Quotes About Giving Things Time

“Don't you think it's time you got out of your own way? Time you stop ending things before they start, time you stopped imagining the worst-case scenario, and giving in without a fight?"
"And if things turn out as bad as I imagine they might?"
"Then you chalk it up to shit happening and get on with your life.”

— Sara Bell

“When we feel like giving up, like we are beyond help, we must remember that we are never beyond hope. Holding on to hope has always motivated me to keep trying. I have found this hope by connecting with others. I've found it not only in individuals who have dealt with eating disorders but also in people who have battled addictions and those who have survived abuse, cancer, and broken hearts. I have found much-needed hope in my passions and dreams for the future. I've found it in prayer. Real hope combined with real actions has always pulled me through difficult times. Real hope combined with doing nothing has never pulled me through. In other words, sitting around and simply hoping that things will change won't pick you up after a fall. Hope only gives you strength when you use it as a tool to move forward. Taking real action with a hopeful mind will pull you off the ground that eighth time and beyond.”

— Jenni Schaefer

“ON BUSY BASTARDS: A busy bastard can't stop finding things to do. He never rests and as a result, his staff never rests. He's always making work that expands to fill whatever time is available. The point I make in my book is: Be busy, work hard, but don't become so busy that you cut out other things in life, like family and recreation and hobbies. And never be so busy that you're not giving your staff and your followers enough time to do the same thing.”

— Colin Powell

“Daylight would have shown a wilderness weathered and blowzy, a wanton that had lived her summer too fast and too greedily. It would have shown the white birches pale and shivering in a sudden ague, and here and there an ash or a sumac burning red, like a hectic spot, where the first frosts already had set the marks of their galloping consumption on the cheek of the forest, giving warning of the time when the white plague of the winter would make a massacre of all this present glory and turn the trees to naked skeletons and stretch a bony bare cadaver on every steeper hillside to bleach there until the snows covered things up. But now the kindly nighttime had all signs and threats of approaching death, so that each shriveled speckled leaf, as revealed and traced in the waning light, seemed flawless - a perfect part of a perfect tapestry.”

— Irvin S. Cobb

“Quitting is not giving up, it's choosing to focus your attention on something more important. Quitting is not losing confidence, it's realizing that there are more valuable ways you can spend your time. Quitting is not making excuses, it's learning to be more productive, efficient and effective instead. Quitting is letting go of things (or people) that are sucking the life out of you so you can do more things that will bring you strength.”

— Osayi Emokpae Lasisi

“Yes, I do think that not everything from the past is outmoded. Giving yourself a chance to possess something very good, taking your time, that's important. Yes, I think everything goes by too fast these days. We talk too fast. We think too fast
if we think at all, that is! We send e-mails and texts without reading them through, we lose the elegance of proper spelling, politeness, the sense of things. I've seen children publish pictures of themselves vomiting on Facebook. No, no, i'm not against progress; I'm just afraid it will isolate people even more.”

— Grégoire Delacourt

“Thurber was asked by a correspondent: "Why did you have a comma in the sentence, 'After dinner, the men went into the living-room'?" And his answer was probably one of the loveliest things ever said about punctuation. "This particular comma," Thurber explained, "was Ross's way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up.”

— Lynne Truss

“There isn't going to be any turning point ... There isn't going to be any next-month-it'll-be-better, next fucking year, next fucking life. You don't have any time to wait for. You just got to look around you and say, "So this is it. This is really all there is to it. This little thing." Everybody needing such little things and they can't get them. Everybody needing just a little ... confidence from somebody else and they can't get it. Everybody, everybody fighting to protect their little feelings. Everybody, you know, like reaching out tentatively but drawing back. It's so shallow and seems so ... fucking ... it seems like such a shame. It's so close to being like really right and good and open and amorphous and giving and everything. But it's not. And it ain't gonna be.
September 1969
quoted in "The New Yorker" 9 August 1999”

— Janis Joplin

“Sometimes we carry unhappy feelings about past hurts too long. We spend too much energy dwelling on things that have passed and cannot be changed. We struggle to close the door and let go of the hurt. If, after time, we can forgive whatever may have caused the hurt, we will tap 'into a life-giving source of comfort' through the Atonement, and the 'sweet peace' of forgiveness will be ours ("My Journey to Forgiving," Ensign, Feb. 1997. 43). Some injuries are so hurtful and deep that healing comes only with help from a higher power and hope for perfect justice and restitution in the next life ... You can tap into that higher power and receive precious comfort and sweet peace.”

— James E. Faust

“Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within ... By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere.”

— Paul Auster

“No one really appreciated how much of security work was just trying to keep things under control for a few more minutes, giving everyone involved in the crisis a little time to think it all through.”

— James S.A. Corey

“Do the things you used to talk about doing but never did. Know when to let go and when to hold on tight. Stop rushing. Don't be intimidated to say it like it is. Stop apologizing all the time. Learn to say no, so your yes has some oomph. Spend time with the friends who lift you up, and cut loose the ones who bring you down. Stop giving your power away. Be more concerned with being interested than being interesting. Be old enough to appreciate your freedom, and young enough to enjoy it. Finally know who you are.”

— Kristin Armstrong

“You're giving him a place to belong, things to plan for, a life outside of all of this. Idiot didn't even realize he needed it, but he does. You're grounding him. No one else has given him that in a long time.”

— Kylie Scott

“She needs time. I'm giving it to her."
"This is uncharacteristic of you, cousin," Achilles remarked.
Apollo held his gaze when he replied firmly, "I'm a man falling in love. We do many things that are uncharacteristic.”

— Kristen Ashley

“What behaviors are rewarded? Punished? Where and how are people actually spending their resources (time, money, attention)? What rules and expectations are followed, enforced, and ignored? Do people feel safe and supported talking about how they feel and asking for what they need? What are the sacred cows? Who is most likely to tip them? Who stands the cows back up? What stories are legend and what values do they convey? What happens when someone fails, disappoints, or makes a mistake? How is vulnerability (uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure) perceived? How prevalent are shame and blame and how are they showing up? What's the collective tolerance for discomfort? Is the discomfort of learning, trying new things, and giving and receiving feedback normalized, or is there a high premium put on comfort (and how does that look)?”

— Brené Brown

“Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

“You don't want to keep giving yourself a sugar spike and then crash and get exhausted and need coffee because you shoot for a long time. On set, I eat a lot of peanut butter and apples, things that have actual energy and protein in them to keep me going.”

— Allison Williams

“For me, art in our time is strongest when it is aware of science, includes science, is inspired by science, or is about science. On the linguistic level, the new words coined by scientists to describe their new discoveries form a giant growing lexicon that means English is simply bursting with new possibilities, resembling the Elizabethan age in that respect. Then conceptually, science is creating new stories to tell, by deluging us with new information and potentialities. In this deluge we need art to do its usual job of sorting things out, by giving things their human dimension and by exploring how they might feel and what they might mean. So to me the arts and the sciences are completely intertwined. Maybe that's always been true, but now more than ever.”

— Kim Stanley Robinson

“Don't let the darkness of your past block the light of joy in your present. What happened is done. Stop giving time to things that no longer exist when there is so much joy to be found in the here and now.”

— Karen Salmansohn

“Praying always means praying through things and not giving up. It means being ever-watchful and persevering in prayer in order to see breakthrough.
God wants us to be persistent in our praying. Don't forget to spend some quiet time praying to your Heavenly Father today.”

— Stormie Omartian

“Wrath positively glowered. "You're giving me a job to get rid of me." "As a bonded male, I know that you're going to want to take care of her. And I think, if she's nauseous, having those things in her belly might make her feel better." "I can call Fritz, you realize." "Yes, I know. Or you can do it yourself and provide for her." Wrath stood there, frowning and gritting his teeth. "You know something, Jane, you're spending too much time with Rhage." "Because I'm manipulating you?" The physician's smile got bigger. "Maybe. But if you leave right now, you can be back waaaaay before I'm finished.”

— J.R. Ward

“Margaret Fuller Slack I WOULD have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep-set eyes- Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me, Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel, And I married him, giving birth to eight children, And had no time to write. It was all over with me, anyway, When I ran the needle in my hand While washing the baby's things, And died from lock-jaw, an ironical death. Hear me, ambitious souls, Sex is the curse of life.”

— Edgar Lee Masters

“One of the things that evangelicals do really, really well is to make giving a joyous, social enterprise. Too often, the world sees giving as a burden, a sacrifice, when in fact it's more like an opportunity to help others and oneself at the same time.”

— Nicholas Kristof

“But, when nothing subsists of an old past, after the death of people, after the destruction of things, alone, frailer but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, smell and taste still remain for a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, on the ruin of all the rest, bearing without giving way, on their almost impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory.”

— Marcel Proust

“But, Bernard, you're saying the most awful things.'
'Don't you wish you were free, Lenina?'
'I don't know what you mean. I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody's happy nowadays.'
He laughed, 'Yes, "Everybody's happy nowadays." We begin giving children that at five. But wouldn't you like to be free to e happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else's way.”

— Aldous Huxley

“I love the 'Housewives.' I don't watch 'American Idol' or 'X Factor.' I guess I don't like network reality: I like my Bravo; I like documentary programming - I love 'Intervention' and some things on TLC more than others - but the 'Real Housewives' to me are really revolutionary, in terms of giving camera time to women of a certain age.”

— Julie Klausner

“I can do this," [Daemon] crooned, slowly circling around her. "I can keep Dorothea and Hekatah off-balance enough to keep the others safe and also prevent those Ladies from giving the orders to send the Terreillean armies into Kaeleer. I can buy you seventy-two hours, Jaenelle. But it's going to cost me because I'm going to do things I may never be forgiven for, so I want something in return." He could taste her slight bafflement before she said, "All right."
"I don't want to wear the Consort's ring anymore." A slash of pain, quickly stifled.
"All right."
"I want a wedding ring in its place." A flash of joy, immediately followed by sorrow. She smiled at him at the same time her eyes filled with tears. "It would be wonderful." She meant that.”

— Anne Bishop

“My life will be what I make it," he told her. "That is true for all of us all the time. We cannot know what the future will bring or how the events of the future will make us feel. We cannot even plan and feel any certainty that our most carefully contrived plans will be put into effect. Could I have predicted what happened to me in the Peninsula? Could you have predicted what happened to you in Cornwall? But those things happened to us nevertheless. And they changed our plans and our dreams so radically that we both might have been excused for giving up, for never planning or dreaming again, for never living again. That too is a choice we all have to make.”

— Mary Balogh

“Clearly, audiences are very accepting of A-list talent both giving them what they want - Tom Hanks is the most classic example - and then going on, from time to time, to do things that are unexpected. That's part of what makes people want to go to the movies and not just sit home.”

— Mark Canton

“Sometimes trust takes time. We all love to be in control, but when you start to give some of that up, it's freeing. Start with some of the little things. Give those things up to the Lord. Ultimately the most important decision you can make is giving your life over to Christ and trusting Him with it. That's an amazing thing.”

— Mike Fisher

“I come alive by giving back, seeing my children smile and hearing them laugh, standing up for things I believe in, achieving a goal, being there for those who need me, spending quality time with my husband, and indulging in "me moments," whether it's a vacation or just a night out with friends.”

— Trista Sutter

“The star [Tycho's supernova] was at first like Venus and Jupiter, giving pleasing effects; but as it then became like Mars, there will next come a period of wars, seditions, captivity and death of princes, and destruction of cities, together with dryness and fiery meteors in the air, pestilence, and venomous snakes. Lastly, the star became like Saturn, and there will finally come a time of want, death, imprisonment and all sorts of sad things.”

— Tycho Brahe

“To be reborn hourly and daily in this life, we need to die-to give of ourselves wholly to the demands of the moment, so that we utterly "disappear." Thoughts of past, present, or future, of life and death, of this world and the next, are transcended in the superabundance of the now. Time and timelessness coalesce: this is the moment of eternity. Thus our every act is a matter either of giving life or taking it away. If we perform each act with total absorption, we give life to our life. If we do things half-heartedly, we kill that life.”

— Philip Kapleau

“It's really one of my all-time favorite things to do. To go out and really see the kids and visit the moms who are in these programs because I think I really get to see what happens on the ground and connect with them about what changes are that happen in their lives because of some of the giving that we're able to do.”

— Melinda Gates

“This morning take a few minutes to reflect on how you give of yourself to the world. Often we get caught up in the frenzy of buying and giving things. Look at the ways you give appreciation, friendship, energy, time, love, and affection, and give of your own special talents and abilities throughout the year. Acknowledge yourself for having enriched the lives of others. Spend some time loving yourself for the giving light that you are.”

— Shakti Gawain

“Many young people today do not concern themselves with style. They think that what one says should be said simply and that is all. For me, style - which does not exclude simplicity, quite the opposite - is above all a way of saying three or four things in one. There is the simple sentence, with its immediate meaning, and then at the same time, below this immediate meaning, other meanings are organized. If one is not capable of giving language this plurality of meaning, then it is not worth the trouble to write.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre

“Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

“I had a new idea in my head ... this time it's just simply my bedroom, only here colour is to do everything, and, giving by its simplification a grander style to things, is to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, to look at the picture ought to rest the brain or rather the imagination.”

— Vincent Van Gogh