Quotes About Time

And that other self, who watches me from the distance of decades, what will she say? Will she look at me with hatred or with compassion, I whose choices made her what she will be?

The Cloudy Vase Past time, I threw the flowers out, washed out the cloudy vase. How easily the old clearness leapt, like a practiced tiger, back inside it.

One way poetry connects is across time. . . . Some echo of a writer's physical experience comes into us when we read her poem.

The Promise" Stay, I said to the cut flowers. They bowed their heads lower. Stay, I said to the spider, who fled. Stay, leaf. It reddened, embarrassed for me and itself. Stay, I said to my body. It sat as a dog does, obedient for a moment, soon starting to tremble. Stay, to the earth of riverine valley meadows, of fossiled escarpments, of limestone and sandstone. It looked back with a changing expression, in silence. Stay, I said to my loves. Each answered, Always.

Jasmine "Almost the twenty-first century" -- how quickly the thought will grow dated, even quaint. Our hopes, our future, will pass like the hopes and futures of others. And all our anxieties and terrors, nights of sleeplessness, griefs, will appear then as they truly are -- Stumbling, delirious bees in the tea scent of jasmine.

Hunger that comes and goes turns time into memory.

Bash? wrote, "The moon and sun are travelers of a hundred generations. The years, coming and going, are wanderers too. Spending a lifetime adrift on boat decks, greeting old age while holding a horse by the mouth—for such a person, each day is a journey, and the journey itself becomes home.

The moon and sun are travelers of a hundred generations. The years, coming and going, are wanderers too. Spending a lifetime adrift on boat decks, greeting old age while holding a horse by the mouth—for such a person, each day is a journey, and the journey itself becomes home.

Age in itself gives substance — what has lasted becomes a thing worth keeping. An older poem's increasing strangeness of language is part of its beauty, in the same way that the cracks and darkening of an old painting become part of its luminosity in the viewer's mind.

Little soul, you have wandered lost a long time.

An hour is not a house" An hour is not a house, a life is not a house, you do not go through them as if they were doors to another. Yet an hour can have shape and proportion, four walls, a ceiling. An hour can be dropped like a glass. Some want quiet as others want bread. Some want sleep. My eyes went to the window, as a cat or dog left alone does.

Un giorno è sconfinato Un giorno è sconfinato Fino a mezzogiorno Poi è andato L'acqua del laghetto di ieri m'intreccia ancora i capelli Non so che ora è Impossibile capirlo Ma possibile rinunciarvi p#159

I wake to a simple longing, all I want of this ordinary hour, this ordinary earth that was long ago married to time: to hear as a sand crab hears the waves, loud as a second heart; to see as a green thing sees the sun, with the undividing attention of blind love. — Jane Hirshfield, from "Rain in May," Of Gravity & Angels . (Wesleyan; 1 edition February 15, 1988)

The self in exile remains the self, as a bell unstruck for years is still a bell.

We are preoccupied with the past, which has already happened, and we are pre-occupied about the future, which does not yet exist. We worry about what will happen and we think about various things that make us feel anxious, frustrated, passionate, angry, resentful, afraid. While we are so preoccupied, our awareness of the here-and-now slips by and we hardly notice its passing.

Today, as I walked my dog on a cool clear morning, I realized that if I live long enough, I may see my grandchildren grow into adults. Someday they might become my young friends. This hope keeps me going. Jane Isay

The stories that travel down through the years nurture our descendants long after we're gone. We contribute to this continuity by the acceptance we offer and the time we share. It's our immortality.

It's also a nodding truth that these close relationships are built one on one. Time alone with a grandchild is golden. The flow of love is unmediated because there are no distractions. Attention is complete.

The trust of a city street is formed over time from many, many little public sidewalk contacts... Most of it is ostensibly trivial but the sum is not trivial at all.

Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.

Give my effort to the present, let God handle the future.

For all they have the means of faster travel, faster communication, faster just about everything, they seem to have less time.

even the most "turnedoff" kid has potential—it just takes a lot of time and hard work to reroute those maladaptive connections!

Yes, children need to learn patience, but parents need to be patient long enough to let them learn.