While It Lasts Quotes & Sayings

Embrace love while you have it, priest - from whichever direction it comes, proper or improper, for however long it lasts. Because it always, always comes to an end. — N.K. Jemisin

If you are lucky, you have your moment. But it is never more than a moment. You have to enjoy it while it lasts. — Julian Fellowes

Environment affects me a great deal. A lot of the songs were written after the sun went down. And I like storms, I like to stay up during a storm. I get very meditative sometimes, and this one phrase was going through my head: 'Work while the day lasts, because the night of death cometh when no man can work.' I don't recall where I heard it. I like preaching, I hear a lot of preaching, and I probably just heard it somewhere. Maybe it's in Psalms, it beats me. But it wouldn't let me go. I was, like, what does that phrase mean? But it was at the forefront of my mind, for a long period of time... — Bob Dylan

The minutes will Tick, the days will Pass, the Journey is Ours, Smile while it Lasts. — R.v.m.

The life I lived was Heaven on Earth because I spent it with you. — Abbi Glines

I wondered if a blessing is still a blessing if it lasts for only a little while. — Bette Greene

Writer's block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that you should feel the need to say something. Why? If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough. — Hugh MacLeod

If [science] tends to thicken the crust of ice on which, as it were, we are skating, it is all right. If it tries to find, or professes to have found, the solid ground at the bottom of the water it is all wrong. Our business is with the thickening of this crust by extending our knowledge downward from above, as ice gets thicker while the frost lasts; we should not try to freeze upwards from the bottom. — Samuel Butler

She sat at the window of the train ... The window frame trembled with the speed of the motion, the pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while ... She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up ... It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance. She thought: For just a few moments
while this lasts
it is all right to surrender completely
to forget everything and just permit yourself to feel. She thought: Let go
drop the controls
this is it. — Ayn Rand

You have to hold on and be patient. Pain lasts for a while, but you must leave room for happiness when you find it. — S.N. Lemoing

Enjoy the rainbow while it lasts and don't chase it when it's gone. — Marty Rubin

Let's make hay while it lasts. — James Lovelock

War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end. — Stonewall Jackson

If somebody loves you, you accept it because you love yourself. You are happy with yourself; somebody else is happy - good! It does not get in your head, it does not make you madly egoistic. You simply enjoy yourself; somebody else also finds you enjoyable - good! While it lasts, live the fiction as beautifully as possible - it will not last forever. That, — Osho

God's grace is so much more powerful of a motivator than fear. Love is the deepest motivator. Only love can produce not only willing obedience but also lasting obedience. If you are being motivated by fear, rules, anger, or some other emotion, it usually only lasts while that emotion is there. Love, being a state of the heart, lasts even past the initial emotion. — Jefferson Bethke

Thomas Lull knows he is un-American: he hates cars but loves trains, Indian trains, big trains like a nation on the move. He is content with the contradiction that they are at once hierarchical and democratic, a temporary community brought together for a time; vital while it lasts, burning away like early mist when the terminus is reached. — Ian McDonald

Geez, I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts. — Woody Allen

El, you are telling me to run away with a man to become his mistress."
"I am telling you to be happy. Even if it lasts only a little while. We must snatch what we can when we have the chance. Life is so very lonely when we don't. — Jennifer Ashley

It doesn't have to be logical, it doesn't have to be love in the usual sense. It doesn't even have to be long lasting. Usually it isn't. But whatever it is, it is real and powerful while it lasts, and there's no point denying it. — Lynn Hall

I'm gone, lost, floating away into nothingness like I am in my dream, but this time it's a good feeling - like soaring, like being totally free, and I can feel the impression of his fingers everywhere that they touch, and I think of stars streaking through the sky and leaving burning trails behind them, and in that moment - however long it lasts, seconds, minutes, days - while he's saying my name into my mouth and I'm breathing into him, I realize this, right here, is the first and only time I've ever been kissed in my life. — Lauren Oliver

In fact, isn't it a joy - there is hardly a greater one - to find a new book, a living book, and to know that it will remain with you while life lasts? — Katherine Mansfield

Fashion's important to me, but beauty fades. All that stuff is fun while it lasts, but anything can happen tomorrow. You've got to have so much more about you than the way you look or your clothes. — FKA Twigs

For the last episode [of Downton Abbey], you'll need some handkerchiefs. I needed handkerchiefs reading it. It wasn't because it necessarily moved me while reading it, but it was the experience of reading it when I realized it was the last time I was ever going to be reading one of those scripts. That was quite terminal. — Hugh Bonneville

Recording happiness made it last longer, we felt, and recording sorrow dramatized it and took away its bitterness; and often we settled some problem which beset us even while we wrote about it. — Dorothy Day

Oh shut up. Every time it rains, it stops raining. Every time you hurt, you heal. After darkness, there is always light and you get reminded of this every morning but still you choose to believe that the night will last forever. Nothing lasts forever. Not the good or the bad. So you might as well smile while you're here. — Pleasefindthis

But I also know that to ignore joy while it lasts, in favor of lamenting one's fate, is a great crime. — Nancy Farmer

Crying's okay while it lasts, but you can only do it for so long. And it's weird to do it when you apparently can't make tears anymore (did this mean I wouldn't pee or sweat, either?). Anyway, eventually you're done, and you have to figure out what to do next. — MaryJanice Davidson

While love lasts it should be relished, gobbled up like ice cream, explored as the conquistadors explored the unknown continent. But when love evaporates, when love hurts, we must learn to let go of the idea that love is forever. — Chloe Thurlow

What I call innocence is the spirit's unself-conscious state at any moment of pure devotion to any object. It is at once a receptiveness and total concentration. One needn't be, shouldn't be, reduced to a puppy. If you wish to tell me that the city offers galleries, I'll pour you a drink and enjoy your company while it lasts; but I'll bear with me to my grave those pure moments at the Tate (was it the Tate?) where I stood planted, open-mouthed, born, before that one particular canvas, that river up to my neck, gasping, lost, receding into watercolor depth and depth to the vanishing point, buoyant, awed, and had to be literally hauled away. These are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present. — Annie Dillard

I must do what I can to make myself intelligible to you. Our natures, however, are so different, that this may not be easy. Men and women live but to die; we, that is such as I-we are but a few-live to live on. Old age is to you a horror; to me it is a dear desire: the older we grow, the nearer we are to our perfection. Your perfection is a poor thing, comes soon, and lasts but a little while; ours is a ceaseless ripening. I am not yet ripe, and have lived thousands of your years-how many, I never cared to note. The everlasting will not be measured. — George MacDonald

We're like dominoes, Beckett and I. I've tipped us forward until everything is set in motion. I can't stop us from colliding. I should enjoy the fall while it lasts. But I know the end is coming too. The quiet. The day where everything has fallen and there's nothing left but a mess. — Rebecca Paula

I know that attaching memories to books may be going out of the world, but while it lasts, it's a strong record of your life. — Jeffrey Eugenides

One of the strange phenomena of the last century is the spectacle of religion dropping the appeal of fear while other human interests have picked it up. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

And then we're kissing. His lips are soft and leave mine tingling. I close my eyes, and in the darkness behind them I see beautiful blooming things, flowers spinning like snowflakes, and hummingbirds beating the same rhythm as my heart. I'm gone, lost, floating away into nothingness like I am in my dream, but this time it's a good feeling - like soaring, like being totally free. His other hand pushes my hair from my face, and I can feel the impression of his fingers everywhere that they touch, and I think of stars streaking through the sky and leaving burning trails behind them, and in that moment - however long it lasts, seconds, minutes, days - while he's saying my name into my mouth and Im breathing into him, I realize this, right here, is the first and only time I've ever been kissed. — Lauren Oliver

Okay, he thinks, perhaps it's time for everybody to move on; nothing lasts forever, it's part of the physics of friendships, alliances, whatever it might be they perpetrated for a while among themselves. — Paul Russell

Anne has as many shades as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest while it lasts. — L.M. Montgomery

You can't force love. You can't control how someone else feels. You just have to enjoy it while it lasts and hope the ride doesn't end. — Teresa Mummert

And you may see me tonight with an illegal smile. It don't cost very much, but it lasts a long while. Won't you please tell the man I didn't kill anyone.
No,I'm just tryin' to have me some fun. — John Prine

One can indeed try to obtain a particular result either by the use of violence or by speech aimed at securing the adherence of minds. It is in terms of this alternative that the opposition between spiritual freedom and constraint is most clearly seen. The use of argumentation implies that one has renounced resorting to force alone, that value is attached to gaining the adherence of one's interlocutor by means of reasoned persuasion, and that one is not regarding him as an object, but appealing to his free judgment. Recourse to argumentation assumes the establishment of a community of minds, which, while it lasts, excludes the use of violence. — Chaim Perelman

Music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but
you are the music
While the music lasts. — T. S. Eliot

Is it not tragic, for example, that while in the last World War almost everyone believed it was the war to end all wars and wanted to make it so, now in this Second World War almost no writer that I have read dares even suggest that this is the war to end all wars, or act on that belief? We have lost the courage to hope. — Lin Yutang

I think hope is the worst thing in the world. I really do. It makes a fool of you while it lasts. And then when it's gone, it's like there's nothing left of you at all ... except what you can't be rid of. — Marilynne Robinson

Poor human nature cannot bear such strains as heavenly triumphs bring to it; there must come a reaction. Excess of joy or excitement must be paid for by subsequent depressions. While the trial lasts, the strength is equal to the emergency; but when it is over, natural weakness claims the right to show itself. — Charles Spurgeon

Catch the opportunity while it lasts, and rely not on what the morrow may bring. — Horace

I had no room now for this fear, or for any other fear, because I was filled to the brim with music. And even when it was not literally (audibly) music, there was the music of my muscle-orchestra playing - "the silent music of the body," in Harvey's lovely phrase. With this playing, the musicality of my motion, I myself became the music - "You are the music, while the music lasts." A creature of muscle, motion and music, all inseparable and in unison with each other - except for that unstrung part of me, that poor broken instrument which could not join in and lay motionless and mute without tone or tune. — Oliver Sacks

Enjoy your obscurity while it lasts. Use it. — Austin Kleon

Enjoy him while it lasts," I called. "Apparently he has Girlfriend ADD."
She looked away, but not before I caught the blush staining her cheeks. — Gena Showalter

All love is true while it lasts. — Marty Rubin

Centres, or centre-pieces of wood, are put by builders under an arch of stone while it is in the process of construction till the keystone is put in. Just such is the use Satan makes of pleasures to construct evil habits upon; the pleasure lasts till the habit is fully formed; but that done the habit may stand eternal. The pleasures are sent for firewood, and the hell begins in this life. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

But I looked out of the open window too, over a large area of Amsterdam, over all the roofs and on to the horizon, which was such a pale blue that it was hard to see the dividing line. "As long as this exists," I thought, "and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts, I cannot be unhappy. — Anne Frank

In the aftermath, she (Misty) still felt as though she were floating and as Leone shifted back from her she leant over him, silver-grey eyes bright with emotion, and whispered, 'I died and went to heaven the day I found you.'
A wolfish grin of appreciation slashed his wide, sensual mouth.
'Are you sure you're feeling all right? You don't sound at all like yourself.'
'Enjoy it while it lasts,' she advised, happiness flooding through her as he curved her close and pressed a slow, sweet kiss to her reddened mouth.
'I didn't realise I'd found heaven until I stumbled into hell,' Leone traded feelingly. — Lynne Graham

Love is eternal while it lasts. — Vinicius De Moraes

It's an illusion I've noticed before
words on a page are like oxygen to a petrol engine, firing up ghosts. It only lasts while the words are in your head. After you put down the paper or pen, the pistons fall lifeless again. — Elizabeth Wein

While life lasts, one must look upon each new achievement as a challenge and a beginning. Mile posts marking the way were not intended for camping grounds.
The gospel is a challenge to finish the course, not simply to begin it. All the fine accomplishments of a worth-while life may be defeated by a poor ending. — Hugh B. Brown

[On writing:] The most egotistic of occupations, and the most gratifying while it lasts. — Vita Sackville-West

I get some very fierce anonymous letters about the Athanasian Creed, which would amuse you, if they were not so sad as to what they imply on the part of the writers. The last tells me that I am a Pharisee, and should have helped to crucify our Lord. It is very odd that people should think, much more write, such things; but the passion of unbelief is a very serious thing while it lasts. — Henry Parry Liddon

Small service is true service, while it lasts. — William Wordsworth

One of the most frequently mentioned dimensions of the flow experience is that, while it lasts, one is able to forget all the unpleasant aspects of life. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Pain is pain, whether it be inflicted on man or beast; and the creature that suffers it, whether man or beast, being sensible of the misery of it while it lasts, suffers evil and the sufferance of evil, unmerited, unprovoked, where no offence has been given, and no good can possibly be answered by it, but merely to exhibit power or gratify malice, is Cruelty and Injustice in him that occasions is. — Humphry Primatt

And in a way, that's been a help to me, because I take great passions for a particular poet - sometimes it lasts for many years, sometimes only for a while. This happens to everybody. — Norman MacCaig

for the first time, there burst upon me the idea that there might be real marvels all about us, that the visible world might be only a curtain to conceal huge realms uncharted by my very simple theology. And that started in me something with which, on and off, I have had plenty of trouble since - the desire for the preternatural, simply as such, the passion for the Occult. Not everyone has this disease; those who have will know what I mean. I once tried to describe it in a novel. It is a spiritual lust; and like the lust of the body it has the fatal power of making everything else in the world seem uninteresting while it lasts. It is probably this passion, more even than the desire for power, which makes magicians. — C.S. Lewis

It is hard to find someone who will give your children a feeling of security while it lasts and not wound them too much when it isfinished, who will treat those children as if they were her own, but knows
and never forgets
that they are yours. — Anna Quindlen

For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.

from "The Dry Salvages — T. S. Eliot

Many a life has been injured by the constant expectation of death. It is life we have to do with, not death. The best preparation for the night is to work diligently while the day lasts. The best preparation for death is life. — George MacDonald

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent relieves we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life. — Malcolm De Chazal

Being a Negro writer these days is a racket and I'm going to make the most of it while it lasts. About twice a year I sell a story. It is acclaimed. I am a genius in the making. Thank God for this Negro literary renaissance. Long may it flourish — Wallace Thurman

British Airways: No one is actually going to save the environment, so you might as well enjoy it while it lasts. — David Mitchell

Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do. — C.S. Lewis

The grief of childhood is terrible while it lasts, it is so abandoned and so all-possessing. — Gertrude Atherton

Of course I'm ignorant, that remains true at all events and is extremely distressing for me, but it does have the advantage that the ignorant man dares more, so I shall gladly put up with ignorance and its undoubtedly dire consequences for a while, as long as my strength lasts. — Franz Kafka

What if the worst is true? What if there's no God, and you only go around once, and that's it? Don't you want to be a part of the experience? You know, what the hell? It's not all a drag, and I'm thinking to myself: Geez! I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get and just enjoy it while it lasts. And, you know, after
who knows? Maybe there is something, nobody really knows. I know that maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have. — Woody Allen

Try to accomplish things you have always dreamt of while you can. I know it sounds cliche, but the biggest lesson I have learned is that life is precious; enjoy it while it lasts. — Lisa Ling

People have died for love, they have lied and cheated and parted from those who loved them in turn. Love has slammed doors on fortunes, made bad man from heroes and heroes from libertines. Love has corrupted, cured, depraved and perverted. It is the remedy, the melody, the poison and the pain. The appetite, the antidote, the fever and the flavour. Love Kills. Love Cures. Love is a bloody menace. Oh, but it's fun while it lasts. — Louise Welsh

I've found that you can't measure happiness the way you measure yards in a race. You just learn to recognize it when it arrives so you can enjoy it while it lasts. — Karen White

Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of worshiping oneself is best. — C.S. Lewis

While it lasts, the religion of worshiping oneself is the best. — C.S. Lewis

Enjoy the ride while it still lasts. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Is it not wonderful, that the love of the parent should be so violent while it lasts and that it should last no longer than is necessary for the preservation of the young? — Joseph Addison

And yet, winning is like a welcome drink going down your throat, like a beautiful embrace. It is brilliant while it lasts but it isn't forever. The high eventually melts away and the journey of life begins afresh. The truly remarkable among us visit these highs periodically; winning then becomes a journey, a graph where each point is crucial but is in reality merely part of a larger curve. — Harsha Bhogle

It's going to take a while because for the last 500 years patriarchal societies have been devoted to controlling reproduction and that means controlling women. So we got into this masculine/feminine, dominant/passive paradigm, and it's going to take a while to get out. — Gloria Steinem

Sonnet of Fidelity
Above all to my love I'll be attentive
First and always with care and so much
That even when facing the greatest enchantment
By love be more enchanted my thoughts.
I want to live it through in each vain moment
And in its honor I'll spread my song
And laugh my laughter and cry my tears
When you are sad or when you are content.
And thus when later comes looking for me
Who knows the death anxiety of the living
Who knows the loneliness end of all lovers
I'll be able to say to myself of the love I had :
Be not immortal since it is flame
But be infinite while it lasts. — Vinicius De Moraes

Critics become criminals since truth is anathema to an empire or any authoritarian government that depends on lies for its existence. The informant who provides the people with the truth cannot be protected by whistle-blower laws or the Constitution. It is the truth-tellers who are sent to prison or are killed while those who undermine our Constitution are promoted. This lasts until the corrupt government is dismantled. — Ron Paul

The last peculiarity of consciousness to which attention is to be drawn in this first rough description of its stream is that it is always interested more in one part of its object than in another, and welcomes and rejects, or chooses, all the while it thinks. — William James

The rainbow comes and goes. Enjoy it while it lasts. Don't be surprised by its departure, and rejoice when it returns. — Anderson Cooper

This is it. The final conscious experience. Enjoy it while it lasts. — Peter Watts

I found it very difficult to feel easy around the guy, even once I'd got used to the shock of his presence. It's a strange feeling ... the first time you meet him your brain wants to scream, blow a fuse and shut itself down immediately, refusing to accept that he exists. This lasts for a couple of minutes, at which time he's still there and hasn't gone away, and in the end you just accept him because he's standing there and talking to you and after a while it almost seems normal. Almost. — Alan Moore

A successful dinner is one that lasts a while and one where everyone leaves happy. It's a meal where we didn't just wolf food down, rather something else happened at the table. That is the goal. — Laurie David

Dontcha mean you wanna get your eyes all over your girl, what's it been, an hour since ya seen her? Ah, can't beat young love, son. Enjoy it while it lasts, then they all turn into my old lady with the nagging. But..I still get a boner every time I see my Helen. — V. Theia

I feel it my duty to plod on while daylight last. — William Carey

Nothing lasts forever on this earth. But whatever's good comes back every once in a while if you let it. — Gladys Hasty Carroll

He thought, that all men, trickled away, changing constantly, until they finally dissolved, while the artist-created images remained unchangeably the same. He thought that the fear of death was perhaps the root of all art, perhaps also of all things of the mind. We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do. Perhaps the woman after whom the master shaped his beautiful Madonna is already wilted or dead, and soon he, too, will be dead; others will live in his house and eat at his table- but his work will still be standing hundreds of years from now, and longer. It will go on shimmering in the quiet cloister church, unchangingly beautiful, forever smiling with the same sad, flowering mouth. — Hermann Hesse

Everything ends eventually. I guess that's what makes summer so intense, this feeling that it lasts for only a a short while and then it's back to reality. — Katherine Applegate

Let us e'er be merry while we may, for man is but dust, and he hath but a span to live here till the worm getteth him, as our good gossip Swanthold sayeth; so let life be merry while it lasts, say I. — Howard Pyle

Is that what we come into the world for, to hurry to an office, and work hour after hour till night, then hurry home and dine and go to a theatre? Is that how I must spend my youth? Youth lasts so short a time, Bateman. And when I am old, what have I to look forward to? To hurry from my home in the morning to my office and work hour after hour after hour till night, and then hurry home again, and dine and go to a theatre? That may be worthwhile if you make a fortune; I don't know, it depends on your nature; but if you don't, is it worth while then? I want to make more out of my life than that, Bateman. — W. Somerset Maugham

Passionate love, I take it, rarely lasts long, and is very troublesome while it does last. Mutual esteem is very much more valuable. — Anthony Trollope

I understood that pain was real and sometimes things didn't last. Sometimes you just had to enjoy it while it lasts and cherish it when it's gone. — Abbi Glines

Adulthood is a wonderful thing, and brief. You must be sure to enjoy it while it lasts. — Marilynne Robinson

Love makes the world go 'round, it's true, but lust stops the world in its tracks; love renders bearable the passage of time, lust causes time to stand still, lust kills time, which is not to say that it wastes it or whiles it aimlessly away but rather that it annihilates it, cancels it, extirpates it from continuum; preventing, while lasts, any lapse into the tense and shabby woes of temporal society, lust is the thousand-pound odometer needle on the dashboard of the absolute. — Tom Robbins

I've been really aware of how important it is to me to just stay in the moment and enjoy it while it lasts. Because that's all you've got. If it ends, I'll move on to doing something else. If it lasts, great. — Marketa Irglova

Athletics lasts for such a short period of time. It ends for people. But while it lasts, it creates this make-believe world where normal rules don't apply. We build this false atmosphere. When it's over and the harsh reality sets in, that's the real joke we play on people ... Everybody wants to experience that superlative moment, and being an athlete can give you that. It's Camelot for them. But there's even life after it. — H. G. Bissinger