Quotes About Transience

Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and repeat to yourself; the most comforting words of all; this, too, shall pass.

what yesterday affected us strongly, is to-day but imperfectly felt, and to-morrow perhaps shall be disregarded.

This landscape is animate: it moves, transposes, builds, proceeds, shifts, always going on, never coming back, and one can only retain it in vignettes, impressions caught in a flash, flipped through in succession, leaving a richness of images imprinted on a sunburned retina.

There are Four of Us I have turned aside from everything, from the whole earthly store. The spirit and guardian of this place is an old tree-stump in water. We are brief guests of the earth, as it were, and life is a habit we put on. On paths of air I seem to overhear two friendly voices, talking in turn. Did I say two?...There by the east wall's tangle of raspberry, is a branch of elder, dark and fresh. Why! It's a letter from Marina. November 1962 (in delirium)

Um das zu sehen, worauf es ankommt, muss man bleiben wollen. Unmerklich verhüllten sich alle Städte für die, die sie nur zum Durchziehen brauchen.

And although thus short, we shorten many ways, Living so little while we are alive; In eating, drinking, sleeping, vain delight So unawares comes on perpetual night, And puts all pleasures vain unto eternal flight.

we disappear. It happens to me frequently. You disappear? Yes and then come back. Moments of death I call them.

Water is something you cannot hold. Like men. I have tried, Father, brother, lover, true friends, hungry ghosts and God, one by one all took themselves out of my hands.

It happens to me frequently. You disappear? Yes and then come back. Moments of death I call them.

Why not keep moving it's true every epitaph calls out to the passerby but the marks are a trap the mourning is irrelevant I knew a man who dreamed his backside was made of glass and dared not sit down for 7 months

Our bodies were trash. We leave them on the shore.

It was built on air and ghosts…it was truly beautiful but it died…because it tried to get real and it was never real.

As for me, I am a watercolor. I wash off.

Nature can destroy us in a blink. We live on only at its pleasure.

Life is an illusion that last too little.

Todo se borrará en un segundo. El diccionario acumulado de la cuna hasta el lecho de muerte se eliminará. Llegará el silencio y no habrá palabras para decirlo. De la boca abierta no saldrá nada. Ni yo ni mí. La lengua seguirá poniendo el mundo en palabras. En las conversaciones en torno a una mesa familiar seremos tan solo un nombre, cada vez más sin rostro, hasta desaparecer en la masa anónima de una generación remota.

Sí… Nos olvidarán. ¡Ese es nuestro sino, contra el que nada se puede!… ¡Lo que ahora nos parece serio, significativo, de gran importancia…, llegará el día en que lo olvidemos o se nos antoje poco importante!…

Je ne peux pas dire que les hommes me perdent, ce n'est que mon désir qui me perd, la soumission à (ou la quête de) quelque chose de terrible, que je ne comprends pas, né dans l'union avec un corps, et aussitôt disparu.

Tutto si cancellerà in un secondo. Il dizionario costruito termine dopo termine dalla culla all'ultimo giaciglio si estinguerà. Sarà il silenzio, e nessuna parola per dirlo. Dalla bocca aperta non uscirà nulla. Né io né me. La lingua continuerà a mettere il mondo in parole. Nelle conversazioni attorno a una tavolata in festa saremo soltanto un nome, sempre più senza volto, finché scompariremo nella massa anonima di una generazione lontana.

I made enough money to buy a house. That's crazy, but fame proved ephemeral.

Look this way! Death is a debt all mortal men must pay; Aye, there is no man living who can say If life will last him yet a single day. On, to the dark, drives Fortune; and no force Can wrest her secret nor put back her course….

One moment, one short moment - and forever sorrow.

Nothing comes back. The eye sees for a moment, the ear hears, but look, now it is gone.

People were drunk, but on the cusp of drunken brilliance, which only ever lasted a few minutes and had to be harnessed and harvested while it could be.