Instant Quotes - Page 15

• Ten thousand years of civilization shed in an instant when you put a woman behind the wheel of a car.

  Ruth Rendell

  Years, Civilization, Car

  4 Copy quote

• Every moment of life is a step toward the grave.
  [Fr., Chaque instant de la vie est un pas vers la mort.]

  Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon

  Life, Steps, Moments

  7 Copy quote

• if have got my spindle and my distaff ready--my pen and mind--never doubting for an instant that God will send me flax.

  J. G. Holland

  Doubt, Mind, Flax

  4 Copy quote

• The productions of the press, fast as steam can make and carry them, go abroad through all the land, silent as snowflakes, but potent as thunder. It is an additional tongue of steam and lightning, by which a man speaks his first thought, his instant argument or grievance, to millions in a day.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Men, Land, Lightning

  4 Copy quote

• Writing the opening lines of a story is a bit like starting to ski at the steepest part of a hill. You must have all your skills under control from the first instant.

  Marion Dane Bauer

  Writing, Skills, Stories

  Marion Dane Bauer (1996). “Our Stories: A Fiction Workshop for Young Authors”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Why was it that the instant you sent someone a check, no matter how worthy the organization, the first thing they did was ask you for more? Irritating, and a waste of the money she had just sent them.

  Dana Stabenow

  Organization, Matter, Waste

  Dana Stabenow (2013). “The Kate Shugak Investigation - Box Set: A Kate Shugak Investigation:”, p.2338, Head of Zeus

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To wake in the night: be wide awake in an instant, with all your faculties on edge: to wake, and be under compulsion to set in, night for night, at the same point, knowing from grim experience, that the demons awaiting you have each to be grappled with in turn, no single one of them left unthrown, before you can win through to the peace that is utter exhaustion.

  Henry Handel Richardson

  Sleep, Winning, Night

  Henry Handel Richardson (pseud.) (1930). “The fortunes of Richard Mahony: comprising Australia Felix, The way home, Ultima Thule”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Macbeth's deed is done in horror, and without the faintest desire or sense of glory- done, one may almost say, as if it were an appalling duty; the instant it is finished, its futility is revealed to Macbeth as clearly as its vileness had been revealed beforehand

  A. C. Bradley

  Desire, Done, Deeds

  28 Copy quote

• Life can change in an instant; don't be so worried about the future that you forget to celebrate what you have right now.

  Jodi Picoult

  Forget, Worried, Celebrate

  Interview with Kat Tancock, www.canadianliving.com. January 22, 2007.

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wanted to write; I sought all possible paths of personal liberation, but I could never sacrifice a living instant of life for the sake of a line to be written, my balance for the sake of a manuscript, a storm within me for the sake of a poem. I loved life itself too much for this.

  Nina Berberova

  Writing, Sacrifice, Balance

  5 Copy quote

• It gives us more flexibility, so we can do more, but it also creates the expectation of the instant response. It can take away your sense of control over your time.

  Ellen Galinsky

  Giving, Expectations, Over You

  4 Copy quote

• A cat is a purring parcel of paradox, a cunning collection of contradictions. A cat is lazy and busy, dainty and savage, affectionate and aloof, greedy and finicky, sound asleep in one instant, and awake and stalking in the next. A cat is a limp puddle of softness, surrounding a steel-hard and ever-alert set of muscles. ... A cat has the face of a pansy flower, and is just as velvety. A cat holds infinity in her eyes, and your heart in her front paws.

  Leonore Fleischer

  Flower, Heart, Cat

  17 Copy quote

• I cannot remember a time when I was not enraptured or tortured by words. Always there have been words which, sometimes for their sound alone, sometimes for their sound and sense, I would not use. From a loathing of their grossness or sickliness, their weight or want of weight. Their inexactitude, their feeling of acidity or insipidity. Their action, not only on the intelligence but on the nerves, was instant.

  Mary Butts

  Feelings, Loathing, Sound

  Mary Butts (1988). “The Crystal Cabinet: My Childhood at Salterns”, Beacon Press (MA)

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nature is like a wild animal that you have trained to work for you. So long as you are vigilant and walk warily with thought and care, so long will it give you its aid, but look away for an instant, be heedless or forgetful, and it has you by the throat.

  Kamala Markandaya

  Nature, Animal, Giving

  Kamala Markandaya (1954). “Nectar in a Sieve: A Novel”

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• You mean was an instant of my purity worth a lifetime of your lies?

  Mickey Knox

  Lying, Mean, Purity

  4 Copy quote

• When we meet and I discover that we have read and loved the same books, we are instant friends.

  Donalyn Miller

  Book

  Donalyn Miller (2010). “The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child”, p.172, John Wiley & Sons

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is fine to commiserate with a man about his bad experience with a previous partner, but the instant he uses her as an excuse to mistreat you, stop believing anything he tells you about that relationship and instead recognize it as a sign that he has problems with relating to women.

  Lundy Bancroft

  Believe, Men, Use

  Lundy Bancroft (2003). “Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men”, p.29, Penguin

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• I started doing martial arts when I was about 7, and I got my second degree black belt when I was 19. So I have my second degree black belt, but I've never used it and I had to stop when I got "Instant Star" because I couldn't train.

  Laura Vandervoort

  Art, Stars, Black

  "Q&A: Spider-Man's Latest Mary Jane, Laura Vandervoort, Talks!". Interview with Breanne L. Heldman, www.mtv.com. October 6, 2011.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm all for typewriters, with instant carbon copies, and seeing films in cinemas.

  Olivia de Havilland

  Typewriters, Cinema, Film

  7 Copy quote

• We are often too late with our brilliance. We are on time delay. The only instant gratification comes in the form of potato chips. The rest will find us by surprise somewhere down the road maybe as we sleep and dream of other things.

  Richard Schiff

  Dream, Sleep, Too Late

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our knowledge of physics only takes us back so far. Before this instant of cosmic time, all the laws of physics or chemistry are as evanescent as rings of smoke.

  Joseph Silk

  Law, Chemistry, Physics

  Joseph Silk (2008). “The Infinite Cosmos: Questions from the frontiers of cosmology”, p.12, OUP Oxford

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of all the names Polygamy went by (so as not to exasperate the Gentile population and even some of the wives of the members' own bosoms any more than necessary) -- such as Pluralism, Plural or Celestial Wedlock, the Principle, the Doctrine, the New Covenant and the Gospel Dispensation of the Meridian of Consummate Time -- the latter was thought to be the least like waving a red flag in front of a bull. But as it was hard to remember and did not make instant or any other kind of sense, it was not much used.

  Ardyth Kennelly

  Names, Red Flags, Wife

  4 Copy quote

• There are so many cameras. There is so much instant media attention, not just for celebrities, but for normal people that get thrust in the reality world.

  Lorenzo Lamas

  Reality, Media, People

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year: and, as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds; who consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.

  Edward Gibbon

  Brother, Years, History

  Edward Gibbon (2008). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.94, Cosimo, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Many books on communication are strong on theory but impractical on application. Marshall Rosenberg's instant classic is the stand-out exception. It is clear and compelling in its logic and flat-out inspiring in its inviting exposition of usable techniques and strategies. If this book is read by enough people, the world will transform.

  Hugh Prather

  Strong, Book, Communication

  6 Copy quote