Home > Topic > a long time
41 " A rap at the back door made her jump, and she peered through the window for a long time before she eased open the door a crack. She left the security chain on. 'What do you want, Richard?'Richard Morrell's police cruiser was parked in the drive. He hadn't flashed any lights or howled any sirens, so she supposed it wasn't an emergency, exactly. But she knew him well enough to know he didn't pay social visits, at least not to the Glass House.'Good question,' Richard said. 'I guess I want a nice girl who can cook, likes action movies, and looks good in short skirts. But I'll settle for you taking the chain off the door and letting me in. "
― Rachel Caine , Feast of Fools (The Morganville Vampires, #4)
42 " It was long before I could believe that human learning had no clear answer to this question. For a long time it seemed to me, as I listened to the gravity and seriousness wherewith Science affirmed its positions on matters unconnected with the problem of life, that I must have misunderstood something. For a long time I was timid in the presence in learning, and I fancied that the insufficiency of the answers which I received was not its fault, but was owing to my own gross ignorance, but this thing was not a joke or a pastime with me, but the business of my life, and I was at last forced, willy-nilly, to the conclusion that these questions of mine were the only legitimate questions underlying all knowledge, and that it was not I that was in fault in putting them, but science in pretending to have an answer for them. "
― Leo Tolstoy , A Confession
43 " Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as “necessities of thought”, “a priori givens”, etc. The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long commonplace concepts and exhibiting those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, replaced by others if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason. "
44 " A long time ago, I opened a book, and this is what I found inside: a whole new world. It isn't the world I live in, although sometimes it looks a lot like it. Sometimes, though, it feels closest to my world when it doesn't look like it at all. That world is enormous, yet it all fits inside an everyday object. I don't have to keep everything I find there, but what I choose to take with me is more precious than anything I own, and there is always more where that came from. The world I found was inside a book, and then that world turned out to be made of even more books, each of which led to yet another world. It goes on forever and ever. At nine I thought I must get to Narnia or die. It would be a long time before I understood that I was already there. "
― Laura Miller , The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia
45 " Last night I thought about all the kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before...It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I come along in two minutes and boom! it's all over. "
― Ray Bradbury , Fahrenheit 451
46 " And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before. "
47 " In the end Navidson is left with one page and one match. For a long time he waits in darkness and cold, postponing this final bit of illumination. At last though, he grips the match by the neck and after locating the friction strip sparks to life a final ball of light.First, he reads a few lines by match light and then as the heat bites his fingertips he applies the flame to the page. Here then is one end: a final act of reading, a final act of consumption. And as the fire rapidly devours the paper, Navidson's eyes frantically sweep down over the text, keeping just ahead of the necessary immolation, until as he reaches the last few words, flames lick around his hands, ash peels off into the surrounding emptiness, and then as the fire retreats, dimming, its light suddenly spent, the book is gone leaving nothing behind but invisible traces already dismantled in the dark. "
― Mark Z. Danielewski , House of Leaves
48 " Your dreams may have been buried inside of you for a long time because you were busy with things that needed to get done, but it is never too late to dare to dream. "
49 " You scare me, Gage." Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. " You tore me up, ripped me apart. It took me a long time to put the pieces back together again." His thumb grazed along her cheek in a soft caress. " I know baby, but I promise you, you have nothing to fear this time." " How do you know that? How can you promise something like that?" " Because I would die protecting you. I would slay dragons for you." He fisted her hair and brought his face close. " I would get on my knees and beg for you. "
50 " She allowed me to understand I'd done everything I could for her, and that I, and everyone who loved her, had to step away and go on living.Now I know what she wanted from me on the day she told me she was afraid. It was exactly what I wanted when I had cancer and I thought I was going to die. I should have sat down next to her, put my arms around her, and told her that I loved her. That's all anyone wants. It took me a long time to figure this out. It's a complicated human puzzle. But it's never too late to know that love is all you need. "
― Alice Hoffman , Survival Lessons
51 " If you're doing something you love, it doesn't matter that it's challenging. You can keep going for a long time as long as you're motivated- just make sure you choose the right starting point. If you're lucky, as happened with Stephen, Your inclination may even become a vocation. "
― Chris Guillebeau , The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life
52 " Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side "
53 " It takes a long time to grow an old friend. "
― John Leonard
54 " I ain't got no people. I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain't no good. They don't have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin' to fight all the time. . . 'Course Lennie's a God damn nuisance most of the time, but you get used to goin' around with a guy an' you can't get rid of him. "
― John Steinbeck , Of Mice and Men
55 " A friendship between a man and a woman was what you called it when one had been pursuing the other for a long time and never gotten anywhere. "
― Joe Abercrombie
56 " Ah, they said. Qué bueno. And after and for a long time to come he'd have reason to evoke the recollection of those smiles and to reflect upon the good will which provoked them for it had power to protect and to confer honor and to strengthen resolve and it had power to hear men and to bring them to safety long after all other resources were exhausted. "
― Cormac McCarthy , All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, #1)
57 " Forever feels a long time when you're eighteen. When you're away from home for the first time in your life, when you forge instant friendships that are so strong they are destined, surely, to be with you until the bitter end. "
― Jane Green , Bookends
58 " If you're all so peaceful up there, how did you get such greedy and cruel ideas?" The dragon was silent for a long time after this question. And at last he said: " It just came over me. I don't know why. It just came over me, listening to the battling shouts and the war-cries of the earth - I got excited, I wanted to join in. "
59 " Returning to my dreams was like returning to home after a long time of being away - everything was exactly the same as you left it, except infinitely better. "
― Aishabella Sheikh , Entwined (Gift of Dreams #4)
60 " For a long time imagination was all i had. I allowed it to take me to all the places i yearned to be, all the sights i longed to see, make beauty out of all thats been and create art from this suffering. "
― Nikki Rowe