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Absence Quotes

Browse 1757 quotes about Absence.

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Absence Quotes

“Suddenly this defeat. This rain. The blues gone gray And the browns gone gray And yellow A terrible amber. In the cold streets Your warm body. In whatever room Your warm body. Among all the people Your absence The people who are always Not you. I have been easy with trees Too long. Too familiar with mountains. Joy has been a habit. Now Suddenly This rain.”

PeopleLongHas BeensBodyJoyEasyRoomsGoneTreeStreetsColdHabitTerribleMountainRainDefeatWarmAbsenceFamiliarGrayYellowAmberYour Absence
Author:Jack Gilbert
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“New grief, when it came, you could feel filling the air. It took up all the room there was. The place itself, the whole place, became a reminder of the absence of the hurt or the dead or the missing one. I don't believe that grief passes away. It has its time and place forever. More time is added to it; it becomes a story within a story. But grief and griever alike endure.”

FeelsBelieveWholeStoriesHurtRoomsGriefForeverAirMissingEndureDon't BelieveAbsenceMore TimeFillingRemindersPassing AwayGrievers
Book:Jayber Crow: A Novel
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“Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”

IfsNeedsPersonsProblemCareJobsPastPeaceOne DayEgoSolutionsDeserveAbsencePermitVacationNo ProblemEmployers
Author:Maya Angelou
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“To be honest," I halfwhispered, "I don't feel as safe with him as I do with you." "I know." A ghost of a smile touched my lips. "How do you know?" "Think about what safety is, Ella." "Trust?" "Yes, partly. But also an absence of risk." He unstuck a strand of hair from my damp cheek and tucked it back. "Maybe you need to take a risk. Maybe you need to be with someone who rattles you a little.”

ThinkingKnowsNeedsFeelsLittlesRiskHonestHairSafeSafetyLipsAbsenceGhostBeing HonestTouchedDo You KnowCheeksStrandsDamp
Book:The Travis Family Series, Books 1-3: Blue-Eyed Devil, Smooth Taking Stranger and Sugar Daddy
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“In a field, I am the absence of field. In a crowd, I am the absence of crowd. In a dream, I am the absence of dream. But I don't want to live as an absence. I move to keep things whole. Because sometimes I feel drunk on positivity. Sometimes I feel amazement at the tangle of words and lives, and I want to be a part of that tangle.”

WantFeelsSometimesWholeDreamMovingFieldsCrowdsPositivityAbsenceDrunkAmazement
Book:Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
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“Once, she'd been a pro at decompressing, loved to sit on the back deck of the beach house in one of our splintery Adirondack chairs for hours at a time, staring at the ocean. She never had a book or the paper or anything else to distract her. Just the horizon, but it kept her attention, her gaze unwavering. Maybe it was the absence of thought that she loved about being out there, the world narrowing to just the pounding of the waves as the water moved in and out.”

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Book:The Truth About Forever
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“I suppose even Dictators have their chummy moments, when they put their feet up and relax with the boys, but it was plain from the outset that if Roderick Spode had a sunnier side, he had not come with any idea of exhibiting it now. His manner was curt. One sensed the absence of the bonhomous note. ... Here he laid a hand on my shoulder, and I can't remember when I have experienced anything more unpleasant. Apart from what Jeeves would have called the symbolism of the action, he had a grip like the bite of a horse. "Did you say 'Oh yes?'" he asked. "Oh no," I assured him.”

IfsI CanIdeasMomentsHandsActionRememberSidesBoysFeetHorseNotesAbsenceShouldersRelaxBitesDictatorRemember WhenAssuredSymbolismJeeves
Author:P. G. Wodehouse
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“This vast life - the real, interior one in which we remain linked to the dead (because the dream inside us ignores trivialities like breath, or absence) - this vast life is not under our control. Everything we have seen and everyone we have known goes into us and constitutes us, whether we like it or not. We are linked together in a pattern we cannot see and whose effects we cannot know.”

KnowsRealDreamTogetherLife IsKnownEffectsBreathsPatternsAbsenceInteriorsLinkedTriviality
Author:Anna Funder
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“My mother was a continual source of wisdom and great advice...she taught me that there is always a way around a problem-you've just got to find it. Keep trying doors; one will eventually open. She also taught me to accept failure as part and parcel of life. It's not the opposite of success; it's an integral part of success. I talk a lot about learning to become fearless in your approach to life. But fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It's the mastery of fear. It's all about getting up one more time than you fall down.”

WayTryingProblemMotherFallAcceptingDoorsAdviceTaughtSourceApproachOppositesAbsenceFearlessMore TimeMasteryFalling DownKeep TryingFearlessnessParcelThere Is Always A WayGreat Advice
Author:Arianna Huffington
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“Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others.”

ThinkingKnowsMenLooksSelfHandsEyeLyingHonestFrontsAchievementCreditAbsenceSelfishnessPreservesSelf RespectDeceitCheatMediocreRespectableSecond Hand
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“The mountain has left me feeling renewed, more content and positive than I’ve been for weeks, as if something has been given back after a long absence, as if my eyes have opened once again. For this time at least, I’ve let myself be rooted in the unshakable sanity of the senses, spared my mind the burden of too much thinking, turned myself outward to experience the world and inward to savor the pleasures it has given me.”

IfsThinkingWorldMindLongHas BeensFeelingsEyeLeftGivenPleasureToo MuchMeditationWeekMountainBurdenAbsenceSensesSanityRootedInwardUnshakable
Author:Richard Nelson
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“The reappearance of the crescent moon after the new moon; the return of the Sun after a total eclipse, the rising of the Sun in the morning after its troublesome absence at night were noted by people around the world; these phenomena spoke to our ancestors of the possibility of surviving death. Up there in the skies was also a metaphor of immortality.”

PeopleWorldNightMorningSunSkyPossibilityReturnMoonMetaphorAbsenceAround The WorldImmortalityRisingSunsetLife And DeathSpokesAncestorSunriseSurvivingEclipseTroublesomeNew MoonMorning AfterCrescentCrescent MoonTotal Eclipse
Author:Carl Sagan
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“I do understand that you can look into someone’s eyes,” I heard myself saying, “and suddenly know that life will be impossible without them. Know that their voice can make your heart miss a beat and that their company is all your happiness can ever desire and that their absence will leave your soul alone, bereft and lost.”

KnowsLooksHeartSoulEyeDesireLostVoiceCompanyImpossibleHeardMissingBeatsAbsenceYour SoulBereft
Book:The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur
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“Because the enormous narcissism of their parents deprived Will and Tom of suitable role models, both brothers learned to identify with absence. Consequently, even if something beneficial fortuitously entered their lives they immediately treated it as temporary. By the time they were teenagers they were already accustomed to a discontinuous lifestyle marked by constant threats of abandonment and the lack of any emotional stability. Unfortunately, "accustomed to" here is really synonymous with "damaged by.”

IfsParentRolesEmotionalBrotherModelsConstantThreatAbsenceLifestyleEnormousTreatedTeenagerTemporaryStabilityRole ModelsTomsNarcissismAccustomedDeprivedBeneficialAbandonmentSuitableEmotional Stability
Book:Mark Z. Danielewski's House of leaves
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“On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends who are tenderly attached will seperate with the usual look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of uttering that one word, and the meeting will never be. Should possibilities be worse to bear than certainties?”

KnowsShouldYearsWellsLooksLongHandsPainPoorPossibilityBearsPressureMeetingsFinalsAbsencePlanningCertaintyInterviewsUsualOne WordVoyagesMorrow
Book:Master Humphrey's Clock
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“Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.”

MenMeanHandsPoliticalFreedomBalanceCapitalismFellowsFundamentalsMajorityThreatAbsenceChecksConcentrationDictatorPreservationDistributionFellow ManCoercionMomentaryEliminationMonarchsOligarchyPolitical FreedomCoerce
Book:Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition
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“It was as if the demise of the owner had lent the flat a physical void it hadn't had before. At the same time he had the feeling that he wasn't alone. Harry believed in the existence of the soul. Not that he was particularly religious as such, but it was one thing which always struck him when he saw a dead body: the body was bereft of something...the creature had gone, the light had gone,there was not the illusory afterglow that long-since burned-out stars have. The body was missing its soul and it was the absence of the soul that made Harry believe.”

IfsBelieveLongMadeSoulFeelingsBodyLightStarsReligiousExistenceGoneSawsOne ThingMissingCreaturesAbsenceOwnersFlatsVoidBurnedDemiseIllusoryBurned OutBereftAfterglow
Author:Jo Nesbo
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“People imagine that missing a loved one works kind of like missing cigarettes,' he said. 'The first day is really hard but the next day is less hard and so forth, easier and easier the longer you go on. But instead it's like missing water. Every day, you notice the person's absence more.”

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Book:Back When We Were Grownups
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“Mattia was right: the days had slipped over her skin like a solvent, one after the other, each removing a very thin layer of pigment from her tattoo, and from both of their memories. The outlines, like the circumstances, were still there, black and well delineated, but the colors had merged together until they faded into a dull, uniform tonality, a neutral absence of meaning.”

WellsStillsTogetherBlackMemoriesColorCircumstancesSkinsAbsenceDullLayersUniformsTattooOutlinesFadedPigment
Author:Paolo Giordano
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“Some molecules - ammonia, carbon dioxide, water - show up everywhere in the universe, whether life is present or not. But others pop up especially in the presence of life itself. Among the biomarkers in Earth's atmosphere are ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons from aerosol sprays, vapor from mineral solvents, escaped coolants from refrigerators and air conditioners, and smog from the burning of fossil fuels. No other way to read that list: sure signs of the absence of intelligence.”

WayShowsEarthLife IsUniverseWaterAirPopsAbsenceListsBurningAtmosphereFuelDestroyingCarbonFossilsFossil FuelMoleculesSprayMineralsRefrigeratorsCarbon DioxideVaporOzoneSmogAir Conditioner
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
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“When you visit countries that don't nurture these kinds of ambitions, you can feel th absence of hope...people are reduced to worrying only about that day's shelter or the next day's meal. It's a shame, even a tragedy, how many people do not get to think about the future. Technology coupled with wise leadership not only solves these problems but enables dreams of tomorow.”

PeopleThinkingFeelsKindCountryProblemDreamNextTechnologyWorryWiseAmbitionTragedyShameSolveAbsenceMealsShelterNurtureNext Day
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
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