Unguarded Moment Quotes & Sayings

And when Mary nodded, Pauline said, "You'd better hurry then, you know how how is," and laughed to show she would not be married to bald John Keane for all the tea in China. In her laugh was every confidence Mary had ever shared with Pauline about her husband's failings, every unguarded criticism, every angry, impromptu, frustrated critique of his personality, his manners, his sometimes morbid, sometimes inscrutable, sometimes impatient ways. A repository, Pauline and her laugh, for every moment in thier marriage when Mary Keane had not loved her husband, when love itself had seemed a misapprehension, a delusion (a stranger standing outside of Schrafft's transformed into an answered prayer), and marriage
which Pauline had had sense enough to spurn
simply an awkward pact with a stranger, any stranger, John or George, Tom, Dick, or Harry.
A repository, Pauline and her laugh, her knowing eye, for all that Mary Keane should have kept to herself. — Alice McDermott

I am sure that you have had, as we all have, that mysterious experience of prescience
a moment when, beyond reason and cause, at a word, or a flicker of an eyelid, or at anything at all, one has a sudden foreboding
of what,one does not know,. I am not a religious man; but sometimes I am nearly tempted to believe that the gods do speak to us, and that only in unguarded moments do we listen. — John Edward Williams

The part of you that is unhampered by illusion-the illusion of time, the illusion of powerlessness, the illusion of impossibility-i s waiting for you to slow down and open up so that it can speak to your consciousness. In some unguarded moment, you will hear its wildly improbable words and know that they are guiding you home. — Martha Beck

The world allured me & in an unguarded moment I listened to her siren voice. From that moment I seemed to lose interest in heavenly things. Friends reasoned with me & told me of the danger I was in. I felt my danger & was alarmed, but I had rambled too far to return & ever since my heart has been growing harder. — Emily Dickinson

Wherever I go, whomever I meet, I see myself in their eyes, because I am a part of everything, because I love. — Miguel Ruiz

Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I fake an annoyed look at his interruption. "As I was saying, your ego doesn't need to be inflated."
But as I say the words, I realize that I don't think they're true. Every now and then I catch him watching me at an unguarded moment, and his eyes are so vulnerable I almost feel like I'm looking at his eight-year-old self. He clearly enjoys the banter back and forth, however, and we seem to drop into that routine naturally. — Rysa Walker

Sleep, honey. We can play later." And if she hadn't seen it with her own tired eyes, she never would've believed it. Like the snuffing of a candle, he was asleep in seconds. Burning red hot one moment, a ghost of dissipating smoke the next.

Hope inventoried his unguarded face, softer and so much younger in sleep, his enviably long lashes hiding the ever present jadedness. Fatigue pulled at her and she fought it, forcing her eyes open when they drifted shut.

"I'm not gonna fall in love with you, Beck. I'm gonna leave you in August."

She whispered the vow to a man in deep sleep. To a room cast in shadow. To a house steeped in tradition. To a woman mired in denial.

Sleep took her quickly, quicker than she wanted, and with it came the mocking sound of her surely spoken promise, echoing in her dreams like a school yard taunt. — Jodi Watters

What many people do not understand is: It's not about who you think you know, but about who actually knows you. So better start giving today, be it giving everything at your job, or giving out lunch to that man. Start giving, and the world will know your true character! — Akilnathan Logeswaran

Most of my photos are grounded in people, I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a persons face. — Steve McCurry

I always knew she loved me, but I didn't need to accept everything she gave me, like her fears that people would let you down when you needed them, or the conviction that danger lurked behind every unguarded moment. — Mani Feniger

It is wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war, and it is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war. — Clara Barton

Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness. — Eckhart Tolle

The sun?" Goldman said in an unguarded moment. "I hear they've shot it. — Alan Furst

The whole body reacts to color. If you were to walk into an all-neon-pink room, it would be difficult not to react. I think it is a unified, human thing to feel color with everything. It is like standing next to a bass speaker plugged into your eyeballs. — Jim Drain

Everyone makes choices, and no one knows what may be the end of any of them. If my own was to blame for many things, it was not to blame for everything. Nor was harm all that had come of it. — Diana Gabaldon

Whatever form each of our own intimate adventures has taken in our fantasies, or in "real life," this Sacred Romance is set within all our hearts and will not go away. It is the core of our spiritual journey. Any religion that ignores it survives only as a guilt induced legalism, a set of propositions to be memorized and rules to be obeyed.
Someone or something has romances us from the beginning with creek-side singers and pastel sunsets, with the austere majesty of snow capped mountains and the poignant flames of autumn colors telling us of something - or someone - leaving with a promise to return. These things can, in an unguarded moment, bring us to our knees with longing for this something or someone who is lost; someone or something only our hearts recognizes. — John Eldredge

The fact that you are true child of God doesn't mean you will find gold on the floor when sweeping. You got to dig up the gold! — Israelmore Ayivor

And the way it felt?" I whisper, as if that might soften the blow of embarrassment I'm about to deal. "Is that how you were feeling - how you feel - about me?"
A breeze comes off the ocean, and my skin feels strangely empty and open as he gives an almost imperceptible nod. — Elizabeth Norris

Heavenly Father has given a simple pattern for us to receive the Holy Ghost not once but continually in the tumult of our daily lives. The pattern is repeated in the sacramental prayer: We promise that we will always remember the Savior. We promise to take His name upon us. We promise to keep His commandments. — Henry B. Eyring

O that one unguarded moment! / Were it mine to live again, / All the strength of its temptation / Would appeal to me in vain. — Phoebe Cary

He has two antagonists: the first presses him from behind, from the origin. The second blocks the road ahead. He gives battle to both. To be sure, the first supports him in his fight with the second, for he wants to push him forward, and in the same way the second supports him in his fight with the first, since he drives him back. But it is only theoretically so. For it is not only the two antagonists who are there, but he himself as well, and who really knows his intentions? His dream, though, is that some time in an unguarded moment and this would require a night darker than any night has ever been yet he will jump out of the fighting line and be promoted, on account of his experience in fighting, to the position of umpire over his antagonists in their fight with each other. — Franz Kafka

I can honestly say, there was a moment when I was writing 'Upstream Color' where I fell so hard for what it was becoming that I couldn't think of anything else. I was absolutely secure in this story in the way I'm rarely secure about anything else in my life. — Shane Carruth

The girl in the mirror caught my eye briefly ... It is an uncanny feeling, that rare occasion when one catches a glimpse of oneself in repose. An unguarded moment, stripped of artifice, when one forgets to fool even oneself. — Kate Morton

Unguarded moment she pictured herself waltzing with Viscount Whitleaf, — Mary Balogh

I think our problems are inherently unsolvable. We need to change our genetic make-up or create computers that will think us out of it. I don't think humans are able to deal with what we have. — Neill Blomkamp

All right," he said. "Ready for the moment of truth?"
Lindsay looked at him quizzically.
Fred held a wooden spoonful of fudge up in front of her, waving it lightly through the air to cool it. "Here. Time to see if I've got it right."
Lindsay looked at him over the spoon, a wonderful complication of emotions in her eyes. Did she want him to win or lose the bet? Fred wasn't sure she knew the answer herself. She turned her face up toward him as he held the spoon to her lips. And then, as she tasted it, she closed her eyes, savoring the chocolate. Her expression was one of blissful surrender.
This was the real Lindsay, her face unguarded, completely in the moment. Very much like a woman lost in a kiss.
He never should have brought the bloody mistletoe. — Sierra Donovan

The gift of presence is a rare and beautiful gift. To come - unguarded, undistracted - and be fully present, fully engaged with whoever we are with at that moment. — John Eldredge

Overshadowing all Roosevelt's decisions, Perkins wrote, "was his feeling that nothing in human judgment is final. One may courageously take the step that seems right today because it can be modified tomorrow if it does not work well." He was an improviser, not a planner. He took a step and adjusted, a step and adjusted. Gradually a big change would emerge. — David Brooks

A remarkable feature of the humanitarian movement, on both its sentimental and utilitarian sides, has been its preoccupation with the lot of the masses. — Irving Babbitt