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Clock Quotes

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Clock Quotes

“there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock”

World Hands Loneliness Movement This World Clock

Book:The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993

Source: The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993

“The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.”

Mind Clock Dukes Discworld Cuckoos

Author:Terry Pratchett

“Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

Source: FAULKNER READER

“Perhaps the clock hands had become so tired of going in the same direction year after year that they had suddenly begun to go the opposite way instead.”

Way Years Hands Opposites Tired Clock

Book:The Christmas Mystery

Source: The Christmas Mystery

“He awoke at six, as usual. He needed no alarm clock. He was already comprehensively alarmed.”

Needed Six Clock Usual Alarms Alarm Clocks

Book:The Information

Source: The Information

“Even if all the clocks in the station break down, thought Hugo, time won't stop. Not even if you really want it to. Like now.”

Ifs Want Break Clock Stations Breaking Down

Book:The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Source: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

“Our life runs down in sending up the clock. The brook runs down in sending up our life. The sun runs down in sending up the brook. And there is something sending up the sun. It is this backward motion toward the source, Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in, The tribute of the current to the source. It is from this in nature we are from. It is most us.”

Running Sun Our Lives Source Currents Clock Streams Tribute Brooks

Author:Robert Frost

“It was three o'clock in the morning – the wisest and most accursed hour of the clock. But sometimes it sets us free.”

Life Sometimes Three Hours Morning Clock Wisest

Book:THE BLUE CASTLE (Unabridged)

Source: THE BLUE CASTLE (Unabridged)

“In mind's special processes, a ten-mile run takes far longer than the 60 minutes reported by a grandfather clock. Such time, in fact, hardly exists at all in the real world; it is all out on the trail somewhere, and you only go back to it when you are out there.”

World Mind Real Facts Running Process Minutes Special Ten Miles Clock Real World Grandfather Trails

Author:John L. Parker Jr.

“Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

Broken Clock Imitation Sopranos Fracture Stopped Clock

Author:Stephen Hunt

“O how all things are far removed and long have passed away. I do believe the star, whose light my face reflects, is dead and has been so for many thousand years. I had a vision of a passing boat and heard some voices saying disquieting things. I heard a clock strike in some distant house... but in which house?... I long to quiet my anxious heart and stand beneath the sky's immensity. I long to pray... And one of all the stars must still exist. I do believe that I would know which one alone endured, and which like a white city stands at the ray's end shining in the heavens.”

“Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

World Inspirational Motivational Clock Cheer Up Brida Stopped Clock

Author:Paulo Coelho

“I loathe the expression “What makes him tick.” It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solutions, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm.”

Mind Persons Sometimes Use Together Fall Hours Simple Break Expression Solutions Strikes Foolish Clock Electric Tick Loathe Together Again Thunderstorm Chimes

Author:James Thurber

“The huge round lunar clock was a gristmill. Shake down all the grains of Time—the big grains of centuries, and the small grains of years, and the tiny grains of hours and minutes—and the clock pulverized them, slid Time silently out in all directions in a fine pollen, carried by cold winds to blanket the town like dust, everywhere. Spores from that clock lodged in your flesh to wrinkle it, to grow bones to monstrous size, to burst feet from shoes like turnips. Oh, how that great machine…dispensed Time in blowing weathers.”

Years Bigs Grows Hours Feet Minutes Century Wind Huge Fine Cold Machines Towns Rounds Shoes Size Bones Flesh Tiny Weather Dust Clock Shakes Grain Blanket Monstrous Wrinkles Pollen Turnips Cold Wind

Author:Ray Bradbury

“A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.”

Persons Done Running Work Chance Sleep Half Ten Leaving Clock Insomnia Undone Other Half One Half

Book:Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

“But there is something about Time. The sun rises and sets. The stars swing slowly across the sky and fade. Clouds fill with rain and snow, empty themselves, and fill again. The moon is born, and dies, and is reborn. Around millions of clocks swing hour hands, and minute hands, and second hands. Around goes the continual circle of the notes of the scale. Around goes the circle of night and day, the circle of weeks forever revolving, and of months, and of years.”

Years Hands Night Dies Stars Born Hours Millions Sun Forever Week Sky Minutes Months Moon Rain Empty Notes Clouds Circles Scales Snow Clock Fades Swings Reborn Second Hand Sun Rise Revolving Rain And Snow

Book:Prelude

Source: Prelude

“Steven Spielberg seems to have wanted to be a director from 13. He put his dog in a certain position and made him eat at four o'clock. He liked to direct it. But, to me, directing is tedious. Especially if you're acting in it. And I'm inherently lazy.”

Ifs Made Seems Wanted Certain Acting Four Dog Position Directors Direct Clock Lazy Tedious

Author:Albert Brooks

“Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house---the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture---must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstitutred. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.”

Littles Whole Stories House Hours Events Ordinary Remains Lifetime Photograph Bones Ruins Clock Outcomes Dozen Burned Furniture Ordinary Things

Book:The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

“Intermittently she caught the gist of his sentences and supplied the rest from her subconscious, as one picks up the striking of a clock in the middle with only the rhythm of the first uncounted strokes lingering in the mind.”

Mind Firsts Middle Picks Caught Sentences Rhythm Clock Subconscious Strokes Lingering Gist

Book:The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works

Source: The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works

“The clock struck eleven and cat the vampire huntress was on the loose, except my battle armor was a push-up bra, curled hair, and a short dress. Yeah, it was a dirty job, but I was going to do it. Come one, come all, bloodsuckers! Bar’s open!”

Jobs Hair Battle Cat Dresses Yeah Bars Vampire Clock Dirty Eleven Armor Bras Push Ups Huntress Bloodsuckers Dirty Jobs

Author:Jeaniene Frost

“Go back to bed', said the omniscient interior voice, because you don't need to know the final answer right now, at three o'clock in the morning on the Thursday in November. 'Go back to bed', because I love you. 'Go back to bed', beacause the only thing you need to do for now is get some rest and take good care of yourself until you do know the answer.”

Knows Needs Said Care Three Voice Answers Morning Love You Right Now Bed Finals Clock Interiors November Thursday Omniscient

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.”

World Bigs Left Sun Dying Tongue Nine Setting Settings Clock Sunset Palaces Splendor Old World

Book:The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I; Barbara W. Tuchman's Great War Series

Source: The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I; Barbara W. Tuchman's Great War Series

“Salvador Dali and fifty cents will get you a cup of clock melt.”

Cups Clock Fifty Cents

Author:Tom Robbins

“Our life is made up of time; our days are measured in hours, our pay measured by those hours, our knowledge is measured by years. We grab a few quick minutes in our busy day to have a coffee break. We rush back to our desks, we watch the clock, we live by appointments. And yet your time eventually runs out and you wonder in your heart of hearts if those seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades were being spent the best way they possibly could. In other words, if you could change anything, would you?”

“because you always have a clock strapped to your body, it's natural that i should think of you as the correct time: with your long blonde hair at 8:03, and your pulse-lightning breasts at 11:17, and your rose-meow smile at 5:30, i know i'm right.”

Thinking Knows Should Long Body Natural Hair Rose Your Body Clock Breasts Lightning Pulse Think Of You Blonde Blonde Hair Long Blonde Hair

Book:Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar

Source: Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar

“Grimly, she realized that clocks don't make a sound that even remotely resembles ticking, tocking. It was more the sound of a hammer, upside down, hacking methodically at the earth. It was the sound of a grave.”

Earth Sound Graves Clock Hammers Upside Down Hacking

Book:Markus Zusak: The Book Thief & I Am the Messenger

Source: Markus Zusak: The Book Thief & I Am the Messenger

“I write seven days a week, starting at 4 o'clock in the morning, including Christmas.”

Writing Morning Week Seven Including Starting Clock Seven Days

Author:Dan Brown

“A stopped clock is correct twice a day, but a sundial can be used to stab someone, even at nighttime.”

Used Clock Nighttime Sundials Stopped Clock

Book:More Information Than You Require

Source: More Information Than You Require

“You will find the key to success under the alarm clock.”

Success Keys Smart Clock Graduates Graduation Key To Success Alarms Alarm Clocks

Author:Benjamin Franklin

“If they were shocked, then Gregor had no further responsibility and could be calm. But if they took everything calmly, he he, too, had no reason to get excited and could, if he hurried, actually be at the station by eight o'clock.”

Ifs Reason Responsibility Calm Excited Eight Clock No Reason Stations Shocked

Book:The Metamorphosis

Source: The Metamorphosis

“He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister's. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. He still saw that outside the window everything was beginning to grow light. Then, without his consent, his head sank down to the floor, and from his nostrils streamed his last weak breath.”

Ifs Stills States Light Lasts Three Grows Emotion Morning Saws Reflection Window Empty Weak And Love Breaths Conviction Disappear Peaceful Clock Towers Consent Deep Emotions

Book:The Metamorphosis

Source: The Metamorphosis

“Thinking about time is to acknowledge two contradictory certainties: that our outward lives are governed by the seasons and the clock; that our inward lives are governed by something much less regular-an imaginative impulse cutting through the dictates of daily time, and leaving us free to ignore the boundaries of here and now and pass like lightning along the coil of pure time, that is, the circle of the universe and whatever it does or does not contain.”

Thinking Doe Two Universe Cutting Pure Seasons Leaving Circles Boundaries Certainty Impulse Clock Acknowledge Lightning Inward Imaginative Contradictory Here And Now

Book:Sexing the Cherry

Source: Sexing the Cherry

“I wish there really was such a thing as a Time-Clock Puncher, though. I wish some gigantic, surly, stone-fisted Soap Mahoney-type guy went around the world smashing every clock in sight till there weren't any more and people got so confused about when to go to the mill or school or church that they gave up and did something interesting instead.”

People World School Guy Wish Church Interesting Type Stones Sight Around The World Clock Confused Soap Gave Up Mills Something Interesting Smashing Surly So Confused Time Clock

Book:The Brothers K

Source: The Brothers K

“The difference between a non-suicide and an ex-suicide leaving the house for work, at eight o'clock on an ordinary morning: The non-suicide is a little traveling suck of care, sucking care with him from the past and being sucked toward care in the future. His breath is high in his chest. The ex-suicide opens his front door, sits down on the steps, and laughs. Since he has the option of being dead, he has nothing to lose by being alive. It is good to be alive. He goes to work because he doesn't have to.”

Source: Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book

“I kept the fingers of my left hand crossed all the time, while on my right-hand fingers I counted anything at all—steps to the refrigerator, seconds on the clock, words in a sentence—to keep my head occupied. The counting felt like something to hang on to, as if finding the right numbers might somehow crack the code on whatever system ran the slippery universe we were moving through.”

Ifs Hands Might Moving Universe Left Felt Numbers Steps Findings Fingers Sentences Code Clock Ran Cracks Seconds Counting Like Something Slippery Refrigerators Left Hand

Author:Mary Karr

“Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners... Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking... and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths...and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

Source: Three Plays: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Matchmaker

“- he's finished with that; it's like an old clock that won't tell time but won't stop neither, with the hands bent out of shape and the face bare of numbers and the alarm bell rusted silent, an old worthless clock that just keeps ticking and cuckooing without meaning nothing.”

Hands Faces Numbers Shapes Silent Finished Clock Bells Bent Worthless Alarms Meaning Nothing

Book:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement. To spend a Saturday afternoon mopping your kitchen floor while listening to opera on the radio, and to go that night to an Indian restaurant with a friend and be home by nine o'clock - these are enough. They are gifts.”

Enough Home Night Childhood Listening Appreciate Radio Nine Indian Clock Excitement Kitchen Restaurants Afternoon Opera Saturday Crave Calmness Unstable Saturday Afternoon Mopping

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess. And it is still true, no matter how old you are - when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.”

Ifs Thinking World Stills Matter Whole Hands Government Would Be Together Three Found Policy Lays Clean Sticks Whole World Mess Clock Afternoon Milk Cookies Naps Old You Holding Hands

Author:Robert Fulghum

“Policeman: "A hermit eh? Then why's your table set for four?" Groucho: "That's nothing. My alarm clock is set for eight.”

Four Tables Eight Clock Policemen Alarms Hermits Alarm Clocks

Author:Groucho Marx

“I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have out walked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet. When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly light, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.”

Has Beens Stills Light Eye Night House Sound Cities Feet Sky Streets Cry Beats Rain Clock Call Me Far Away Unwilling Lanes Bye Interrupted Good Bye Saddest Saying Good Bye City Lights

Author:Robert Frost

“The clock strikes off the hollow half-hours of all the life that is left to you, one by one.”

Left Hours Half Strikes Clock Hollow Half Hours

Author:Emily Bronte

“Stands the Church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?”

Stills Three Church Ten Tea Clock Honey

Author:Rupert Brooke

“Life would go out in a 'fraction of a second' (that was the phrase), but all night he had been realizing that time depends on clocks and the passage of light. There were no clocks and the light wouldn't change. Nobody really knew how long a second of pain could be. It might last a whole purgatory--or for ever.”

Long Whole Light Might Pain Lasts Night Realizing Depends Clock Phrases Passages All Night Fractions Purgatory

Book:The Power and the Glory

Source: The Power and the Glory

“For me the noise of Time is not sad: I love bells, clocks, watches — and I recall that at first photographic implements were related to techniques of cabinetmaking and the machinery of precision: cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing, and perhaps in me someone very old still hears in the photographic mechanism the living sound of the wood.”

Firsts Stills Sound Watches Seeing Cameras Woods Technique Noise Clock Related Mechanism Bells Recalls Machinery Precision

Author:Roland Barthes

“The library smells like old books — a thousand leather doorways into other worlds. I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers. Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I'll say this is just a place where you can't play music or eat. She's gone. The library sucks.”

“In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you've taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.”

Knows Long Soul Ends Hard Use Hands Moving Given Dark Four Terrible Paper Technique Clock Staring Revolutionary Sunday Afternoon Papers Baths Paragraph Pruning Sunday Afternoons

Author:Douglas Adams

“Every noon as the clock hands arrive at twelve, I want to tie the two arms together, And walk out of the bank carrying time in bags.”

Want Two Hands Together Walks Arms Clock Ties Bags Twelve Noon

Book:Stealing Sugar from the Castle: Selected and New Poems, 1950-2013: Selected Poems, 1950–2011

Source: Stealing Sugar from the Castle: Selected and New Poems, 1950-2013: Selected Poems, 1950–2011

“He had never been interested in stories at any age, and had never quite understood the basic concept. He'd never read a work of fiction all the way through. He did remember, as a small boy, being really annoyed at the depiction of Hickory Dickory Dock in a rag book of nursery rhymes because the clock in the drawing was completely wrong for the period.”

Way Book Stories Age Remember Fiction Boys Periods Understood Concepts Drawing Clock Nurse Rhyme Annoyed Rags Nursery Depiction Docks Nursery Rhymes

Author:Terry Pratchett

“If you pluck out my heart To find what makes it move, You’ll halt the clock That syncopates our love.”

Ifs Heart Moving My Heart Clock Our Love Halt Pluck

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems