Instant Quotes - Page 38

• It was funny, he reflected later, how one’s life could alter in an instant, how one minute everything could be a certain way, and the next it’s simply ... not

  Julia Quinn

  Way, Next, Minutes

  Julia Quinn (2009). “The Viscount Who Loved Me”, p.16, Harper Collins

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• For a moment my soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable fears to which these sights were the monuments and the remembrances. For an instant I dared to shake off my chains, and look around me with a free and lofty spirit; but the iron had eaten into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my miserable self.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Iron, Sight, Self

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1869). “Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus”, p.127

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• To an American the whole purpose of living, the one constant confirmation of continued existence, is to cram as much as sensual pleasure as possible into one's mouth more or less continuously. Gratification, instant and lavish, is a birthright

  Bill Bryson

  Sensual, Purpose, Mouths

  Bill Bryson (2000). “The Complete Notes”, Random House

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• Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic.

  William Hazlitt

  Mean, Passion, Writing

  William Hazlitt (1845). “Lectures on the English Poets”, p.9

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• Matthey, a Geneva physician very close to Rousseau's influence, formulates the prospect for all men of reason: 'Do not glory in your state, if you are wise and civilized men; an instant suffices to disturb and annihilate that supposed wisdom of which you are so proud; an unexpected event, a sharp and sudden emotion of the soul will abruptly change the most reasonable and intelligent man into a raving idiot.

  Michel Foucault

  Wise, Men, Intelligent

  Michel Foucault (2001). “Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason”, p.201, Psychology Press

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• What do you do when your entire identity is destroyed in an instant? How do you cope when your whole life story turns out to bw wrong?

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Identity, Stories, Life Story

  Chuck Palahniuk (2011). “Snuff”, p.25, Random House

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• I'm thinking of how unexpected and yet oddly preordained life can be. Events are upon you in an instant, unforseen and without warning, and often times marked with disappointment and tragedy, but equally often leading to a better understanding of the bittersweet truth of life.

  Rob Lowe

  Disappointment, Thinking, Understanding

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• Instant communication is not communication at all but merely a frantic, trivial, nerve-wracking bombardment of cliches, threats, fads, fashions, gibberish and advertising.

  Edward Abbey

  Fashion, Communication, Nerves

  Edward Abbey (2006). “Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast”

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• We know – it has been measured in many experiments – that children with strong impulse control grow to be better adjusted, more dependable, achieve higher grades in school and college and have more success in their careers than others. Success depends on the ability to delay gratification, which is precisely what a consumerist culture undermines. At every stage, the emphasis is on the instant gratification of instinct. In the words of the pop group Queen, “I want it all and I want it now.” A whole culture is being infantilised.

  Jonathan Sacks

  Strong, Queens, Children

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• To the Technocrats: Have mercy on us. Relax a bit, take time out for simple pleasures. For example, the luxuries of electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, instant electronic communication and such, have taught me to relearn and enjoy the basic human satisfactions of dipping water from a cold clear mountain stream; of building a wood fire in a cast-iron stove; of using long winter nights for making music, making things, making love; of writing long letters, in longhand with a fountain pen, to the few people on this earth I truly care about.

  Edward Abbey

  Communication, Writing, Winter

  Edward Abbey (2006). “Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast”

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• Then Ben wailed again, hopeless and prolonged. It was nothing. Just sound. It might have been all time and injustice and sorrow become vocal for an instant by a conjunction of planets.

  William Faulkner

  Sorrow, Sound, Might

  William Faulkner (2016). “The Sound and the Fury (Third International Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)”, p.142, W. W. Norton & Company

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• We wait. We are bored. (He throws up his hand.) No, don't protest, we are bored to death, there's no denying it. Good. A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste. Come, let's get to work! (He advances towards the heap, stops in his stride.) In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone more, in the midst of nothingness!

  Samuel Beckett

  Hands, Bored, Waiting

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett”, p.72, Faber & Faber

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• In the instant before the door opened, I could almost sense my life expanding just like a river whose waters have begun to swell; for I had never before taken such a drastic step to change the course of my own future. I was like a child tiptoeing along a precipice overlooking the sea. And yet somehow I hadn't imagined a great wave might come and strike me there, and wash everything away.

  Arthur Golden

  Children, Taken, Doors

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• Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.

  Alan Watts

  Eye, Past, Reality

  Alan Watts (1989). “The way of Zen”, Vintage

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• Stahr's eyes and Kathleen's met and tangled. For an instant they made love as no one ever dares to do after. Their glance was slower than an embrace, more urgent than a call.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Eye, Tangled, Embrace

  F. Scott Fitzgerald, Book House (2016). “F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Complete Novels (Book House)”, p.730, Book House

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• It was Alec who brought their lips together. Seregil's first reaction was disbelief. But Alec was insistent, clumsy but determined. It lasted an instant, an eternity, that one awkward kiss, and it spoke silent volumes of bewildered honesty. The moment that followed was too fragile for words.

  Lynn Flewelling

  Honesty, Kissing, Awkward

  Lynn Flewelling (2010). “Stalking Darkness: The Nightrunner Series”, p.443, Spectra

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• During the days I felt myself slipping into a kind of madness. Solitary confinement has an astonishing effect on the mind. The trip was to stay calm and keep myself occupied. I spent hours working out how to break free. But trying to escape would have been instant suicide.

  Tahir Shah

  Suicide, Work Out, Mind

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• The grief in her green eyes slips then hardens and, for an instant, Pendleton sees the woman she has become and has no right being, not at sixteen.

  Ilsa J. Bick

  Grief, Eye, Green

  Ilsa J. Bick (2013). “Drowning Instinct”, p.3, Carolrhoda Lab ™

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• I tweet, therefore my entire life has shrunk to 140 character chunks of instant event and predigested gnomic wisdom. And swearing.

  Neil Gaiman

  Character, Events, Tweet

  Neil Gaiman‏ @neilhimself, twitter.com. February 4, 2009.

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• It's too early for there to be any coffee. I stare dully at the empty pot in the common room, while Sam picks up a jar of instant grounds. "Don't," I warn him. He scoops up a heaping spoonful and, heedlessly, shovels it into his mouth. It crunches horribly. Then his eyes go wide. "Dry," he croaks. "Tongue...shriveling." I shake my head, picking up the jar. "It's dehydrated. You're supposed to add water. Good thing you're mostly made of water." He tries to say something. Brown powder dusts his shirt. "Also," I tell him, "that's decaf.

  Holly Black

  Coffee, Eye, Dust

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• The single most powerful asset we all have is our mind. If it is trained well, it can create enormous wealth in what seems to be an instant.

  Robert Kiyosaki

  Inspirational, Powerful, Inspire

  FaceBook post by Robert Kiyosaki from May 21, 2012

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• "Clove!" Cato's voice is much nearer now. I can tell by the pain in it that he sees her on the ground. "You better run now, Fire Girl," says Thresh. I don't need to be told twice. I flip over and my feet dig into the hard-packed earth as I run away from Thresh and Clove and the sound of Cato's voice. Only when I reach the woods do I turn back for an instant. Thresh and both large backpacks are vanishing over the edge of the plain into the area I've never seen. Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. In a moment, he will realize it's futile; she can't be saved.

  Suzanne Collins

  Girl, Running, Pain

  "The Hunger Games". Book by Suzanne Collins, September 14, 2008.

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• As long as an individual's alive, he will undergo experience in some form or other, and those experiences are stored up instant by instant. To stop experiencin' is to die.

  Haruki Murakami

  Long, Alive, Individual

  Haruki Murakami (1993). “Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel”, Vintage

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• My head aches, my eyes burn, my arms and legs have given up, and my face in the mirror has a grayish cast. The bed, across the room, calls in its unmistakable lover's croon, Come to me, come, only I can make you truly happy, oh, how happy I'll make you, don't resist, remember how you moan with pleasure the instant we touch..... Laura Acosta

  Lynne Sharon Schwartz

  Eye, Mirrors, Bed

  Lynne Sharon Schwartz (2011). “Fatigue Artist”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

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• 17. Butterfly A butterfly fluttered its wings in a wind thick with the smell of seaweed. His dry lips felt the touch of the butterfly for the briefest instant, yet the wisp of wing dust still shone on his lips years later.

  Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

  Butterfly, Dust, Years

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