Quotes About Change

Time makes very little difference to the basic realities of life

It was possible to leave things behind—places, people, memories—at least for a time. But places held tight to the things that had happened in them, and to come again to a place you had once lived was to be brought face-to-face with what you had done there and who you had been.

Those small spaces of time, too soon gone, when everything seems to stand still, and existence is balanced on a perfect point, like the moment of change between the dark and the light, when both and neither surround you.

These were people like that. The ones that cared so terribly much - enough to risk everything, enough to change and do things. Most people aren't like that, you know. It isn't that they don't care, but they don't care so greatly.

It gave him the same odd sense of dislocation, though; that sense of losing some valuable part of himself that could not survive the passage back to daily life. Each time, the passage became more difficult.

Hodie mihi cras tibi. Sic transit gloria mundi.

He wasn't a whole person any longer, but only half of something not yet made.

ONE DAY, COCK OF THE WALK—NEXT DAY, A FEATHER DUSTER

The universe had shifted, with a small, decisive click; he could still hear its echo in his bones.

Nothing is lost ... only changed.

He had changed, of course, but the change was subtle; as though he had been put into an oven and baked to a hard finish. He looked as though both muscle and skin had drawn in just a bit, grown closer to the bone, so he was more tightly knit; he had never seemed gawky, but the last hint of boyish looseness had vanished.

And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours. Claire—I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you." [...] Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed." That's the first law of thermodynamics," I said, wiping my nose. No," he said. "That's faith.

Yes, but—" I began. "So"—he said authoritatively, holding up a finger to hush me—"if you have been deprived of your earlier life, perhaps it is only that God has seen fit to bless you with another, that may be richer and fuller.

away from home. Young children stray from their parents and are never seen again. Housewives reach the end of their tether and take the grocery money and a taxi to the station. International financiers change their names and vanish

Pointless to spend too much time in planning, anyway, given the propensity of life to make sudden left-hand turns without warning.

Kaç ya??ndas?n? diye sordu birden. Dün yirmi iki ya??ndayd?m. dedim ruhsuzca. Bugün yüz bile olabilirim.

There were moments, of course. Those small spaces of time, too soon gone, when everything seems to stand still, and existence is balanced on a perfect point, like the moment of change between the dark and the light, when both and neither surround you.

Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed. That's the first law of thermodynamics, I said, wiping my nose. No, he said. That's faith.

make a difference? An instant's panic, as she tried to visualize

Watch a good movie sometime without reference to what's happening but only with attention to how it was photographed; you'll see the change of focus—zoom in, pan out, close-up on face, fade to black, open from above—easily. You want to do that in what you write; it's one of the things that keep people's eyes on the page, though they're almost never conscious of it.

That's how ye do it,' his brother Ian had told him... 'Ye find a way to live for that one more minute. And then another. And another... But after a time, ye find ye're in a different place than ye were. A different person than ye were. And then ye look about and see what's there with ye. Ye'll maybe find a use for yourself. That helps.

She pulled my hair, he said reflectively. Took a clump of it out by the roots. I'll tell ye, Sassenach; if ever I feel the need to change my manner of employment, I dinna think I'll take up attacking women -- it's a bloody hard way to make a living.

These were people like that. The ones who cared so terribly much—enough to risk everything, enough to change and do things. Most people aren't like that, you know. It isn't that they don't care, but that they don't care so greatly.

But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it's as though, knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.