Quotes About Ephemerality

Time gathers speed as we get older. Life flashes by all too fast, and is over all too soon.

In loving life you love what can't survive.

The more we wait, the more everything and everyone looks like a grain of sand escaping between our fingers before vanishing into the wind.

Mr. Sand, do you think it's possible to fall in love in the space of a single day?" He smiled. "I wouldn't know. I only fall in love at night. Never lasts beyond breakfast, though.

So the more things remained the same, the more they changed after all. Nothing endures. Not love, not a tree, not even a death by violence.

The joys of love...last only a moment. The sorrows of love last all the life long.

it occurred to me that never again would he be seven years, one month and six days old, so we had better catch these moments while we can.

Even a long human life adds up to only about 650,000 hours. And when that modest milestone flashes into view, or at some other point thereabouts, for reasons unknown your atoms will close you down, then silently disassemble and go off to be other things. And that's it for you.

If good things lasted forever, would we appreciate how precious they are?

Passing time isn't a steady thing. People try to measure it, but some days seem to have years packed into them, and others pass in the blink of an eye. Some days matter, and others don't.

Nothing stays or holds or keeps where there is growth, he somehow perceived vaguely but truly. Great Caesar dead and turned to clay stopped no hole to keep the wind away. Dead Caesar was nothing but a tiresome bit of print in a book that schoolboys study for awhile and then forget. The Ambersons had passed, and the new people would pass, and the new people that came after them, and then the next new ones, and the next—and the next—

Nothing is real except the present, and already, I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moment, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don't want to die.

This second is life. And when it is gone, it is dead. But you can't start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead.

He who was living is now dead. We who were living are now dying.

that which is only living Can only die

In a minute there is time  For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?

Time goes by so fast. Nothin' can outrun it. Death commences too early--almost before you're half-acquainted with life--you meet the other.

We have not long to love. Light does not stay. The tender things are those we fold away. Coarse fabrics are the ones for common wear. In silence I have watched you comb your hair. Intimate the silence, dim and warm. I could but did not, reach to touch your arm. I could, but do not, break that which is still. (Almost the faintest whisper would be shrill.) So moments pass as though they wished to stay. We have not long to love. A night. A day....

Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going.

Y si nos mordemos el dolor es dulce, y si nos ahogamos en un breve y terrible absorber simultáneo del aliento, esa instantánea muerte es bella.

El tiempo vuela, como dice Gustave. Uno cree que es lunes y ya estamos a jueves. El otoño se termina, y de golpe es pleno verano.

Esa luz es tan usted, algo que viene y va, que se mueve todo el tiempo

Estúpido —dice Talita besándolo en la oreja—. Esto no va a durar siempre, no va a durar siempre... Esto no debería durar ni un minuto más.