go
I think I made a wrong turn back there somewhere
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Tried to move but I lost my way
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Stopped to watch my emotions sway
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Knew the toll, but I would not pay
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Cause you never know where the cards may lay
Time to save the world
Where in the world is all the time
So many things I still don't know
So many times I've changed my mind
Guess I was born to make mistakes
But I ain't scared to take the weight
So when I stumble off the path
I know my heart will guide me back — Erykah Badu

it's time for us to go and face ISL once more and that meant interrogation from our new governor Silmois what fun. The fact we where back in ISL again made my stomach turn — Charon Lloyd-Roberts

When does God turn a want into a need? When you feel the same way almost every day. Your thoughts can be distracted for a short period of time, but your mind will always take you back to the one place that feels like home. — Shannon L. Alder

She's my wife. Back off, jarhead," he tossed back over his shoulder. Jared laughed, and it wasn't a mean laugh. Cassie bit back a grin as he stepped back, giving Mitch room to turn around before stepping right back into his personal space. His smile was knowing and totally awesome. "Actually, she's Cassie. She's nobody's wife, because the loser she was married to wasn't smart enough to know just how awesome his wife was when he had her. So if that's you, I'm sorry, bud. And I'm guessing it is, because only a moron who's never served in uniform would call someone a jarhead. You gotta be a Marine to use that term, and only to another Marine. You fail on both points, but try harder next time. — Cora Seton

Da used to say that lies were easy, but trust was hard. Trust is like faith: it can turn people into believers, but every time it's lost, trust becomes harder and harder to win back. — Victoria Schwab

Holding each other, the rain cooling their bodies, they laughed like children. "I expected steam this time," Jacques said, crushing her to him.
"Can you do that?" Shea fit the back of her head into the niche of his sternum. One hand idly slid over the heavy muscles of his chest.
"Make us so hot we turn the rain to steam?" He grinned boyishly down at her, for the first time so carefree that he forgot for a moment the torment he had suffered. — Christine Feehan

Hey,' Wildgirl says, 'let me into your backpack. I've got a light on my keys that I totally forgot about.'
I turn my back to her and feel her fumbling with the zip of my pack. It's a lot lighter now.
'I'm glad you hung on to your bag. I would have had to kick your ass if you lost all my stuff.'
I probably wouldn't mind that, although if I were given a choice, I'd opt for another kiss. It's the first time I've been so close to someone since I've changed. Kissing felt better than I remembered, but it also felt like it was something I had to be careful about. It never felt that way before. — Leanne Hall

Diesel rocked back on his heels and grinned at the monkey. "Carl?"
"Eep!" The monkey stood, squinted at Diesel, and gave him the finger.
"Looks like you know each other," I said.
"Our paths crossed in Trenton," Diesel said. "How did he get here?"
"Monkey Rescue," Glo told him. "He was abandoned."
"Figures," Diesel said.
The monkey gave him the finger again.
"Does he do that all the time?" I asked Diesel.
"Not all the time."
"I got him by mistake," Glo said. "And now we don't know what to do with him."
"You could turn him loose and let him go play in traffic." Diesel said.
- Lizzy, Shirley, Diesel, and Carl, pages 132-134. — Janet Evanovich

Several times in his life he had felt an intense desire to start over, to somehow turn back the clock of his life to a point where he might, if he were careful, avoid the many mistakes he had made the first time around. — Larry McMurtry

Staying on the treadmill is one thing, and I do think it's related to staying true to our commitments even when we're not comfortable. But getting back on the treadmill the next day, eager to try again, is in my view even more reflective of grit. Because when you don't come back the next day - when you permanently turn your back on a commitment - your effort plummets to zero. As a consequence, your skills stop improving, and at the same time, you stop producing anything with whatever skills you have. — Angela Duckworth

Detainees were not allowed to talk to each other, but we enjoyed looking at each other. The punishment for talking was hanging the detainee by the hands with his feet barely touching the ground. I saw an Afghani detainee who passed out a couple of times while hanging from his hands. The medics "fixed" him and hung him back up. Other detainees were luckier: they were hung for a certain time and then released. Most of the detainees tried to talk while they were hanging, which made the guards double their punishment. There was a very old Afghani fellow who reportedly was arrested to turn over his son. The guy was mentally sick; he couldn't stop talking because he didn't know where he was, nor why. I don't think he understood his environment, but the guards kept dutifully hanging him. It was so pitiful. One day one of the guards threw him on his face, and he was crying like a baby. — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

You can have the rest of your life with her," St. Just said gently. "What if she won't have me?" Emmie asked softly. "What if she can't understand? She's six years old, St. Just. I've let her think she's had no mother for half her years on earth, and I was ready to turn my back on her completely." His fingers closed over hers, and this time he didn't simply pat her hand and let go. "You were trying to do the best you could in difficult circumstances. You wanted what was best for Winnie, and she will eventually understand that. It will work out. I know it will." "I can only hope so, and I can only continue to try my best." "Winnie — Grace Burrowes

Fright is something one can never get over. When a warrior is caught in such a tight spot he would simply turn his back to the ally without thinking twice. A warrior cannot indulge thus he cannot die of fright. A warrior allows the ally to come only when he is good and ready. When he is strong enough to grapple with the ally he opens up his gap and lurches out, grabs the ally, keeps him pinned down and maintains his stare on him for exactly the time he has to, then he moves his eyes away and releases the ally and lets him go. A warrior, my little friend, is the master at all times — Carlos Castaneda

You will never find it," his ghost says. "What?" "What you are looking for. You want to go back to the start. You want to go back to where you began. You want to find the happiness you once had. But you can never get there, because even if you somehow found it, you yourself would be different. You would have changed, from your journey alone, from the passing of time, if nothing else. You can never make it back to where you began, you can only ever climb another turn of the spiral stair. Forever. — Marcus Sedgwick

The water can't turn back and choose another bed, just as promises now cannot be kept. No drowned man comes up again asking for a towel, no love is found again, no tobacconist fails to be born in the first place, no bullet shoots out of a neck and back into the gun, the dam will hold or will not hold. — Sasa Stanisic

After they had gone another mile, Pinocchio heard the same little low voice saying to him:
'Bear it in mind, simpleton! Boys who refuse to study, and turn their backs upon books, schools, and masters, to pass their time in play and amusements, sooner or later come to a bad end ... I know it by experience ... and I can tell you. A day will come when you will weep as I am weeping now ... but then it will be too late! ... '
On hearing these words whispered very softly, the puppet, more frightened than ever, sprang down from the back of his donkey and went and took hold of his mouth.
Imagine his surprise when he found that the donkey was crying ... and he was crying like a boy! — Carlo Collodi

He pulled her mirror out of his other pocket. "You left your mirror on my table." He extended it toward her.
"You can keep it," she said quietly. "We have lots of mirrors here."
"I'll keep it, then."
"Good. I'm glad."
He'd never rushed headlong into a battle, but he figured this time, it might be the best approach. "I spent a lot of time studying it. The back is real pretty with all the gold carving. Took me about an hour to gather up the courage to turn it over and look at the other side."
"And what did you see?"
" Aman who loves you more than life itself."
Closing her eyes, she dropped her chin to her chest.
"I wouldn't blame you if you hated me. I haven't held your feelings as precious as I should have."
"I don't hate you," she whispered hoarsely. "I tried to, but I can't."
-Houston and Amelia — Lorraine Heath

When you read books on your Kindle, the data about which phrases you highlight, which pages you turn, and whether you read straight through or skip around are all fed back into Amazon's servers and can be used to indicate what books you might like next. When you log in after a day reading Kindle e-books at the beach, Amazon is able to subtly customize its site to appeal to what you've read: If you've spent a lot of time with the latest James Patterson, but only glanced at that new diet guide, you might see more commercial thrillers and fewer health books. — Eli Pariser

When things fall apart and we can't get the pieces back together, when we lose something dear to us, when they whole thing is just not working and we don't know what to do, this is the time when the natural warmth of tenderness, the warmth of empathy and kindness, are just waiting to be uncovered, just waiting to be embraced. This is our chance to come out of our self-protecting bubble and to realize that we are never alone. This is our chance to finally understand that wherever we go, everyone we meet is essentially just like us. Our own suffering, if we turn toward it, can open us to a loving relationship with the world. — Pema Chodron

Every time we see people as ordinary, we turn the wine back into water. — Bob Goff

Because the air had smelled so sweet, and the sky had been black velvet, spangled with points of diamond light that didn't flicker at all, only burned constant and cold. Because the grass had been wet with dew, and the trees had been heavy with fruit. Because she had wanted to know what was at the end of the long path between the trees, and because she hadn't wanted to turn back before she understood everything. Because for the first time in forever, she'd felt like she was going home, and that feeling had been enough to move her feet, slowly at first, and then faster, and faster, until she had been running through the clean night air, and nothing else mattered, or would ever matter again. — Seanan McGuire

In America, karma is best expressed in popular phrases like what goes around, comes around and what you sow, you will reap. Karma has also been referred to as having a boomerang effect where the thoughts and actions that you send out into the world turn around and come back at you ... Jesus says, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Karma goes a step further and dictates that What you do unto others will come back to you. I think Jesus and the Hindus really had the same idea. Think about that the next time you want to say or do something nasty to someone else! — Carmen Harra

But this was not all, for she soon found that the thread, after going straight down for a little way, turned first sideways in one direction, then sideways in another, and then shot, at various angles, hither and thither inside the heap, so that she began to be afraid that to clear the thread she must remove the whole huge gathering. She was dismayed at the very idea, but, losing no time, set to work with a will; and with aching back, and bleeding fingers and hands, she worked on, sustained by the pleasure of seeing the heap slowly diminish and begin to show itself on the opposite side of the fire. Another thing which helped to keep up her courage was that, as often as she uncovered a turn of the thread, instead of lying loose upon the stone, it tightened up; this made her sure that her grandmother was at the end of it somewhere. — George MacDonald

I don't back down. Like, I don't know how to flop. That's never been a part of my game. For me to know if a guy likes to turn left shoulder or right shoulder in the post, I have an advantage. Or if he likes to go left all the time, I have an advantage. Or if he can't make open jump shots, I have an advantage. — Kenyon Martin

Don't forget to turn your clocks back today if you don't want your clocks to be set to the right time. — Demetri Martin

SEA OF LIFE

This is not the end, my friend.
Just as the ocean sings songs to infinity
Our friendship too will flow onward
Until the day one of us
Turns and leaves
And the seasons will turn too
As our shells
As they return back to sand
And the tides that brought us
Forth
Will take us back
Again.

I will never leave you, my friend.
Every time you see a wave rushing to
Meet another,
Two friends unite.
Every time you see a wave crashing,
Two friends depart.
The journey will go on, my friend.
Our memories are recorded
In seashells
To show and tell
The lessons learned
In these heavens and hells
Part of this sea of life -
And when the tide is right,
We shall cross paths again
When the ocean sings our song.

Poetry by Suzy Kassem — Suzy Kassem

But Thomas didn't have time to finish his thought. Gally reached behind himself, pulled something long and shiny from his back pocket. The lights of the chamber flashed off the silvery surface - a wicked-looking dagger, gripped tightly in his fingers. With unexpected speed, he reared back and threw the knife at Thomas. As he did so, Thomas heard a shout to his right, sensed movement. Toward him. The blade windmilled, its every turn visible to Thomas, as if the world had turned to slow motion. As if it did so for the sole purpose of allowing him to feel the terror of seeing such a thing. On the knife came, flipping over and over, straight at him. A strangled cry was forming in his throat; he urged himself to move but he couldn't. Then, inexplicably, Chuck was there, diving in front of him. Thomas felt as if his feet had been frozen in blocks of ice; he could only stare at the scene of horror unfolding before him, completely helpless. — James Dashner

harbinger, n.
When I was in third grade, we would play that game at recess where you'd twist an apple while holding on to its stem, reciting the alphabet, one letter for each turn. When the stem broke, the name of your true love would be revealed. Whenever I played, I always made sure that the apple broke at K. At the time I was doing this because no one in my grade had a name that began with K. Then, in college, it seemed like everyone I fell for was a K. It was enough to make me give up on the letter, and I didn't even associate it with you until later on, when I saw your signature on a credit card receipt, and the only legible letter was that first K. I will admit: When I got home that night, I went to the refrigerator and took out another apple. But I stopped twisting at J and put the apple back. You see, I didn't trust myself. I knew that even if the apple wasn't ready, I was going to pull that stem — David Levithan

I saw a young sister, just before this service; and I said to her, "When did you find the Lord?" She replied, "It was when I was very ill." Yes, it is often so; God makes us ill in body that we may have time to think of Him, and turn to Him ... What would become of some people if they were always in good health, or if they were always prospering? But tribulation is the black dog that goes after the stray sheep, and barks them back to the Good Shepherd. I thank God that there are such things as the visitations of correction and of holy discipline, to preserve our spirit, and bring us to Christ. — Charles Spurgeon

The Engineer smiled (internally, for of course it had no mouth). It was feeling good. It was feeling optimistic. Moving at its current speed, it would arrive back in Ireland in plenty of time to shut everything down before a series of overloads and power loops inevitably led to a sequence of events which would, in turn, eventually lead to the probable destruction of the world. The Engineer wasn't worried.
And then the truck hit it. — Derek Landy

The way I see it, the true fear for us as human being is not terror as such. Terror certainly exists there... It manifests itself in various forms, and from time to time overwhelms our very existence as human beings. But the most fearful thing of all is to turn your back on that fear, to close your eyes to it. By doing that, we end up alienating the very most essential part of our make-up — Haruki Murakami

My first time in Madagascar was awesome because lemurs are kind of funny; they throw fruit at the back of your head when you're not looking and then point at one another when you turn around. — Kevin Hearne

I'm so glad you're back. We need you here. I mean ... Burnett's okay, but ... he's not you."
Holiday arched a brow. "I hear he wasn't even himself for a while there."
Miranda frowned. "He told you about the whole kangaroo thing, didn't he."
"Yeah," Holiday said, and her brows tightened. "And I must say, I'm very disappointed with you, Miranda" she reached out and gripped Miranda's hand. "The next time you turn him into anything, do it when I'm here to enjoy it."
-Taken at Dusk — C.C. Hunter

Most conservatives just want to turn back the clock to a time before the income tax - 100 years or so. I would like to turn the clock back thousands of years to a time when people lived in small communities and took care of each other. — Pete Seeger

Our first job in life is to recognize the gifts we've already got, take the donuts that show up while we cultivate and use those gifts, and then turn around and share those gifts - sometimes in the form of money, sometimes time, sometimes love - back into the puzzle of the world. Our second job is to accept where we are in the puzzle at each moment. — Amanda Palmer

I devised a test.
I turned off the TV and instantly the snoring stopped. She began to move. When I felt her eyes about to open, I turned the TV back on and back to sleep she went. Then I'd turn it off and on - sometimes for millisecond - and she never failed me. Each time it was off, she's move and mutter - each time it was on, she'd sleep.
By the time the headlights from Amy's Nova turned into our driveway, my suspicion had been confirmed. My mother has a more intimate, connected relationship with this television than she has ever had with me. — Peter Hedges

And then suddenly I hear his footsteps approaching. He's behind me, thirty feet away, at a guess.
No wonder I couldn't see him.
I should turn. Right now I should turn. This is the moment that it would be natural to swivel round
and greet him. Call out a hello; wave my phone in the air.
But my feet are rooted to the spot. I can't bring myself to move. Because as soon as I do, it will be
time to be polite and matter-of-fact and back to normal. And I can't bear that. I want to stay here. In
the place where we can say anything to each other. In the magic spell.
Sam pauses, right behind me. There's an unbearable fragile beat as I wait for him to shatter the quiet. But it's as though he feels the same way. He says nothing. All I can hear is the gentle sound
of his breathing. Slowly, his arms wrap round me from behind. I close my eyes and lean back
against his chest, feeling unreal. — Sophie Kinsella