Seconds Quotes - Page 21

• After years of practice, I can walk into a bookstore and understand its layout in a few seconds. I can glance at the spine of a book and make a good guess at its content from a number of signs.

  Umberto Eco

  Book, Years, Practice

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• It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Rise Above, Well Known, Life Altering

  Viktor E. Frankl (2006). “Man's Search for Meaning”, p.51, Beacon Press

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• If insemination were the sole biological function of sex, it could be achieved far more economically in a few seconds of mounting and insertion. Indeed, the least social of mammals mate with scarcely more ceremony. The species that have evolved long-term bonds are also, by and large, the ones that rely on elaborate courtship rituals. . . . Love and sex do indeed go together.

  E. O. Wilson

  Love, Sex, Long

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• She dares me to pour myself out like a living waterfall. She dares me to enter the soul that is more than my own; she extinguishes fear in mere seconds. She lets light come through.

  Virginia Woolf

  Light, Soul, Waterfalls

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• Normal and I parted ways when Pateir1ch strolled into my life. Patch has seven inches on me, operates on cold, hard logic, moves like smoke, and lives alone in a supersecret, superswanky studio beneath Delphic Amusement Park. The sound of his voice, low and sexy, can melt my heart in three seconds flat. He’s also a fallen angel, kicked out of heaven for his flexibility when it comes to following rules. I personally believe Patch scared the pants off normal, and it took off running for the far side of the world.

  Becca Fitzpatrick

  Running, Sexy, Moving

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• Time was our very first king. We all live our lives to the aggressive ticking of the clock. We don't question that our lives are a grid of seconds; even our pulses oblige. No succeeding king can hope to hold this kind of power.

  Lauren DeStefano

  Kings, Pulse, Firsts

  FaceBook post by Lauren DeStefano from Apr 16, 2013

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• Aunt B walked out onto the helipad wearing loose yoga pants. “I’m just here to stretch. Kate, want to help?” “Sure.” Thirty seconds later, as I was flying through the air, I decided that this wasn’t the best idea.

  Ilona Andrews

  Yoga, Aunt, Air

  Ilona Andrews (2013). “Magic Rises: A Kate Daniels Novel”, p.44, Penguin

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• Laughter rarely lasts longer than a few seconds, it's true. But how enjoyable those few seconds are.

  David Levithan

  Laughter, Lasts, Enjoyable

  David Levithan (2014). “Two Boys Kissing”, p.26, Egmont UK

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• I eyed Dimitri, recalling a shadow in my periphery back in the ballroom. "You followed when I jumped in front of Lissa, didn't you? Who were you going for? Me or her?" He studied me for several long seconds. He could have lied. He could have given the easy answer by saying he'd intended to push both of us out of the way-if that was even possible, which I didn't recall. But Dimitri didn't lie. "I don't know, Roza. I don't know.

  Richelle Mead

  Lying, Long, Shadow

  Richelle Mead (2010). “Last Sacrifice: A Vampire Academy Novel”, p.297, Penguin

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• At Mach 20, we can fly from New York to Long Beach in 11 minutes and 20 seconds.

  Regina E. Dugan

  Beach, New York, Technology

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• If transportation technology was moving along as fast as microprocessor technology, then the day after tomorrow I would be able to get in a taxi cab and be in Tokyo in 30 seconds.

  Danny Hillis

  Motivation, Moving, Inspiration

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• I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.

  Douglas Adams

  Hands, Tasks, Computer

  Douglas Adams, Mark Carwardine (2011). “Last Chance to See”, p.49, Ballantine Books

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• It seems mutants have something in their lives called gravy. They know truth, but it is buried under thickening and spices of convenience, materialism, insecurity, and fear. They also have something called frosting. It seems to represent how they spend almost all the seconds of their existence in doing superficial, artificial, temporary, pleasant-tasting, nice appearing projects and spend very few actual seconds of their lives developing their eternal beingness.

  Marlo Morgan

  Nice, Insecurity, Mutants

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• And so, when I began to read the proffered pages, I at one moment lost the train of thought in the text and drowned it in my own feelings. In these seconds of absence and self-oblivion, centuries passed with every read but uncomprehended and unabsorbed line, and when, after a few moments, I came to and re-established contact with the text, I knew that the reader who returns from the open seas of his feelings is no longer the same reader who embarked on that sea only a short while ago.

  Milorad Pavić

  Self, Sea, Train Of Thought

  "Dictionary of the Khazars". Book by Milorad Pavić, 1984.

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• A psychologist once asked a group of college students to jot down, in thirty seconds, the initials of the people they disliked. Some of the students taking the test could think of only one person. Others listed as many as fourteen. The interesting fact that came out of this bit of research was this: Those who disliked the largest number were themselves the most widely disliked. When we find ourselves continually disliking others, we ought to bring ourselves up short and ask ourselves the question: "What is wrong with me."

  James Keller

  College, Thinking, Numbers

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• Was there any meaning to life or to war, that two men should sit together and jump within seconds of each other and yet never meet on the ground below?

  David Kenyon Webster

  War, Men, Two

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• Pour the bulk of your time into action, not deciding. The state of indecision is a major time waster. Don't spend more than 60 seconds in that state if you can avoid it. Make a firm, immediate decision, and move from uncertainty to certainty to action. Let the world tell you when you're wrong, and you'll soon build enough experience to make accurate, intelligent decisions.

  Steve Pavlina

  Moving, Intelligent, Decision

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• Hardware is easy to protect: lock it in a room, chain it to a desk, or buy a spare. Information poses more of a problem. It can exist in more than one place; be transported halfway across the planet in seconds; and be stolen without your knowledge.

  Bruce Schneier

  Locks, Information, Rooms

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• Suddenly, there was an enormous flash of light, the brightest light I have ever seen or that I think anyone has ever seen. It blasted; it pounced; it bored its way into you. It was a vision which was seen with more than the eye. It was seen to last forever. You would wish it would stop; altogether it lasted about two seconds.

  Isidor Isaac Rabi

  Eye, Science, Thinking

  Isidor Isaac Rabi (1970). “Science: the center of culture”

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• There are 86,400 seconds in a day. It's up to you to decide what to do with them.

  Jim Valvano

  Basketball, Champion, Up To You

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• Fortunate are the nations that can build wooden houses. Because wood breathes, transforms, deteriorates, like us. It is also important to have flowers and plants where we live, because they breathe, too. Contemplating a flower for three seconds can be a captivating solitary journey back to original geometry, which is always revitalizing.

  Henryk Skolimowski

  Flower, Journey, House

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• It's absolutely fantastic. When I was a kid, my father was always trying to tell me how to be a man, and he said to me, I was maybe 9, and he said to me, 'Philip, whenever you take a nap, take your clothes off, put a blanket on you, and you're going to sleep better.' Well, as with everything, he was right. ... Then the best part of it is that when you wake up, for the first 15 seconds, you have no idea where you are. You're just alive. That's all you know. And it's bliss, it's absolute bliss.

  Philip Roth

  Father, Sleep, Kids

  "At 80, Philip Roth Reflects On Life, Literature And The Beauty Of Naps". "Weekend Edition Saturday" with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. March 23, 2013.

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• The difference between a good and great officer is about ten seconds.

  Arleigh Burke

  Military, Differences, United States Navy

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• As the seconds of our lives are ticking away, you have to realize that life needs to be an adventure.

  Hans Zimmer

  Life, Adventure, Needs

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• The flight was extremely normal . . . for the first 36 seconds then after that got very interesting.

  Pete Conrad

  Interesting, Apollo, Firsts

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