Time
Quotes - Time is a storm in which we are all lost
“We
know one another. This is the present. There is no past and no future. Here I
am washing my hands, and the cracked mirror shows me to myself, suspended as it
were, in time; this is me, this moment will not pass.
And
then I open the door and go to the dining-room, where he is sitting waiting for
me at a table, and I think how in that moment I have aged, and passed on, how I
have advanced one step towards an unknown destiny.
We
smile, we choose our lunch, we speak of this and that, but - I say to myself-I
am not she who left him five minutes ago. She has stayed behind. I am another
woman, older, more mature…”
―
Daphne du Maurier
“There
is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the
backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into
manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of
the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets
awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and waits
as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his
consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the
limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes
not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the
first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession
before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of
nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into
nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little
gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of
his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he
must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined
like corn to wilt in the sun.”
―
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life
“How
soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n
on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!”
―
John Milton
“It's
funny, don't you think, how time seems to do a lot of things? It flies, it
tells, and worst of all, it runs out.”
―
Markus Zusak, Fighting Ruben Wolfe
“The
best teachers have showed me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing
that means anything happens quickly--we only think it does. The motion of
drawing back a bow and sending an arrow straight into a target takes only a
split second, but it is a skill many years in the making. So it is with a life,
anyone's life. I may list things that might be described as my accomplishments
in these few pages, but they are only shadows of the larger truth, fragments
separated from the whole cycle of becoming. And if I can tell an old-time story
now about a man who is walking about, waudjoset ndatlokugan, a forest lodge
man, alesakamigwi udlagwedewugan, it is because I spent many years walking
about myself, listening to voices that came not just from the people but from
animals and trees and stones.”
―
Joseph Bruchac
“Want
to have a short phone call with someone? Call them at 11:55 a.m., right before
lunch. They'll talk fast. You may think you are interesting, but you are not
more interesting than lunch.”
―
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
“Time
You
were the one
I
wanted most
to
stay.
But
time could not
be
kept at bay.
The
more it goes,
the
more it's gone—
the
more it takes away.”
―
Lang Leav, Lullabies (Volume 2)
“Time
is a storm in which we are all lost.”
―
William Carlos Williams
“There
is a time for work, and a time for love. That leaves no other time.”
―
Coco Chanel
“The
common man prays, 'I want a cookie right now!' And God responds, 'If you'd
listen to what I say, tomorrow it will bring you 100 cookies.”
―
Criss Jami, Killosophy
“Men
live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and
the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come.”
―
George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
“The
finished clock is resplendent. At first glance it is simply a clock, a rather
large black clock with a white face and a silver pendulum. Well crafted,
obviously, with intricately carved woodwork edges and a perfectly painted face,
but just a clock.
But
that is before it is wound. Before it begins to tick, the pendulum swinging steadily
and evenly. Then, then it becomes something else.
The
changes are slow. First, the color changes in the face, shifts from white to
grey, and then there are clouds that float across it, disappearing when they
reach the opposite side.
Meanwhile,
bits of the body of the clock expand and contract, like pieces of a puzzle. As
though the clock is falling apart, slowly and gracefully.
All
of this takes hours.
The
face of the clock becomes a darker grey, and then black, with twinkling stars where
numbers had been previously. The body of the clock, which has been methodically
turning itself inside out and expanding, is now entirely subtle shades of white
and grey. And it is not just pieces, it is figures and objects, perfectly
carved flowers and planets and tiny books with actual paper pages that turn.
There is a silver dragon that curls around part of the now visible clockwork, a
tiny princess in a carved tower who paces in distress, awaiting an absent
prince. Teapots that pour into teacups and minuscule curls of steam that rise
from them as the seconds tick. Wrapped presents open. Small cats chase small
dogs. An entire game of chess is played.
At
the center, where a cuckoo bird would live in a more traditional timepiece, is
the juggler. Dress in harlequin style with a grey mask, he juggles shiny silver
balls that correspond to each hour. As the clock chimes, another ball joins the
rest until at midnight he juggles twelve balls in a complex pattern.
After
midnight, the clock begins once more to fold in upon itself. The face lightens
and the cloud returns. The number of juggled balls decreases until the juggler
himself vanishes.
By
noon it is a clock again, and no longer a dream.”
―
Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
“I'm
wishing he could see that music lives. Forever. That it's stronger than death.
Stronger than time. And that its strength holds you together when nothing else
can.”
―
Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution
