tenses QUOTES

1 " God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say " seeing" ? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a " host" who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and " take advantage of" Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves. "

2 " The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for past, present and future. The division does not exist. What does this say about time?

Matter, that thing the most solid and the well-known, which you are holding in your hands and which makes up your body, is now known to be mostly empty space. Empty space and points of light. What does this say about the reality of the world? "

― Jeanette Winterson , Sexing the Cherry

3 " As time passed away, life moved on,
As life moved away I moved on,
As I moved away, tenses changed
My present became past,
Future stood at large.
And my present became big empty void. "

― Ratish Edwards

4 " The Warrior of the Light knows that it is impossible to live in a state of complete relaxation.

He has learned from the archer that, in order to shoot his arrow any distance, he must hold the bow taut. He has learned from the stars that only an inner explosion allows them to shine. The Warrior notices that when a horse is about to jump over a fence, it tenses all its muscles.

But he never confuses tension with anxiety. "

― Paulo Coelho , Warrior of the Light

5 " ...And yet a knowledge
is here that tenses the throat
as for song: the inheritance
of the ones, alive or once
alive, who stand behind
the ones I have imagined,
who took into their minds
the troubles of this place,
blights of love and race,
but saw a good fate here
and willingly paid its cost,
kept it the best they could,
thought of its good,
and mourned the good they lost.

(From the ending of Where in Clearing, p179) "

― Wendell Berry , The Collected Poems, 1957-1982

6 " Nothing could go wrong because nothing had...I meant " nothing would." No - Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive situations - conjugations that would make the French literary tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple. "

7 " This is the man who will be my grandfather—the man who will be the man who was my grandfather. The tenses slur and slide under the pressure of collapsed time. "

― Wendell Berry , Fidelity: Five Stories

8 " To cultivate bravery and courage, take a deep breath & relax:
When you feel fear, your body tenses up and your thoughts lead you down an anxiety-ridden path. Stop, breathe, relax. "

― Susan C. Young , The Art of Action: 8 Ways to Initiate & Activate Forward Momentum for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #4)