Waiting For Long Time Quotes & Sayings

Most people give little enough real thought to their own mortality. Oh yes, they gabble on about heaven and the bosom of Abraham, but really, they are weary of life almost from the time they're born, and are only waiting for it all to end. They live their days quietly, obscurely, and underneath their daily toils, they long for oblivion. — Ari Berk

I kept thinking I was always going to meet the right man, but I never did. Kept waiting for this knight in shining armour. 'When's he coming? He's taking a long time, isn't he?' — Samantha Fox

That boulder did what it was there to do. Boulders fall. That's their nature. It did the only natural thing it could do. It was set up, but it was waiting for you. Without you coming along and pulling it, it would still be stuck where it had been for who knows how long. You did this, Aron. You created it. You chose to come here today; you chose to do this descent into the slot canyon by yourself. You chose not to tell anyone where you were going. You chose to turn away from the women who were there to keep you from getting in this trouble. You created this accident. You wanted it to be like this. You have been heading for this situation for a long time. Look how far you came to find this spot. It's not that you're getting what you deserve - you're getting what you wanted. — Aron Ralston

When you are waiting for a train, don't keep perpetually looking to see if it is coming. The time of its arrival is the business of the conductor, not yours. It will not come any sooner for all your nervous glances and your impatient pacing, and you will save strength if you will keep quiet. After we discover that the people who sit still on a long railroad journey reach that journey's end at precisely the same time as those who "fuss" continually, we have a valuable piece of information which we should not fail to put to practical use. — Anna Brackett

All this time I had never been able to consider my own situation, nor could I do so yet. I had not the power to attend to it. I was greatly dejected and distressed, but in an incoherent wholesale sort of way. As to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have formed an elephant. When I opened the shutters and looked out at the wet wild morning, all of a leaden hue; when I walked from room to room; when I sat down again shivering, before the fire, waiting for my laundress to appear; I thought how miserable I was, but hardly knew why, or how long I had been so, or on what day of the week I made the reflection, or even who I was that made it. — Charles Dickens

Come here into the warmth," he said easily. He reached for her, taking her hand and pulling her toward him. "I've been waiting for you." He stroked her hair, shifting a bit to let the light fall on her. "For a very long time."
She, too, reached for him, following a line in the air along the length of the forming scar that marred his chest. A corona flared around him until she moved past the point where the sunlight hit her eyes. She stared at his chest, at the gashed and ill-healed flesh, and he, seeing her attention, took her hand and brought her fingers to his mouth. She felt the warmth of his breath, the pressure of his lips, soft and warm. "I wish you had never been wounded," she said. "Even though it brought you home to me. — Carolyn Jewel

He was keeping track of time. It was nearly two hours since he had last looked at his watch, but he knew what time it was to within about twenty seconds. It was an old skill, born of many long wakeful nights on active service. When you're waiting for something to happen, you close your body down like a beach house in winter and you let your mind lock onto the steady pace of the passing seconds. It's like suspended animation. It saves energy and it lifts the responsibility for your heartbeat away from your unconscious brain and passes it on to some kind of a hidden clock. Makes a huge black space for thinking in. But it keeps you just awake enough to be reach for whatever you need to be ready for. And it means you always know what time it is. — Lee Child

These small wins matter more because they are so much more likely to occur compared to the big break-throughs in the world. If we only waited for the big wins, we would be waiting a long time. And we would probably quit long before we saw anything tangible come to fruition. What you need instead of big wins is simply the forward momentum that small wins bring. — Hendrie Weisinger

I've been waiting for you for a very long time." I raised her off my shoulders, lowered her to me, and guided her legs around my waist. "Why did you take so long to come to me?"
"If I knew you were here, I would've come so much sooner. — Kenya Wright

He wondered if he would live to see the blossom on his apple trees and felt an answering pop inside himself. Ah, so it would not be long now. It began to snow lightly, the last flakes to fall before the spring. He put on his wedding finery, the clothes he had worn so long ago when he married his beloved Pamposh, and which he had kept all this time wrapped in tissue paper in a trunk. As a bridegroom he went outdoors and the snowflakes caressed his grizzled cheeks. His mind was alert, he was ambulatory and nobody was waiting for him with a club. He had his body and his mind and it seemed he was to be spared a brutal end. That at least was kind. He went into his apple orchard, seated himself cross-legged beneath a tree, closed his eyes, heard the verses of the Rig-Veda fill the world with beauty and ceased upon the midnight with no pain. — Salman Rushdie

This is what I find so strange: we are not necessarily kind to animals. We use them, we eat them. But we don't like them to suffer. Yet humans must. They have to wait for the great Vet himself to decide how long their anguish must last and how deep it must reach. And He has, as far as I can see, a habit of waiting a long, long time before deciding to end their misery. — Beverly Rycroft

Hello, old friend. And here we are. You and me, on the last page. By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone. So know that we lived well and were very happy. And above all else, know that we will love you always. Sometimes I do worry about you though. I think once we're gone you won't be coming back here for awhile. And you might be alone. Which you should never be. Don't be alone, Doctor. And do one more thing for me. There's a little girl waiting in a garden. She's going to wait a long while, so she's going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that if she's patient, the days are coming that she'll never forget. Tell her she'll go to see and fight pirates. She'll fall in love with a man who'll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she'll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived. And save a whale in outer space. Tell her, this is the story of Amelia Pond. And this is how it ends. — Steven Moffat

And there would be more partings, more losses, more wounds, over and over, again and again. He could change his destiny a hundred times, and each time another loss or separation would be waiting for him on the other side. As long as there is happiness, there will be sadness. As long as there is fortune, there will be misfortune. — Miyuki Miyabe

If your access to health care involves your leaving work and driving somewhere and parking and waiting for a long time, that's not going to promote healthiness. — Larry Page

It's been a process of evolving within a family company to get the autonomy I now have from a boss like my father. If you're sitting there waiting for a pat on the back, you're going to be waiting a long time. — Donald Trump Jr.

I start the engine and shoot a glance through the tinted window, figuring if anyone is still watching, they can no longer see past my silhouette. Gray seems to have been waiting for a movement like this. He's waving like a dork and swinging my long forgotten pink hoodie high in the air so I can see it.
He's yelling, "Bye Jess!" He flips my hoodie onto his shoulders and ties it around his neck until it looks like a ridiculous scarf - as though he means to wear it like that for a long time. — Anne Eliot

I've known I was ready to spend the rest of my life with you for a long time, Jamie. I was only waiting for your stubborn butt to realize it, too. — Kelly Oram

It sometimes seems that we live as if we wonder when life is going to begin. It isn't always clear just what we are waiting for, but some of us sometimes persist in waiting so long that life slips by - finding us still waiting for something that has been going on all the time ... This is the life in which the work of this life is to be done. Today is as much a part of eternity as any day a thousand years ago or as will be any day a thousand years hence. This is it, whether we are thrilled or disappointed, busy or bored! This is life, and it is passing. — Richard L. Evans

People are content to wait a long time for salvation, but prefer dinner to turn up inside an hour. — Terry Pratchett

You shouldn't waste your time," he further said. "Don't you see that to do any little thing you have to take an examination, you have to pay a fee and get a card or a diploma? You better get wise to this. If people don't know what you qualify in they'll never know where to place you, and that can be dangerous. You have to get in there and do something for yourself. Even if you're just waiting, you have to know what you're waiting for, you have to specialize. And don't wait too long or you'll be passed by. — Saul Bellow

Francie nodded shyly. The girl brought an eraser close to the mesh. Francie poked a finger through to touch the vari-colored felt layers blended together by a film of powdered chalk. As she was about to touch this soft beautifulness, the little girl snatched it away and spat full in Francie's face. Francie closed her eyes tightly to keep the hurt bitter tears from spilling out. The other girl stood there curiously, waiting for the tears. When none came, she taunted: "Why don't you bust out crying, you dockle? Want I should spit in your face again?" Francie turned and went down into the cellar and sat in the dark a long time waiting until the waves of hurt stopped breaking over her. It was the first of many disillusionments that were to come as her capacity to feel things grew. She never liked blackboard erasers after that. — Betty Smith

But, when nothing subsists of an old past, after the death of people, after the destruction of things, alone, frailer but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, smell and taste still remain for a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, on the ruin of all the rest, bearing without giving way, on their almost impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory. — Marcel Proust

You spend a long time waiting for life to start - the past year or two filled with all these firsts, everything new and terrifying and significant - and then it does start and you realize it isn't what you'd expected, or asked for. — Megan Abbott

Parents abandon their children. Children abandon their parents. Parents protect or forsake, but they always forsake. Children stay or go but they always go. And it's all unfair, especially the sound of the words, because language is pleasing and confusing, because ultimately we would like to sing or at least whistle a tune, to walk alongside the stage whistling a tune. We want to be actors waiting patiently for the cue to go onstage. But the audience left a long time ago. — Alejandro Zambra

However, while being able to think about two things at the same time is a terribly convenient, the training it takes to get there is frustrating at best, and at other times rather disturbing.
I remember one time I looked for the stone for almost an hour before I consented to ask the other half of me where I'd hidden it, only to find I hadn't hidden the stone at all. I had merely been waiting to see how long I would look before giving up. Have you ever been annoyed and amused with yourself at the same time? It's an interesting feeling, to say the very least. — Patrick Rothfuss

For a long time ... I've been asking myself this question ... Am I a memory? Are you ... a memory? Are we just ... a collection of memories? I've always been waiting ... for the person who disappeared beyond those rails. Now I understand. It didn't end here. This place ... was just the beginning. — Yuuki Obata

It win be a device that will permit communication without any time interval between two points in space. The device will not transmit messages, of course; simultaneity is identity. But to our perceptions, that simultaneity will function as a transmission, a sending. So we will be able to use it to talk between worlds, without the long waiting for the message to go and the reply to return that electromagnetic impulses require. It is really a very simple matter. Like a kind of telephone. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I promise not to step on you - I only look like a clodhopper," he was saying when Jo reached them. He winked at Ella, who glanced away and blinked, as if surprised that he'd come so close to guessing what she thought.
Jo slid up to the bar behind her sister, planted a stiff arm on the ledge, and raised an eyebrow at him.
He glanced up and saw her.
She expected him to blanche, or bristle, or pretend he'd just forgotten someplace else he had to be. A lot of men did that, when they realized that the girl they thought was alone had brought friends to look out for her.
But instead he only said, "Oh," softly, his smile so wide and earnest that crows'-feet appeared at the edges of his eyes; he smiled as though she was an old friend, as though he had been waiting for Jo a long time and was delighted to see her at last. — Genevieve Valentine

I think love is stronger than habits or circumstances. I think it is possible to keep yourself for someone for a long time and still remember why you were waiting when she comes at last. — Peter S. Beagle

If we wait for the entertainment industry to change its fundamental values, we may be waiting a long time. But we don't have to wait another day to scale back our own private consumption of television. — Michael Medved

This evening, which I have tried to spirit away, is a strange burden to me. While time moves on, while the day will soon end and I already wish it gone, there are men who have entrusted all their hopes to it, all their love and their last efforts. There are dying men or others who are waiting for a debt to come due, who wish that tomorrow would never come. There are others for whom the day will break like a pang of remorse; and others who are tired, for whom the night will never be long enough to give them the rest that they need. And I - who have lost my day - what right do I have to wish that tomorrow comes? — Alain-Fournier

These things were in the past now, many long years ago, though the memory remained as solid and present as his heartbeats. Time's passage had made the events seem almost crazed, hyper-real, stretched across a surreal dreamscape that felt more like a skjald's embellished saga than the intact past. Perhaps it had not happened like that. Perhaps the Lion had taken his Stormbirds to the Tyrant's fortress, and he himself had teleported in. Perhaps it had not been Ogvai there, but Gunn, or someone else. Had Bjorn been there too? It was a long time ago, so doubtful, but Bjorn seemed to always have been there, right from the start, just waiting for his time to come to maturity. — Chris Wraight

I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Patience is not developed by being forced to wait in long lines or for long periods of time. Patience is a decision: to sit back rather than lean forward, to shift your weight from the balls of your feet to your heels. To settle your thoughts on now, to enjoy the journey, to give something or someone time to grow. — Ron Brackin

I feel like I've been waiting," I said to Billy, looking at Hank. "Waiting for a long time, but I guess I know what you mean. My life began when I met him. — Kristen Ashley

Very soon she'll join all the others who know the secret and will not tell it. Or cannot. Or try and fail because they do not know enough. They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, high-pitched laughter. The way they walk and talk and scream or try to kill (themselves or you) if you laugh back at them. Yes, they've got to be watched. For the time comes when they try to kill, then disappear. But others are waiting to take their places, it's a long, long line. She's one of them. I too can wait - for the day when she is only a memory to be avoided, locked away, and like all memories a legend. Or a lie ... — Jean Rhys

He loved her.
Jay Heaton, her best friend since childhood was in love with her. He didn't say it but she knew that it was true.
And the part that really freaked her out, the part that caught her completely off guard, is that he wasn't alone. Because even though she'd been denying it for a long, long time, it had always been there ... waiting beneath the surface of their friendship. And now that it was out there was no going back.
And it was so weird to even be thinking it but ... she was in love with him too. — Kimberly Derting

For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a "Reserved" sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant. Despite the fact that I was sure I'd never see her again. — Haruki Murakami

Braven Tooth, you remember the last time I played-'
'That was the last time?'
'It was, and there's been a lot who've fallen since then. Friends. People we grew to love, and now miss, like holes in the heart.' He drew a deep breath, then continued, 'It's been waiting, inside, for a long time. So, my old, old friends, let's hear some names. — Steven Erikson

What can I expect here? You know the fairy tale about the man who died, don't you? He was waiting in Eternity to find out what the Lord had decided to do with him. He waited and waited, for one year, ten years, a hundred years. He begged and pleaded for a decision. Finally he couldn't bear the waiting any longer. Then they said to him: 'What do you think you're waiting for? You've been in Hell for a long time already. — Anna Seghers

The day after we met," Fatima said, "you told me that you loved me. Then, you taught me something of the universal language and the Soul of the World. Because of that, I have become a part of you." The boy listened to the sound of her voice, and thought it to be more beautiful than the sound of the wind in the date palms. "I have been waiting for you here at this oasis for a long time. I have forgotten about my past, about my traditions, and the way in which men of the desert expect women to behave. Ever since I was a child, I have dreamed that the desert would bring me a wonderful present. Now, my present has arrived, and it's you." The — Paulo Coelho

Something new is blowing. On a downtown Kingston wall: IMF - Is Manley Fault. General election called for October 30, 1980. Somebody is driving you through Bavaria, near the Austrian border. A hospital sprouting out of the forest like magic. Hills in the background tipped with snow like cake icing. You meet the tall and frosty Bavarian, the man who helps the hopeless. He smiles but his eyes are set too far back and they vanish in the shadow of his brow. Cancer is a red alert that the whole body is in danger, he says. Thank God the food he forbids, Rastafari had forbidden long time. A sunrise is a promise. Something new is blowing. November 1980. A new party wins the general election and the man who killed me steps up to the podium with his brothers to take over the country. He has been waiting for so long he leaps up the stairs and trips. — Marlon James

I have always loved long journeys. The act of leaving accustomed surroundings is a release from real time, real life. You can place that familiar life on hold, freeze it, secure in the awareness that it will be there waiting for you when you come back. The journey itself becomes an opportunity to explore parallel lives, those other optional lives which have always been there. — Witi Ihimaera

Nothing comforted Sabine like long division. That was how she had passed time waiting for Phan and then Parsifal to come back from their tests. She figured the square root of the date while other people knit and read. Sabine blamed much of the world's unhappiness on the advent of calculators. — Ann Patchett

learned a long time ago, if you're going to wait for this world to be fair, you're going to be waiting in the grave. — Greg Iles

Real patience is not the same as waiting impatiently for something for a long time. Patience is having patience with patience. — H.M. Forester

I think about this for a long time, secretly hoping he forgets he ever asked the question. His mind has a way of wandering, but something in the way he looks at me says he's not forgetting anything now, he's holding on tight to that thought, and he's waiting for my answer. I don't know what makes a man great. I've never thought about it before. But at a time like this "I don't know" just won't do. This is an occasion one rises to, and so I make myself as light as possible and wait for a lift. "I — Daniel Wallace

Take a long, hard look down the road you will have to travel once you have made a commitment to work for change. Know that this transformation will not happen right away. Change often takes time. It rarely happens all at once. In the movement, we didn't know how history would play itself out. When we were getting arrested and waiting in jail or standing in unmovable lines on the courthouse steps, we didn't know what would happen, but we knew it had to happen.

Use the words of the movement to pace yourself. We used to say that ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part. And if we believe in the change we seek, then it is easy to commit to doing all we can, because the responsibility is ours alone to build a better society and a more peaceful world. — John Lewis

If I were to wait only for roles that clarify my racial makeup, I'd be waiting for a very, very long time. — Wentworth Miller

I pledged myself to smoke but one cigar a day. I kept the cigar waiting until bedtime, then I had a luxurious time with it. But desire persecuted me every day and all day long. I found myself hunting for larger cigars ... within the month my cigar had grown to such proportions I could have used it as a crutch. — Mark Twain

Oh, we women know things you don't know, you teachers, you readers and writers of books, we are the ones who wait around libraries when it's time to leave, or sit drinking coffee alone in the kitchen; we make crazy plans for marriage but have no man, we dream of stealing men, we are the ones who look slowly around when we get off a bus and can't even find what we are looking for, can't quite remember how we got there, we are always wondering what will come next, what terrible thing will come next. We are the ones who leaf through magazines with colored pictures and spend long heavy hours sunk in our bodies, thinking, remembering, dreaming, waiting for something to come to us and give a shape to so much pain. — Joyce Carol Oates

Isn't it weird," I said, "the way you remember things, when someone's gone?"
What do you mean?"
I ate another piece of waffle. "When my dad first died, all I could think about was that day. It's taken me so long to be able to think back to before that, to everything else."
Wes was nodding before I even finished. "It's even worse when someone's sick for a long time," he said. "You forget they were ever healthy, ever okay. It's like there was never a time when you weren't waiting for something awful to happen."
But there was," I said. "I mean, it's only been in the last few months that I've started remembering all this good stuff, funny stuff about my dad. I can't believe I ever forgot it in the first place."
You didn't forget," Wes said, taking a sip of his water. "You just couldn't remember right then. But now you're ready to, so you can."
I thought about this as I finished off my waffle. — Sarah Dessen

Chastity is a difficult long term matter, one must wait patiently for it to bear fruit for the happiness of loving kindness which it must bring. But at the same time chastity is the sure way to happiness. — Pope John Paul II

Good stories are like those noble wild animals that make their home in hidden spots, and you must often settle down at the entrance of the caves and woods and lie in wait for them a long time. — Hermann Hesse

Say that Congress legislates gasoline price controls that sets a maximum price of $1 a gallon. As sure as night follows day, there'd be long lines and gasoline shortages, just as there were in the 1970s. For the average consumer, a $1.60 a gallon selling price and no waiting lines is a darn sight cheaper than a controlled $1 a gallon price plus searching for a gasoline station that has gas and then waiting in line. If your average purchase is 10 gallons, and if an hour or so of your time is worth more that $6, the $1.60 a gallon free market price is cheaper. — Walter E. Williams

I spent a long time looking at faces, drinking in smiles. Am I happy or unhappy? It's not a very important question. I live with such frenzied intensity.
Things and people are waiting for me, and doubtless I am waiting for them and desiring them with all my strength and sadness. But, here, I earn the right to be alive by silence and by secrecy.
The miracle of not having to talk about oneself. — Albert Camus

It seems like movies normally take a long time to get made. When you focus on it, and you're waiting for something, it seems to take longer. — Michael Cera

You've been waiting ... "
"I have." He leaned in toward my lips but didn't touch them. "Waiting and waiting forever. For you. Waiting for you to grow up. Waiting for you to see me as something more than just a friend of Ian's. Waiting for the right time to tell you how I feel about you." He whispered so close, I could feel the brush of breath from his beautiful words. "Just a very long time of waiting, Elaina."
... "I don't want to wait anymore." His eyes melded into me and held on. "Please don't make me wait for you any longer," he pleaded. "I can't do it, Cherry. I just can't. — Raine Miller

Your life is not predestined, as in Calvinist thought, where everything is written down in the book of life long before your birth and is inescapable. There are choices, accidents, hints and wrong paths, and the ego you, or whatever you call yourself, is a factor in all this. But there is still this other factor that keeps calling. At some moment, people turn, in despair or when they are unable to go any longer on a certain route, and this inner voice says, "Where have you been? I've been waiting for you to turn to me for a long time." — James Hillman

I've been waiting for you a long time, Alina" He said. "You and I are going to change the world. — Leigh Bardugo

Samsa sat there for a long time with his eyes closed. Then, making up his mind, he stood, grabbed his black walking stick, and headed for the stairs. He would return to the second floor and figure out the proper way to dress. For now, at least, that would be his mission. The world was waiting for him to learn. — Haruki Murakami

God is a wise husbandman, who waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it (James 5:7). He cannot gather the fruit until it is ripe. He knows when we are spiritually ready to receive the blessing to our profit and His glory. Waiting in the sunshine of His love is what will ripen the soul for His blessing. Waiting under the cloud of trial, that breaks in showers of blessing, is as necessary. Be assured that if God waits longer than you could wish, it is only to make the blessing doubly precious. God waited four thousand years, until the fullness of time, before He sent His Son. Our times are in His hands. He will avenge His elect speedily. He will make haste for our help and not delay one hour too long. — Andrew Murray

He was a lawyer now and it had taken him a long time. It had taken him a long time because he had had to be a lawyer on his own terms and in his own way. But that was over. But maybe it had taken him too long. If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting. In the end they just ask you those crappy little questions. — Robert Penn Warren

The world is going under, I thought, and this notion so little surprised me, it seemed as though I had been waiting a long time for just that to happen. But now, from amid the burning and collapsing city, I saw a boy come toward me. His hands were buried in his pockets and he hopped and skipped from one leg to another, resilient and light-hearted. Then he stopped and emitted an ingenious whistle
our signal from grade school days, and the boy was my friend who had shot himself when he was a student. Immediately I too became, like him, a boy of twelve, and the burning city and the distant thunder and the blustering storm of howling voices from all corners of the world sounded wondrously exquisite to our newly awakened ears. Now everything was good, and the dark nightmare in which I had lived for so many despairing years was gone forever. — Hermann Hesse

I noticed a long time ago that the Universe rewards belief systems. It doesn't really matter what you believe - it'll be there and waiting for you if you go and look for it. Decide the universe is, say, run by secret enormous teddy bears, and I can guarantee you'll immediately start running across evidence that this is true. — Neil Gaiman

He places the skull in the palm of my hand. There are four canines; the top two are so long and curved I can feel them pricking my skin. There's a green tinge round the eye socket and in a fine line across the cranium. I'm not sure what animal it's from.
'Stoat,' Harris says, as if I've spoken out loud. 'They hunt grouse and partridge. I found it behind my house. I buried the body in the furze until it was just bone.'
His hand is still beneath mine, supporting it. I think of him seeing the small dead creature and digging a tiny grave for it. Planning ahead for all those months just so he'd see the skeleton. Or maybe he severed the animal's head and that was the only part he buried.
'It's been waiting for you all this time. Like I have. — Sanjida Kay

Every man's death is a standing in for every other. And since death comes to all there is no way to abate the fear of it except to love that man who stands for us. We are not waiting for his history to be written. He passed here long ago. That man who is all men and who stands in the dock for us until our own time come and we must stand for him. Do you love him, that man? Will you honor the path he has taken? Will you listen to his tale? — Cormac McCarthy

She had a dream sometimes that she was running along a road and there was Doll ahead of her, waiting for her, and she just ran into her arms, and she thought, It's over now, I'm not lost anymore, and the dream had all the sweetness of a mild day in summer. If you could smell in dreams, it would be the smell of hay on the softest breeze and sunlight warming the fields. She thought that was going to be waiting for her, that life, and she never even stopped to wonder about herself for thinking that way. I been crazy for a long time, she said. — Marilynne Robinson

And if you are waiting for a new book in a long ongoing series, whether from George or from Pat Rothfuss or from someone else ...
Wait. Read the original book again. Read something else. Get on with your life. Hope that the author is writing the book you want to read, and not dying, or something equally as dramatic. And if he paints the house, that's fine.
And ( ... ) in the future, when you see other people complaining that George R.R. Martin has been spotted doing something other than writing the book they are waiting for, explain to them, more politely than I did the first time, the simple and unanswerable truth: George R. R. Martin is not working for you. — Neil Gaiman

The doors had a peephole, and periodically an Iranian guard would look through and choose who he would let in. It was a bit like waiting to be picked for a sports team at school. You stand there trying to look as useful as possible to the two kids lucky enough to have been chosen as captains. If they were picking you for footy you tried to look as tough as possible. For basketball, you tried to look as tall as possible. For cricket, as long-suffering and patient as possible. That day, every time the guard looked through the peephole, I tried to look as un-Great Satan-like as I could. — Peter Moore

Let's not play games, Mr. Cratchett," I replied. "I wanted to let you know that I'll be coming in for an appointment with Mr. Raisin on Tuesday morning at eleven o'clock. I shall need about an hour and would prefer it if we were not disturbed during that time. I hope that he will be free at that hour but just so you both know, if he is not, then I am perfectly willing to sit in your office until he is free. I shall bring a book with me to pass the time. I shall bring two, if need be. I shall bring the complete works of Shakespeare if he insists on keeping me waiting interminably and those plays will get me through the long hours. But I will not leave until I have seen him, are we quite clear on that? Now, I wish you a very pleasant Sunday, Mr. Cratchett. Enjoy your lunch, won't you? Your breath smells of whisky. — John Boyne

I've been waiting for this a long time."-Martin "Let me guess that you're wishing for your IQ to break double figures?"- Alex V. — Benedict Jacka

In my view it is time to pass a good bill, a fair bill, a comprehensive bill ... Too many have been waiting too long for fairness. — Patrick Leahy

Ten minutes can be a long time when you're waiting with a beating heart for something you don't understand, something you don't really want to know. — Cornelia Funke

Liz pasted on a smile, trying to appear normal in light of the fact that he had possibly incriminating knowledge on her from the background check. She hoped her application for a marriage license with Craig wasn't in the report. Or her long shopping record for organization systems from The Container Store. Or her many Internet searches for breeds of nonshedding dogs (she was waiting for the house with a yard before getting one). Or her long-time obsession with new cleaning products. — Kylie Gilmore

But in the garden the sun still shone. The innumerable bees hummed. The scent of thyme hung on the air. But only the Natterjack was there to breathe the fragrant essence of it. He and the garden were waiting. They were waiting for more children. They didn't care how long they waited. They had all the time in the world. -The Time Garden, Edward Eager — Edward Eager

If I had waited long enough I probably never would have written anything at all since there is a tendency when you really begin to learn something about a thing not to want to write about it but rather to keep on learning about it always and at no time, unless you are very egotistical, which, of course, accounts for many books, will you be able to say: now I know all about this and will write about it. — Ernest Hemingway,

You told me you wanted time. I've given it to you, and I'll give you as long as you need, McKenzie. I love you." He tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. "You're worth waiting a decade for. — Sandy Williams

I'm pre-med," he added smugly.
"Okay." I said again. I didn't shrug this time, but his jaw tightened a bit as if he was annoyed that I wasn't displaying the proper amazement at his accomplishment.
"And I'm next in line to be promoted to death investigator." The look he gave me was nothing short of a challenge, and I had to fight to not roll my eyes. What, he expected me to start crowing about my own accomplishments so he could top them? He'd be waiting a long time for that. — Diana Rowland

If you have been waiting for an answer to prayer for a long time, remember that long waits often occur right before the biggest mountains come down. — Jim Cymbala

I couldn't bear the road anymore. I'm sure that a lot of people who have been on the road a long time will say the same thing. After a while, waiting for bedroom service and planes - I wanted to go home. — Barry Manilow

While we watched without comprehension, she moved away to where none of us wanted to follow. Ruth May shrank back through the narrow passage between this brief fabric of light and all the rest of what there is for us: the long waiting. Now she will wait the rest of the time. It will be exactly as long as the time that passed before she was born. — Barbara Kingsolver

First, the explosion of life. Then came the celebration. Such as it had been for generations and generations, as long as the eldest of the eldest could remember; as long as the record books had kept steady score. By the time the first buds were edging their green shoots from the dirt, the parade grounds had been cleared and the maypole had been pulled from its exile in the basement of the Mansion. The board had met and the Queen decided; all that was left was the wait. The wait for May. — Colin Meloy

We've been sitting at the compromise table for a long time. We're just waiting for that cold chair to be warmed up by the Republican leadership. They still have time to do the right thing and be responsible. They just seem to be moving further and further away from it. — Debbie Wasserman Schultz

He said, I like girls from broken homes who are crazy about chocolate and who love the rain. I've been waiting for a girl like that for a long time. — Mian Mian

That night I experienced one of those sudden, unpleasant shifts of perception that occur to parents, when you notice a difference in your child that's been coming over a long time, and you're faced with it, and at the same time you're groping back to touch the child they were a minute ago, while a somehow unaccountable, unpredictable person is watching you, waiting for you to catch up with them, contemptuous because you haven't. — Dorothy Johnston

You can only get next to God through the effort of preparation. To experience the uncreated, the state of awareness will have to be held for several minutes. You are then between time and the time-less - waiting for the unknown, which will come but cannot be willed. — Barry Long

But I'll have to ask you to wait a long time, Anne," said Gilbert sadly. "It will be three years before I'll finish my medical course. And even then there will be no diamond sunbursts and marble halls."

Anne laughed.

"I don't want sunbursts and marble halls. I just want YOU. You see I'm quite as shameless as Phil about it. Sunbursts and marble halls may be all very well, but there is more 'scope for imagination' without them. And as for the waiting, that doesn't matter. We'll just be happy, waiting and working for each other -- and dreaming. Oh, dreams will be very sweet now."

Gilbert drew her close to him and kissed her. Then they walked home together in the dusk, crowned king and queen in the bridal realm of love, along winding paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew. — L.M. Montgomery

The woods were deserted that day.
The stones stood still and silent, as though they were waiting for something. At the center of them all, a jagged piece of amber glowed in the growing darkness. Lights fizzed softly around it, turning pink, orange, purple, blue.
No one saw it. No one ever did. Why would they? No one knoew about its magic, not anymore. They had forgotten all about such magic a long, long time ago. About the same time they stopped believing in faries.
How foolish. — Liz Kessler

There is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port in. But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to lose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting for us to get by. — Mark Twain

A great diving scene. Worth the read just for that:

"Randy! You have the best eyes for bubbles. Find my missing diver."
Paul leaned over the boat and yelled at the people waiting in the water. "Hey! Where's . . ." He examined the faces. It didn't take long to figure out who was missing. His heart spiraled to his feet.
"Oh, no, no, no!" He didn't hesitate to jump to action. He yelled out orders as he put his gear on in record time. "Get back on the boat. Now!"
"I see bubbles! Over there, 'bout fifteen meters," Randy called before anyone had a chance to do anything.
Paul stood on the back of the boat, all geared up and holding an extra tank with a regulator already attached. He looked to see where Randy pointed and took a giant stride into the water. He didn't bother to surface before starting the fastest descent he'd ever made. — S. Jackson Rivera

Hello ... is this Mrs. Fritzi Bevins?'
'Yes, it is.'
'From Pulaski, Wisconsin?'
'Yes.'
'Uh ... you don't know me, but I recently received some papers. From Texas. And, well ... I think I might be your daughter?'
There was a long silence on the other end, and then after a moment, the woman in a softer voice said, 'Hiya, pal. I've been waiting for this call for a long time. — Fannie Flagg

She was breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the weight of beings, the insane or static life, the long anguish of living or dying. After so many years running from fear, fleeing crazily, uselessly, she was finally coming to a halt. At the same time she seemed to be recovering her roots, and the sap rose anew in her body, which was no longer trembling. Pressing her whole belly against the parapet, leaning toward the wheeling sky, she was only waiting for her pounding heart to settle down, and for the silence to form in her. The last constellations of stars fell in bunches a little lower on the horizon of the desert, and stood motionless. Then, with an unbearable sweetness, the waters of the night began to fill her, submerging the cold, rising gradually to the center of her being, and overflowing wave upon wave to her moaning mouth. A moment later, the whole sky stretched out above her as she lay with her back against the cold earth. — Albert Camus

Whereas during those months of separation time had never gone quickly enough for their liking and they were wanting to speed its flight, now that they were in sight of the town they would have liked to slow it down and hold each moment in suspense, once the breaks went on and the train was entering the station. For the sensation, confused perhaps, but none the less poingant for that, of all those days and weeks and months of life lost to their love made them vaguely feel they were entitled to some compensation; this present hour of joy should run at half the speed of those long hours of waiting. — Albert Camus

64. Surprising and Distressing Things
While one is cleaning a decorative comb, something catches in the teeth and the comb breaks.
A carriage overturns. One would have imagined that such a solid, bulky object would remain forever on its wheels. It all seems like a dream
astonishing and senseless.
A child or grown-up blurts out something that is bound to make people uncomfortable.
All night long one has been waiting for a man who one thought was sure to arrive. At dawn, just when one has forgotten about him for a moment and dozed off, a crow caws loudly. One wakes up with a start and sees that it is daytime
most astonishing.
One of the bowmen in an archery contest stands trembling for a long time before shooting; when finally he does release his arrow, it goes in the wrong direction. — Sei Shonagon

Because what he showed me is that he sees the same things in her I do. He knows she's worth waiting for. And when it's time, he intends to be the one. That's why he's keeping her close. To those of us who live forever, a few years isn't long to wait. — Karen Marie Moning

The problem of race is deep and wide and requires seismic change. But if we look to government to solve it, we might as well feel hopeless. If we look corporate America to solve it, we'll be waiting a long, long time. And if we agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates, who tentatively suggests that "the only work that will matter, will be the work done by us," then we will truly despair, for we know how well that has worked. If we follow that track, we'll quickly add in disbelief, as he did, "Or perhaps not."

As I've said, the problem of race is not "out there." It's "in here," in the human heart. And though there is no task in heaven or on earth more difficult than changing the human heart,I believe in the one who can do it. It requires a supernatural solution.

Yes, I believe in God. You see, I know how God can change a person's heart. — Benjamin Watson

Will!"
He turned at the familiar voice and saw Tessa. There was a small path cut along the side of the hill, lined with unfamiliar white flowers, and she was walking up it, toward him. Her long brown hair blew in the wind - she had taken off her straw bonnet, and held it in one hand, waving it at him and smiling as if she were glad to see him.
His own heart leaped up at the sight of her. "Tess," he called. But she was still such a distance away - she seemed both very near and very far suddenly and at the same time. He could see every detail of her pretty, upturned face, but could not touch her, and so he stood, waiting and desiring, and his heart beat like the wings of seagulls in his chest.
At last she was there, close enough that he could see where the grass and flowers bent beneath the tread of her shoes. He reached out for her - — Cassandra Clare

When we neared the orchard a flock of birds lit from its outer rows. They hadn't been there long. The branches shook with their absent weight and the birds circled above in the riddy mackerel sky, where they made an artless semaphore. I was afraid, I smelled copper and cheap wine. The sun was up, but a half-moon hung low on the opposite horizon, cutting through the morning sky like a figure from a child's pull-tab book.
We were lined along the ditch up to our ankles in a soupy muck. It all seemed in that moment to be the conclusion of a poorly designed experiment in inevitability. Everything was in its proper place, waiting for a pause in time, for the source of all momentum to be stilled, so that what remained would be nothing more than detritus to be tallied up. The world was paper-thin as far as I could tell. And the world was the orchard, and the orchard was what came next. But none of that was true. I was only afraid of dying. — Kevin Powers

I miss the girl I was, and I wish I could tell her that. But she got hurt really bad and I've been waiting such a long time for her to be okay again. I bet she never dreamed she would live so long, or do the things she can do now. I wish I could tell her what she'd grow up to be, how strange and beautiful and unexpected she'd be. She'd probably feel a lot better if she knew. The sky and the stars are brilliant, and I think of how much she would have loved this. — Austin Grossman