Quotes About Anticipation

But how can you have a sense of wonder if you're prepared for everything?

Perhaps they were looking for passion; perhaps they delved into this book as into a mysterious parcel - a gift box at the bottom of which, hidden in layers of rustling tissue paper, lay something they'd always longed for but couldn't ever grasp.

He could never get used to her, she was fresh every time, she was a casketful of secrets. Any moment now she would open herself up, reveal to him the essential thing, the hidden thing at the core of her life, or of her life, or of his life--the thing he was longing to know. The thing he'd always wanted.

But how can you have a sense of wonder if you're prepared for everything? Prepared for the sunset. Prepared for the moonrise. Prepared for the ice storm. What a flat existence that would be.

From this distance it does resemble fun. Fun is not knowing how it will end.

But I have already told the beginning, so right now it's the middle. And Zeb is in the middle of the story about Zeb. He is in the middle of his own story. I am not in this part of the story; it hasn't come to the part with me. But I'm waiting, far off in the future. I'm waiting for the story of Zeb to join up with mine. The story of Toby. The story I am in right now, with you.

This could be the last time I have to wait. But I don't know what I'm waiting for. What are you waiting for? they used to say. That meant Hurry up. No answer was expected. For what are you waiting is a different question, and I have no answer for that one either.

If I'd been older I would've asked what it was right away, but I didn't because I wanted to postpone the moment when I would know what it was. In stories I'd read, I'd come across the words nameless dread. They'd just been words then, but now that's exactly what I felt.

Last night I felt the approach of nothing. Not too close but on its way, like a wingbeat, like the cooling of the wind, the slight initial tug of an undertow.

Which way will the cat jump?

The prospect of his future life stretched before him like a sentence; not a prison sentence, but a long-winded sentence with a lot of unnecessary subordinate clauses

There was old sex in the room and loneliness, and expectation, of something without a shape or name. I remember that yearning, for something that was always about to happen and was never the same as the hands that were on us there and then, in the small of the back, or out back, in the parking lot, or in the television room with the sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh.

Waiting is also a place: it is wherever you wait. For me it's this room. I am a blank, here, between parentheses. Between other people

One must always keeps both sides in one's head; it's the only way to anticipate the moves of one's opponent

I no longer think that anything can happen. I no longer want to think that way. Happen is what you wait for, not what you do; and anything is a large category.

She was not stunned, the way I was. In some strange way she was gleeful, as if this was what she had been expecting for some time and now she'd been proven right.

How potent was that word. With. He could never get used to her, she was fresh every time, she was a casketful of secrets. Any moment now she would open herself up, reveal to him the essential thing, the hidden thing at the core of life, or of her life, or of his life – the thing he was longing to know. The thing he'd always wanted. What would it be?

Five members of the heretical sect of Quakers have been arrested, he says, smiling blandly, and more arrests are anticipated.

it was at least three weeks before I got the telegram and could start regretting.

Waiting is also a place: it is wherever you wait. For me it's this room. I am a blank, here, between parentheses. Between other people The knock comes at my door. Cora, with the tray.

Who are you, my reader? And when are you? Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps fifty years from now, perhaps never.

Anyway, you don't know what's going to happen. I'm only just thickening the plot. --I'd say it was pretty thick already. Thick plots are my specialty. If you want a thinner kind, look elsewhere.

On a voyage of exploration, how can you price what you'll find before you even set sail?

Whatever their names or pedigree, snowdrops were something to look forward to - the earliest and bravest of the brave spring bulbs, defying the winter gloom.