Clock Quotes - Page 14

• The streets, at least in this part of town, seemed impossibly clean in comparison to London. The public telephones were unvandalised. For a London telephone booth to look like that it would have to be guarded around the clock by the SAS.

  Clive James

  America, Looks, World

  Clive James (1985). “Flying Visits”

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• Our struggle to put first things first can be characterized by the contrast between two powerful tools that direct us: the clock and the compass. The clock represents our commitments, appointments, schedules, goals, activities - what we do with, and how we manage our time. The compass represents our vision, values, principles, mission, conscience, direction - what we feel is important and how we lead our lives. In an effort to close the gap between the clock and the compass in our lives, many of us turn to the field of "time management."

  Stephen Covey

  Powerful, Struggle, Commitment

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• Here's the thing. I hate kids. Always have. I mean, I know the job of the race, biologically speaking, is to achieve immortality through reproduction, but the idea of getting impregnated and blowing up like a balloon as I serve as a carrier and service unit for this other person who will eventually burst out of me in the most terrifying way imaginable, then carry on using me one way or another for the rest of my life, is right up there with throwing myself off the top of a twenty-story building. If I have a biological clock, it is digital and does not tick.

  Isobelle Carmody

  Jobs, Hate, Mean

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• Cobbled streets and no shops open past six o'clock, a communal life that seemed to revolve around church, and where you could often hear bird song and nothing else: Gaia felt as though she had fallen through a portal into a land lost in time.

  J. K. Rowling

  Song, Past, Land

  J.K. Rowling (2012). “The Casual Vacancy”, p.187, Hachette UK

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• Before I met No I thought that violence meant shouting and hitting and war and blood. Now I know that there can also be violence in silence and that it’s sometimes invisible to the naked eye. There’s violence in the time that conceals wounds, the relentless succession of days, the impossibility of turning back the clock. Violence is what escapes us. It’s silent and hidden. Violence is what remains inexplicable, what stays forever opaque.

  Delphine de Vigan

  War, Eye, Blood

  Delphine de Vigan (2010). “No and Me”, p.156, A&C Black

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• It would have been better to come back at the same hour,” said the fox. “If, for example, you came at four o’clock in the afternoon, then at three o’clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o’clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . . .

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Heart, Jumping, Worry

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• Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

  Harper Lee

  Sweet, Naps, Sweat

  Harold Bloom, Harper Lee (2010). “Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird”, p.20, Infobase Publishing

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• In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time." "They do not keep clocks in their houses. Instead, they listen to their heartbeats. They feel the rhythms of their moods and desires." "Then there are those who think their bodies don't exist. They live by mechanical time. They rise at seven o'clock in the morning. They eat their lunch at noon and their supper at six. They arrive at their appointments on time, precisely by the clock.

  Alan Lightman

  Morning, Thinking, Two

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• Arithmetic arithmetock Turn the hands back on the clock How does the ocean rock the boat? How did the razor find my throat? The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier.

  Tom Waits

  Ocean, Rocks, Hands

  Song: There's Only Alice, Album: Alice, 2002

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• clocks in disagreement are worse than no clock at all.

  David Mitchell

  Disagreement

  David Mitchell (2012). “Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel”, p.176, Random House Group

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• The railway was part scalpel, part movie camera, slicing the city open, parading its inner workings at fifty frames per second. It was on the S-Bahn that she felt least abandoned, as if the act of travelling turned back the clock, and brought her nearer to the future she had lost.

  Philip Sington

  Cities, Cameras, Fifty

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• And yet.. even if you had been right, it would only have been by accident. A broken clock is right two times a day.

  Orson Scott Card

  Two, Broken, Has Beens

  Orson Scott Card (2002). “Ender's Shadow”, p.81, Macmillan

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• The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike

  Christopher Marlowe

  Running, Stars, Moving

  Doctor Faustus act 5, sc. 2 (1604)

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• All my life I have battled the alarm clock, pummeling the snooze button over and over with mounting self-loathing until the shame is finally strong enough to lever me upright.

  Isaac Marion

  Strong, Self, Buttons

  Isaac Marion (2016). “Warm Bodies and The New Hunger: A Special 5th Anniversary Edition”, p.163, Simon and Schuster

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• A Clock is not time; it's numbers and springs. Pay it no mind.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Spring, Numbers, Mind

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• There were times when the fact of impending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would cling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five minutes of striking. But there were also times when they had the illusion not only of safety but of permanence.

  George Orwell

  Safety, Soul, Together

  George Orwell (2001). “The Complete Novels of George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four”, p.1256, Penguin UK

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• He would look so young. They were both so young. Tessa knew it was unusual to marry at seventeen and eighteen, but they were racing a clock. The clock of Jem's life, before it wound down.

  Cassandra Clare

  Racing, Looks, Unusual

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess”, p.940, Simon and Schuster

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• Illegibility of this world. All things twice over. The strong clocks justify the splitting hour, hoarsely. You , clamped into your deepest part, climb out of yourself for ever.

  Paul Celan

  Strong, World, Hours

  Paul Celan (1972). “Selected poems”, Penguin Books Ltd

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• As a performer, I wanted to be the loudest, most persistent alarm clock I could be, because there didn’t seem like any other way to snap society out of its Christianity- and media-induced coma.

  Marilyn Manson

  Media, Alarms, Way

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• I would like to sing someone to sleep, to sit beside someone and be there. I would like to rock you and sing softly and go with you to and from sleep. I would like to be the one in the house who knew: The night was cold. And I would like to listen in and listen out into you, into the world, into the woods. The clocks shout to one another striking, and one sees to the bottom of time. And down below one last, strange man walks by and rouses a strange dog. And after that comes silence. I have laid my eyes upon you wide; and they hold you gently and let you go when something stirs in the dark.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Dog, Sleep, Eye

  "The Book of Images".

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• When Will Graham could open his right eye, he saw the clock and knew where he was- an intensive-care unit. He knew to watch the clock. Its movement assured him that this was passing, would pass. That's what it was there for.

  Thomas Harris

  Eye, Watches, Movement

  Thomas Harris (2009). “Red Dragon”, p.434, Penguin

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• And like most middle-aged people who hear the clock ticking in their lives, I had come to resent a waste or theft of my time that was greater than any theft of my goods or money.

  James Lee Burke

  People, Waste, Middle

  James Lee Burke (2010). “Heaven's Prisoners”, p.156, Hachette UK

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• Charley talking to Cookie ‘'You know those women in nursing homes that have to be restrained around the clock because they mix up everyones medication and steal all the bedpans?'' ‘’Yes'' I said wondering what I was walking into ''That’s going to be you!'' She was probably right, if I live that long

  Darynda Jones

  Home, Nursing, Talking

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• Because there’s a clock attached to every beautiful woman. From the second she comes into her own, she begins to decline, because she begins to age. Aging is every beautiful woman’s kryptonite. And so, yes, it’s ridiculous and no, you don’t have much time and of course it’s not fair. Those three statements are the essence of beauty.

  Paul Rudnick

  Beautiful, Essence, Kryptonite

  Paul Rudnick (2013). “Gorgeous”, p.57, Scholastic Inc.

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• Life is long. Just because you don't get your chance right when you want or expect it doesn't mean it won't come. Fate doesn't punch a time clock or consult a schedule.

  Sarah Dessen

  Mean, Fate, Long

  Sarah Dessen (2013). “The Moon and More”, p.176, Penguin

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