Nightfall Quotes - Page 2

• No matter whether one is flying over Newfoundland or the sea of lights that stretches from Boston to Philadelphia after nightfall, over the Arabian deserts which gleam like mother-of-pearl, over the Ruhr or the city of Frankfurt, it is as though there were no people, only the things they have made and in which they are hiding.

  W. G. Sebald

  Mother, Light, Boston

  W. G. Sebald (2016). “The Rings of Saturn”, p.57, New Directions Publishing

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• How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders. I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story Nightfall, about the planet where the stars were visible only once in a thousand years. So awesome was the sight that it drove men mad. We who can see the stars every night glance up casually at the cosmos and then quickly down again, searching for a Dairy Queen.

  Roger Ebert

  Stars, Queens, Night

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• December stillness, teach me through your trees That loom along the west, one with the land, The veiled evangel of your mysteries. While nightfall, sad and spacious, on the down Deepens, and dusk embues me where I stand, With grave diminishings of green and brown, Speak, roofless Nature, your instinctive words; And let me learn your secret from the sky, Following a flock of steadfast-journeying birds In lone remote migration beating by. December stillness, crossed by twilight roads, Teach me to travel far and bear my loads.

  Siegfried Sassoon

  Twilight, Land, Sky

  Siegfried Sassoon (1949). “Collected Poems”

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• After nightfall, I wouldn't leave a burning building without an escort.

  Harriet Van Horne

  Burning, Building, Burning Buildings

  1969 On muggings in Manhattan. In the Washington Post, 26 Feb.

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• GOING TO WALDEN It isn't very far as highways lie. I might be back by nightfall, having seen The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water. Friends argue that I might be wiser for it. They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper: How dull we grow from hurrying here and there! Many have gone, and think me half a fool To miss a day away in the cool country. Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish, Going to Walden is not so easy a thing As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

  Mary Oliver

  Country, Lying, Book

  Mary Oliver (1972). “The River Styx, Ohio, and other poems”

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• But housekeeping is fun. It is one job where you enjoy the results right along as you work. You may work all day washing and ironing, but at night you have the delicious feeling of sunny clean sheets and airy pillows to lie on. If you clean, you sit down at nightfall with the house shining and faintly smelling of wax, all yours to enjoy right then and there. And if you cook—that creation you lift from the oven goes right to the table.

  Gladys Taber

  Jobs, Fun, Lying

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• Fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

  Maya Angelou

  Christian, Buddhist, Morning

  "Bill Moyers Journal", billmoyers.com. November 21, 1973.

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• Ah, but in time the heat of noontide passes, and to it there succeed nightfall and dusk, with a return to the quiet fold where for the weary an the heavy-laden there waits sleep, sweet sleep.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Sweet, Sleep, Waiting

  Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1958). “Fathers and Children”, p.536, Library of Alexandria

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• The rules for reading yourself to sleep are easier to follow than are the rules for staying awake while reading. Get into bed in a comfortable position, make sure the light is inadequate enough to cause slight eyestrain, choose a book that is either terribly difficult or terribly boring-in any event, one that you do not really care whether you read or not-and you will be asleep in a few minutes. Those who are experts in relaxing with a book do not have to wait for nightfall. A comfortable chair in the library will do any time

  Mortimer Adler

  Book, Reading, Sleep

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.45, Simon and Schuster

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• America has a way of inventing tradition each morning and erasing the past by nightfall, and thehold of ancient custom is endangered by a thousand cicumstances.

  Israel Shenker

  Morning, Past, America

  Israel Shenker (1985). “Coat of Many Colors: Pages from Jewish Life”, Doubleday Books

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• Aragorn: Gentlemen! We do not stop 'til nightfall. Pippin: But what about breakfast? Aragorn: You've already had it. Pippin: We've had one, yes. But what about second breakfast? [Aragorn stares at him, then walks off.] Merry: Don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip. Pippin: What about elevensies? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he? Merry: I wouldn't count on it Pip.

  Peter Jackson

  Thinking, Gentleman, Tea

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• And lo, between the sundawn and the sun His day's work and his night's work are undone: And lo, between the nightfall and the light, He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.

  Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Work, Night, Light

  Algernon Charles Swinburne (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated)”, p.126, Delphi Classics

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• In really bad times, the hungriest would gather at his door at nightfall, vying for the chance to earn a few coins to feed their families by selling their bodies. Had I been older when my father died, I might have been among them. Instead I learned to hunt.

  Suzanne Collins

  Father, Doors, Coins

  Suzanne Collins (2011). “The Hunger Games Trilogy”, p.635, Scholastic Inc.

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• If any of [my stories] succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained.

  M. R. James

  Writing, Fire, Dying

  M. R. James (2011). “Collected Ghost Stories”, p.406, OUP Oxford

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• How hard a thing is life to the lowly and yet how human and real is it? And all this life and love and strife and failure, - is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day? The answer lies in each of us. For somewhere in your past ... somewhere some 100 years ago?there rose from the smoldering ashes of slavery?a proud and humble family who suffered and struggled with life. A family who found the strength to endure all the indignities of life in America, and that family had the hope for a taste of her bounties in the future.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Life And Love, Lying, Real

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• When I was 18 years old, in a more innocent time, my first backpacking trip through Europe, I sneaked into the Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum after nightfall and spent several hours in there avoiding the guards patrolling.

  Guy Gavriel Kay

  Years, Europe, Saturn

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• Each day the storm clouds were opening like great purple flowers and pouring out their dark thunder. Each nightfall, the storm was laid down on their houses like a burden the day had carried.

  Eudora Welty

  Flower, Dark, Clouds

  Eudora Welty (1982). “The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty”, p.250, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Now, after these things were done, the Pharaoh and his Queen drove through the hosts of Egypt in their golden chariot, and received the homage of the hosts ere they departed northwards for Thebes. At nightfall they returned again and sat side by side at the marriage feast, and once more Tua swept her harp of ivory and gold, and sang the ancient song of him who dared much for love, and won the prize.

  H. Rider Haggard

  Love, Song, Queens

  H. Rider Haggard (2012). “Morning Star”, p.295, The Floating Press

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• And that enquiring man John Synge comes next,
  That dying chose the living world for text
  And never could have rested in the tomb
  But that, long travelling, he had come
  Towards nightfall upon certain set apart
  In a most desolate stony place.

  William Butler Yeats

  Life, Men, Long

  William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.98, Library of Alexandria

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