Quotes About Transition

Institutions designed for push cannot easily accommodate pull.

They say all things end. But I say all things begin.

It's a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.

I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.

A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east.

Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future.

It is the hour of pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.

We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

When you're a child you're the center of everything. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you're your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It's worse, but it's much better too.

It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better. But it is true that we have exchanged corpulence for starvation, and either one will kill us.

But you can't start over, Only a baby can start over. You and me, Why, we're all that's been.

You can't go home again because home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory.

I know it might be better for you to come out from under your might-have-beens, into the winds of the world.

He went to his own dark house and lighted the lamps and set fire in the stove. The clock wound by Elizabeth still ticked, storing in its spring the pressure of her hand, and the wool socks she had hung to dry over the stove screen were still damp. These were vital parts of Elizabeth that were not dead yet. Joseph pondered slowly over it. Life cannot be cut off quickly. One cannot be dead until the things he changed are dead. His effect is the only evidence of his life.

Some men ease themselves like setting hens into the nest of death.

Let's get it over and the door closed shut on it! Let's close it like a book and go on reading! New chapter, new life.

Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased

They were fed and clothed and taken care of until they were too old, and then they were kicked out. This ending was no deterrent. No one who is young is ever going to be old.

Morning seems to come earlier every year I live.

Everyone has to be an orphan some time.

Because time does the job, dynamite can't touch. (Samuel Hamilton)

You can't go home again because home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory.

When the first innocence goes, you can't stop—unless you're a hypocrite or a fool.

When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you're your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It's worse, but it's much better too.