Time
Quotes
The Role
Played by Time
“Anyone
who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning
enough.”
―
Alain de Botton
“Time
goes faster the more hollow it is. Lives with no meaning go straight past you,
like trains that don’t stop at your station.”
―
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
“It's
such a shame to waste time. We always think we have so much of it.”
―
Mitch Albom, For One More Day
“I
wanted to go on sitting there, not talking, not listening to the others,
keeping the moment precious for all time, because we were peaceful all of us,
we were content and drowsy even as the bee who droned above our heads. In a
little while it would be different, there would come tomorrow, and the next day
and another year. And we would be changed perhaps, never sitting quite like
this again. Some of us would go away, or suffer, or die, the future stretched
away in front of us, unknown, unseen, not perhaps what we wanted, not what we
planned. This moment was safe though, this could not be touched. Here we sat
together, Maxim and I, hand-in-hand, and the past and the future mattered not
at all. This was secure, this funny little fragment of time he would never
remember, never think about again…For them it was just after lunch,
quarter-past-three on a haphazard afternoon, like any hour, like any day. They
did not want to hold it close, imprisoned and secure, as I did. They were not
afraid.”
―
Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
“Realize
deeply that the present moment is all you will ever have.”
―
Eckhart Tolle
“The
role played by time at the beginning of the universe is, I believe, the final
key to removing the need for a Grand Designer, and revealing how the universe
created itself. … Time itself must come to a stop. You can’t get to a time
before the big bang, because there was no time before the big bang. We have
finally found something that does not have a cause because there was no time
for a cause to exist in. For me this means there is no possibility of a creator
because there is no time for a creator to have existed. Since time itself began
at the moment of the Big Bang, it was an event that could not have been caused
or created by anyone or anything. … So when people ask me if a god created the
universe, I tell them the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist
before the Big Bang, so there is no time for God to make the universe in. It’s
like asking for directions to the edge of the Earth. The Earth is a sphere. It
does not have an edge, so looking for it is a futile exercise.”
―
Stephen W. Hawking
“Once,
very long ago, Time fell in love with Fate. This, as you might imagine, proved
problematic. Their romance disrupted the flow of time. It tangled the strings
of fortune into knots. The stars watched
from the heavens nervously, worrying what might occur. What might happen to the
days and nights were time to suffer a broken heart? What catastrophes might
result if the same fate awaited Fate itself? The stars conspired and separated
the two. For a while they breathed easier in the heavens. Time continued to
flow as it always had, or perhaps imperceptibly slower. Fate weaved together
the paths that were meant to intertwine, though perhaps a string was missed
here and there. But eventually, Fate and Time found each other again. In the heavens, the stars sighed, twinkling
and fretting. They asked the Moon her advice. The Moon in turn called upon the
parliament of owls to decide how best to proceed. The parliament of owls
convened to discuss the matter amongst themselves night after night. They
argued and debated while the world slept around them, and the world continued
to turn, unaware that such important matters were under discussion while it
slumbered. The parliament of owls came
to the logical conclusion that if the problem was in the combination, one of
the elements should be removed. They chose to keep the one they felt more
important. The parliament of owls told their decision to the stars and the
stars agreed. The Moon did not, but on this night she was dark and could not
offer her opinion. So it was decided,
and Fate was pulled apart. Ripped into pieces by beaks and claws. Fate’s
screams echoed through the deepest corners and the highest heavens but no one
dared to intervene save for a small brave mouse who snuck into the fray,
creeping unnoticed through the blood and bone and feathers, and took Fate’s
heart and kept it safe. When the furor died down there was nothing else left of
Fate. The owl who consumed Fate’s eyes
gained great site, greater site then any that had been granted to a mortal
creature before. The Parliament crowned him the Owl King. In the heavens the
stars sparkled with relief but the moon was full of sorrow. And so time goes as
it should and events that were once fated to happen are left instead to chance,
and Chance never falls in love with anything for long. But the world is strange
and endings are not truly endings no matter how the stars might wish it
so. Occasionally Fate can pull itself
together again. And Time is always
waiting.”
―
Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea
“Where
your attention goes, your time goes”
―
Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your
Ability
“The
main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you
can't save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or
foolishly.”
―
Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
“Everything
changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important
things in her life.”
―
Brian Andreas
“Time
heals all wounds. But not this one. Not yet.”
―
Marie Lu, Champion
“Thirty
years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to
get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was
due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the
kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and
unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then
my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and
said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
―
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
“Real
museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.”
―
Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence
“A
man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get
tired but then time is your misfortune”
―
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
“But
I was young
and
didn’t know better
and
someone should have told me to capture every second
every
kiss & every night
Because
now I’m sitting here alone and it’s getting really hard to breath because tears
are growing in my throat and they want to break out, but there are people
watching
and
I just want to be somewhere silent
somewhere
still
But
still I don’t want to be alone because I’m scared and lonely
and
I don’t understand
Because
I was alone my whole life
My
whole life
I
was so damn lonely and I was content with that
because
I liked myself and my own company
and
I didn’t need anyone
I
thought
But
then there was you .. ...
So,
someone should have told me that love is for those few brave who can handle the
unbearable emptiness,
the
unbearable guilt and lack of oneself,
Because
I lost myself to someone I love
and
I might get myself back one day
but
it will take time, it will take time.
This
is gonna take some time.
I
wish someone would have told me this.
Someone
should have told me this.”
―
Charlotte Eriksson, Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great
Perhaps
“There’s
a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there? I imagine you laughing at my
small joke; I imagine you groaning; I imagine you throwing my words away. Do I
have you still? Do I address empty air and the flies that will eat this
carcass? You could leave me for five years, you could return never—and I have
to write the rest of this not knowing.”
―
Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War
“We’re
running out of time, he said.
As
if time were the kind of thing you could run out of, as if it were measured
into bowls that were handed to us at birth and if we ate too much or too fast
or right before jumping into the water then our time would be lost, wasted,
already spent.
But
time is beyond our finite comprehension. It’s endless, it exists outside of us;
we cannot run out of it or lose track of it or find a way to hold on to it.
Time goes on even when we do not.”
―
Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me
“Time
is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for
those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time
is eternity.”
―
Henry Van Dyke
“Time
management is about life management.”
―
Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your
Ability
“Months
are different in college, especially freshman year. Too much happens. Every
freshman month equals six regular months—they're like dog months.”
―
Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl
“Time
doesn’t heal all wounds. We both know that’s bullshit; it comes from people who
have nothing comforting or original to say.”
―
Adam Silvera, History Is All You Left Me
