Out Of Time Quotes (page 53)
Every one of us, unconsciously, works out a personal philosophy of life, by which we are guided, inspired, and corrected, as time goes on. It is this philosophy by which we measure out our days, and by which we advertise to all about us the man, or woman, that we are... It takes but a brief time to scent the life philosophy of anyone. It is defined in the conversation, in the look of the eye, and in the general mien of the person. It has no hiding place. It's like the perfume of a flower --...
George Matthew Adams
All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time. The difference between an average man and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this, and one of his tasks is to be alert, deliberately waiting, so that when his cubic centimeter pops out he has the necessary speed, the prowess, to pick it up.
Carlos Castaneda
There was a time in the ancient world - a very long time - in which the central cultural problem must have seemed an inexhaustible outpouring of books. Where to put them all? How to organize them on the groaning shelves? How to hold the profusion of knowledge in one's head? The loss of this plenitude would have been virtually inconceivable to anyone living in its midst. Then, not all at once but with the cumulative force of a mass extinction, the whole enterprise came to an end. What looked...
Stephen Greenblatt
It was getting dark by the time I went out, and nobody who knows the country will need to be told how black is the darkness of a November night under high laurel bushes and yew-trees. I walked into the heart of the shrubberies two or three times, not seeing a step before me, till I came out upon the broader carriage-road, where the trees opened a little, and there was a faint grey glimmer of sky visible, under which the great limes and elms stood darkling like ghosts; but it grew black again...
Margaret Oliphant
Conventions vs. spontaneity. This is a dialectical choice, it depends on the assessment you make of your own times. If you judge that your own time is ridden with empty insincere formalities, you plump for spontaneity, for indecorous behavior even...Much of morality is the task of compensating for one's age. One assumes unfashionable virtues, in an indecorous time. In a time hollowed out by decorum, one must school oneself in spontaneity.
Susan Sontag
Every time a new rock singer comes out they don't say, 'Are you the new John Lennon?' Every time a new rapper comes out, it's not, 'Are you the new Dre?' I am never sure why this sort of genre, the categorization is so strong. I have not earned the right to be called the young Sinatra, but give me time.
Michael Buble
Sometimes I wish I could be like Teflon. I always admired that stuff. Water beads up on it and slides off, nothing sticks. You gotta have a little of that to be able to deal with what's out there. But... Teflon takes a shot and shows the damage. It cannot heal itself. That is our strength: we can heal. We can make ourselves stronger. You can be a bright light in a sea of shit, doesn't matter how big the light is as long as it shines. Get a hold of some of that and don't blow your brains out...
Henry Rollins
One new indulgence was to go out evenings alone. This I worked out carefully in my mind, as not only a right but a duty. Why should a woman be deprived of her only free time, the time allotted to recreation? Why must she be dependent on some man, and thus forced to please him if she wished to go anywhere at night?
A stalwart man once sharply contested my claim to this freedom to go alone. “Any true man,” he said with fervor, “is always ready to go with a woman at night. He is her natural...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Everything under heaven is a sacred vessel and cannot be controlled. Trying to control leads to ruin. Trying to grasp, we lose. Allow your life to unfold naturally. Know that it too is a vessel of perfection. Just as you breathe in and breathe out, there is a time for being ahead and a time for being behind; a time for being in motion and a time for being at rest; a time for being vigorous and a time for being exhausted; a time for being safe and a time for being in danger.
Lao Tzu
Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. "Corrie," he began gently, "when you and I go to Amsterdam-when do I give you your ticket?" I sniffed a few times, considering this. "Why, just before we get on the train." "Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we're going to need things, too. Don't run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need-just in time.
Corrie Ten Boom
Art is central to all our lives, not just the better-off and educated. . . I know that from my own story, and from the evidence of every child ever born? they all want to hear and to tell stories, to sing, to make music, to act out little dramas, to paint pictures, to make sculptures. This is born in and we breed it out. And then, when we have bred it out, we say that art is elitist, and at the same time we either fetishize art? the high prices, the jargon, the inaccessibility? or we ignore...
Jeanette Winterson
If you could buckle your Bugs Bunny wristwatch to a ray of light, your watch would continue ticking but the hands wouldn't move. That's because at the speed of light there is no time. Time is relative to velocity. At high speeds, time is literally stretched. Since light is the ultimate in velocity, at light-speed time is stretched to its absolute and becomes static. Albert Einstein figured that one out.
Tom Robbins
We walked for some time, and grew to know each other, as best as we'd allow. These are some of the high points. They lack continuity. I don't apologize. I merely pointed it out, adding with some truth, I feel, that most liaisons lack continuity. We find ourselves in odd places at various times, and for a brief span we link our lives to others and then, our time elapsed, we move apart. Through a haze of pain occasionally, usually through a veil of memory that clings, then passes,...
Harlan Ellison
That time I thought I was in love
and calmly said so
was not much different from the time
I was truly in love
and slept poorly and spoke out loud
to the wall
and discovered the hidden genius
of my hands
And the times I felt less in love,
less than someone,
were, to be honest, not so different
either.
Each was ridiculous in its own way
and each was tender, yes,
sometimes even the false is tender.
I am astonished
by the various kisses we’re capable of.
Each from different heights
diminished,...
Stephen Dunn
For most of the day and night, time oppresses me. It is only when I am at work on the innards of a clock-or a lock-that time stops."
"The clock stops, you mean."
"No. Time stops, or so it seems. I do not sense its passage. Then something interrupts me-I become aware that my bladder is full, my mouth dry, my stomach rumbling, the fire’s gone out, and the sun’s gone down. But there before me on the table is a finished clock-" now suddenly a snicker from the mechanism, and a deft movement of...
Neal Stephenson