Instant Quotes - Page 33

• This man has conquered the world! What have you done?" The philosopher replied without an instant's hesitation, "I have conquered the need to conquer the world.

  Steven Pressfield

  Men, Conquer The World, Needs

  Steven Pressfield (2004). “The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great”, Broadway Books

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• What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.

  David Foster Wallace

  Goes On, Littles, Tiny

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• No," he said calmly, filled with purpose. he took her arms lightly in his hands and shook her. "I am not giving you up." Emily looked at him, and for just a moment he could read her thoughts. Melanie use to say they were like twins, with their own secret, silent language. in that instant, Chris felt her fear and her resignation, and the knotty pain of coming up against a brick wall again and again. She glanced away, and he could breathe again. "The thing is, Chris" Emily said, "it's not your choice.

  Jodi Picoult

  Pain, Wall, Hands

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• This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the next-and I didn’t want to forget a single one.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Goodbye, Farewell, Sky

  Banana Yoshimoto, Michael Emmerich (2002). “Goodbye Tsugumi”, p.111, Grove Press

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• Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

  Samuel Beckett

  Time, Night, Light

  Waiting for Godot act 2 (1952)

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• A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our door step once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over, because the film of memory continues running on inside of us long after we have come to a physical standstill. Indeed, there exists something like a contagion of travel, and the disease is essentially incurable.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Running, Memories, Journey

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• This cell belongs to a brain, and it is my brain, the brain of me who is writing; and the cell in question, and within it the atom in question, is in charge of my writing, in a gigantic minuscule game which nobody has yet described. It is that which at this instant, issuing out of a labyrinthine tangle of yeses and nos, makes my hand run along a certain path on the paper, mark it with these volutes that are signs: a double snap, up and down, between two levels of energy, guides this hand of mine to impress on the paper this dot, here, this one.

  Primo Levi

  Running, Writing, Cells

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• it is better to be a part of beauty for one instant and then cease to exist than to exist forever and never be a part of beauty

  Don Marquis

  Forever, Cease

  Don Marquis (2006). “The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel”, p.253, Penguin

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• I saw what I had been fighting for: It was for me, a scared child, who had run away a long time ago to what I had imagined was a safer place. And hiding in this place, behind my invisible barriers, I knew what lay on the other side: Her side attacks. Her secret weapons. Her uncanny ability to find my weakest spots. But in the brief instant that I had peered over the barriers I could finally see what was finally there: an old woman, a wok for her armor, a knitting needle for her sword, getting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in.

  Amy Tan

  Running, Daughter, Children

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.183, Penguin

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• For, how else to seize such an instant? How to shout out into the empty air just the right words, and on cue? Frame a moment to last a lifetime?

  Richard Ford

  Air, Lasts, Moments

  Richard Ford (2006). “Independence Day”, p.352, A&C Black

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• The Lesson You've Got to learn is the someday you'll someday stagger to, blinking in cold light, all tears shed, ready to poke your bovine head in the yoke they've shaped. Everyone learns this. Born, everyone breathes, pays tax, plants dead and hurts galore. There's grief enough for each. My mother learned by moving man to man, outlived them all. The parched earth's bare (once she leaves it) of any who watched the instants I trod it. Other than myself, of course. I've made a study of bearing and forbearance. Everyone does, it turns out, and note those faces passing by: Not one's a god.

  Mary Karr

  Mother, Hurt, Grief

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• Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition. A man who has owned nothing but a bicycle all of his life feels suddenly wealthy the moment he buys an automobile...But this happy sensation wears off. After a while the car becomes just another thing that he owns. Moreover, when his neighbor next door buys two cars, in an instant our man feels wretchedly poor and deprived.

  Alan Lightman

  Men, Two, Doors

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• Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.

  David Foster Wallace

  Crush, Gratitude, Lying

  "Will David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King Be the Most Boring Book Ever?" by Lane Brown, www.vulture.com. March 3, 2009.

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• Exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her. "Good-by--because I love you." He did not know; he did not understand. He would never understand. Perhaps Doctor Mandelet would have understood if she had seen him--but it was too late; the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone. She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again.

  Kate Chopin

  Distance, Love You, Doctors

  Kate Chopin, Sheri Metzger (2009). “CliffsComplete The Awakening”, p.181, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I know we only talked once-" "But it meant something to you." Our eyes met for only an instant. "It meant something to me, too. I just didn't realize - Well, I thought it was only me.

  Claudia Gray

  Eye, Realizing, Mets

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• Imagine a man who stands before a mirror; a stone strikes it, and it falls to ruin all in an instant. And the man learns that he is himself, and not the mirrored man he had believed himself to be.

  Gene Wolfe

  Fall, Men, Mirrors

  Gene Wolfe (1997). “The Urth of the New Sun: The sequel to 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.225, Macmillan

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• Lucas should've run out of there that instant. Instead he stared at me through the glass and slowly unfolded his hand opposite mine so that our hands were pressed againts the pane of glass, fingers to fingers, palm to palm. We each move closer, so that our faces were only inches apart. Even with the stained glass, window between us, it felt as intimate as any kiss we'd shared.

  Claudia Gray

  Running, Moving, Kissing

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• The very instant I saw you, did My heart fly to your service; there resides To make me slave to it. ...mine unworthiness, that dare not offer What I desire to give, and much less take What I shall die to want.

  William Shakespeare

  Heart, Giving, Desire

  William Shakespeare, Nicholas Rowe (1823). “Complete dramatic works and miscellaneous poems”, p.9

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• When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.

  Matsuo Basho

  Writing, Positivity, Hair

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• I always think everything is going to last forever, but nothing ever does. In fact nothing exists longer than an instant except the thing that we hold in memory

  Sam Savage

  Memories, Thinking, Forever

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• Instant obedience will teach you more about God than a lifetime of Bible discussions.

  Rick Warren

  Lifetime, Obedience, Teach

  Rick Warren (2012). “The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?”, p.64, Zondervan

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• The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shews in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven: and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.

  Charles Dickens

  Lying, Sadness, Boys

  Charles Dickens (2015). “Oliver Twist: Classic English Literature”, p.144, 谷月社

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• You know what I noticed when I was with Jacob? In your world, people can reach each other in an instant. There's the telephone, and the fax - and on the computer you can talk to someone all the way around the world. You've got people telling their secrets on TV talk shows, and magazines that publish pictures of movie stars trying to hide their homes. All those connections, but everyone there seems so lonely.

  Jodi Picoult

  Lonely, Stars, Home

  Jodi Picoult (2007). “Plain Truth”, p.130, Simon and Schuster

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• And oil's not supposed to mix with water. But then someone invented mayonnaise, and wham - instant mixing.

  Jackie Morse Kessler

  Oil, Water, Mixing

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• I rented Ghostbusters, my all-time favorite inspirational movie. I picked up some microwave, popcorn, a KitKat, a bag of bite-sized Reese's peanut butter cups, and a box of instant hot chocolate with marshmallows. Do I know how to have a good time, or what?

  Janet Evanovich

  Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Hot

  Janet Evanovich (1999). “Two For The Dough: A Stephanie Plum Novel”, p.122, Simon and Schuster

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