Home / Topics / Clock Quotes

Clock Quotes

Browse 1325 quotes about Clock.

Clock Quotes

“Midnight, and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the werewolves birthday, the door of the solstice still wide enough open to let them all slink through.”

Stills Enough Doors Wide Strikes Christmas Clock Midnight Werewolf Christmas Day Solstice

Author:Angela Carter

“There is certainly a universal and unconscious propensity to impose a rhythm even when one hears a series of identical sounds at constant intervals... We tend to hear the sound of a digital clock, for example, as "tick-tock, tick-tock" - even though it is actually "tick tick, tick tick.”

Sound Example Universal Constant Series Rhythm Clock Unconscious Digital Identical Intervals Tick Propensity Tock Tick Tock

Author:Oliver Sacks

“Each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective ways of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it, the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one. Have you ever met anyone is your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not the other?”

People Way Should Humans Facts Hands Form Desire Human Beings Pleasure Quality Accepting Wonder Particular Adventure Mets Unique Instinct Accepted Clock Behave Collectives Keyboards

Author:Paulo Coelho

“William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. "In the time of your life--live!" That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.”

Writing Heart Play Loss Return Clock Purity Theme Opposition Slipping Time Of Your Life Slipping Away

Book:The Glass Menagerie

Source: The Glass Menagerie

“He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock.”

Long Ideas Ends Running Speak Reactions Teeth Clock Intensity

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

“It was morning by the clock but deepest nighttime in his body.”

Body Morning Clock Nighttime

Book:The Marriage Plot: A Novel

Source: The Marriage Plot: A Novel

“She lost much of her appetite. At night, an invisible hand kept shaking her awake every few hours. Grief was physiological, a disturbance of the blood. Sometimes a whole minute would pass in nameless dread - the bedside clock ticking, the blue moonlight coating the window like glue - before she`d remember the brutal fact that had caused it.”

Source: The Marriage Plot: A Novel

“She put her hand on her chest. “I have magic yet. If you will set the clock working again, then I must be still. I have read quite as many stories as you, September. More, no doubt. And I know a secret you do not: I am not the villain. I am no dark lord. I am the princess in this tale. I am the maiden, with her kingdom stolen away. And how may a princess remain safe and protected through centuries, no matter who may assail her? She sleeps. For a hundred years, for a thousand. Until her enemies have all perished and the sun rises over her perfect, innocent face once more.”

“Hey, Tink," Reed called to his wife. He'd given up on the poker game and was cradling the little pink handle that was Mariah Savage in his arms. "Look how cute she is. I think I want one. S'pose we can stop by Walmart and pick up one just like her.?" Chrystal glanced up from her cards and gave her husband a look. "Three o'clock feedings. Smelly diapers. Responsability." "Oh. Right. I'd have to grow up.”

Thinking Want Looks Littles Three Games Given Grows Growing Up Wife Arms Husband Picks Handle Cards Hey Clock Cute Savages Feeding Given Up Like Her Reeds Diapers Smelly Walmart Responsability

Author:Cindy Gerard

“I can't deceive myself out of the bare stark realization that no matter how enthusiastic you are, no matter how sure that character is fate, nothing is real, past or future, when you are alone in your room with the clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful brilliance of the electric light. And if you have no past or future which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide.”

“My faceless neighbor spoke up: “Don’t be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve.” I exploded: “What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet? His cold eyes stared at me. At last he said, wearily: “I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”

People Want Made Said Eye Care Lasts Clear Cold Promise Jew Strikes Neighbor Made It Clock Prophet Spokes Twelve Deluded Faceless Do You Care Cold Eyes

Book:Night

Source: Night

“She serves me a piece of it a few minutes out of the oven. A little steam rises from the slits on top. Sugar and spice - cinnamon - burned into the crust. But she's wearing these dark glasses in the kitchen at ten o'clock in the morning - everything nice - as she watches me break off a piece, bring it to my mouth, and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen, in winter. I fork the pie in and tell myself to stay out of it. She says she loves him. No way could it be worse.”

Source: All of Us: The Collected Poems

“And this lesson about mortal peace of mind I never forgot. Even if a ghost is ripping a house to pieces, throwing in pans all over, pouring water of pillows, making clocks chime at all hours, mortal will accept almost any "natural explanation" offered, no matter how absurd, rather than the obvious supernatural one, for what is going on.”

Source: The Vampire Chronicles Collection: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned

“The clock ticked with empty urgency, as though trying to catch up with the time. In the street a siren howled.”

Trying Streets Empty Clock Urgency Sirens

Book:Invisible Man

Source: Invisible Man

“I guess the most amazing thing about crying though is that when you're in it, you think it'll go on forever but it never really lasts half what you think. Not in terms of real time. In terms of real emotions, it's worse than you think, but not by the clock.”

Thinking Real Lasts Term Emotion Half Forever Cry Goes On Clock Amazing Things Most Amazing Real Emotion

Book:The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure

Source: The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure

“You'll have to leave my meals on a tray outside the door because I'll be working pretty late on the secret of making myself invisible, which may take me almost until eleven o'clock.”

May Secret Doors Late Invisible Clock Meals Take Me Eleven Trays

Author:S. J. Perelman

“Time can tick when there is no clock.”

Book:The Wolf Gift

Source: The Wolf Gift

“The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.”

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.”

Believe Has Beens Shows Night Turns Born My Own Records Cry Hero Pages Strikes Clock Stations Twelve Friday My Own Life

Author:Charles Dickens

“So one must be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox.”

“The end is near," Moridin said. "The Wheel has groaned its final rotation, the clock has lost its spring, the serpent heaves its final gasps.”

Said Ends Lost Spring Finals Clock Wheels Serpent Rotation End Is Near

Book:The Gathering Storm: Book Twelve of the Wheel of Time

Source: The Gathering Storm: Book Twelve of the Wheel of Time

“But I have had enough melodrama in this life, and would willingly give my five senses if they could ensure us our present peace and security. Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind. Of course we have our moments of depression; but there are other moments too, when time, unmeasured by the clock, runs on into eternity and, catching his smile, I know we are together, we march in unison, no flash of thought or opinion makes a barrier between us.”

“I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again. God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.”

Giving Together Risk Dying Love You Tomorrow Clock Gravity Expecting Trading Altars Power Of God Gaming Love You Like Simply Love

Book:Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

Source: Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

“it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles”

Believe Stills Hard Light Tree Fronts New York Warm Breathing Clock Solemn Back And Forth Drifting Hard To Believe Spectacles

Book:Love Poems (tentative Title)

Source: Love Poems (tentative Title)

“In the parallel universe the laws of physics are suspended. What goes up does not necessarily come down, a body at rest does not tend to stay at rest and not every action can be counted on to provoke an equal and opposite reaction. Time, 'too, is different. It may run in circles, flow backward, skip about from now to then. The very arrangement of molecules is fluid: Tables can be clocks, faces, flowers.”

Source: Girl, Interrupted

“Nora: What are you planning? Patch: I wouldn't call this planning. I'd call this throwing a Hail Mary with seconds left on the clock.”

Left Planning Clock Seconds Throwing Mary Patches Hail Hail Mary

Author:Becca Fitzpatrick

“Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-Aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception. There were times I stayed in my room for days on end with headphones on, if only so that I would not have to listen to my mother cry. There were the weeks that my father worked round-the-clock shifts, so that he wouldn't have to come home to a house that felt too big for us.”

Ifs Ends Home Bigs Happens Mother Father House Felt Rooms Grief Week Cry Band Rounds Aids Curious Clock Exception Coming Home Layers Household Ripped Headphones Band Aid

Book:My Sister's Keeper: A Novel

Source: My Sister's Keeper: A Novel

“I was like a clock that had exploded- my springs were hanging out, my hands were cockeyed, and my numbers were falling off.”

Hands Fall Numbers Spring Clock Hanging Out Falling Off

Author:Anthony Kiedis

“Okay, Shane," Agnes said as Brenda's clock gonged midnight. "I got Joey in the kitchen, a cop in the front hall, a dead body in the basement, and you in my bedroom. Where do you want to start?”

Want Said Body Fronts Okay Clock Kitchen Halls Cop Bedroom Midnight Basements Shane Joey

Book:Agnes and the Hitman

Source: Agnes and the Hitman

“The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present.”

Men Inspirational Running Today Time Waiting Mystery Tomorrow Yesterday Clock Live In The Moment Live For Today Power Of Now Past Present Future Yesterday Is History Today Is A Gift

Author:Alice Morse Earle

“As we drew near to the gates of Dother Hall the old bell in the belfry rang out. I said, 'I must go in, it's nigh on ten of the clock.' He half-turned away from me, his jacket collar hiding his expression. Was he angry? Disappointed?" Jo looked intently and I said, "Hungry?" Jo ignored me, but as she passed by acting out walking away from Phil, she allowed her hand to slap against my head.”

Said Hands Acting Half Expression Walking Ten Angry Hungry Clock Gates Halls Hiding Disappointed Bells Ignored Jackets Slap Collars Walking Away Acting Out

Author:Louise Rennison

“Hey, I'm going to Super Dog for a quick bite and to pass along a message from a dead guy to his girlfriend. You should come with me." "I can't go with you." "Is it because of my questionable morals?" "No, it's because it's three o'clock in the afternoon and I have to pick up Amber from school." "Oh, right. So the morals thing doesn't bother you?”

Should I Can School Guy Three Moral Dog Messages Picks Hey Clock Bother Girlfriend Bites Afternoon Amber Questionable

Book:Third Grave Dead Ahead

Source: Third Grave Dead Ahead

“So it was, my dear Watson, that at two o'clock today I found myself in my old armchair in my own old room, and only wishing that I could have seen my old friend Watson in the other chair which he has so often adorned. - Sherlock Holmes.”

Two Today Found Wish My Own Rooms Dear Clock Chairs Old Friends Holmes Watson Armchairs Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

“The clock always ticks. There are times you don't hear it, and there are times that you do.”

Book:Every Day

Source: Every Day

“Agent Jones switched to the big screen and a grainy video of MoMo sitting at his enormous desk, a swivel-hipped Elvis clock ticking behind his bewigged head. 'Death to the capitalist pigs! Death to your cinnamon bun-smelling malls! Death to your power walking and automatic car windows and I'm With Stupid T-shirts! The Republic of ChaCha will never bend to your side-of-fries -drive -through-please-oh-would-you-like-ketchup-with-that corruption! MoMo B. ChaCha defies you and all you stand for, and one day, you will crumble into the sea and we will pick up the pieces and make them into sand art.”

Source: Beauty Queens

“This moment and this chance, they are the same, and they are mine if I choose them,and I do. I want them. Now and as long as I can have them they are both precious and fleeting and gone in the blink of an eye, don't waste them. A moment and an opportunity and a life, all in the unseen tick of a clock holding me nowhere. My heart is beating. The walls are pale and quiet. I am surviving.”

Ifs Want Heart Long I Can Moments Eye Opportunity Chance Gone Mines Wall My Heart Quiet Waste Clock Pale Unseen Fleeting Surviving Blink Tick Blink Of An Eye Million Little Pieces

Book:A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

“Look at those numbers running. Money makes time. It used to be the other way around. Clock time accelerated the rise of capitalism. People stopped thinking about eternity. They began to concentrate on hours, measurable hours,man-hours, using labor more efficiently.”

People Thinking Men Way Looks Running Used Hours Numbers Capitalism Labor Eternity Used To Be Clock Making Time

Book:Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

“I'm never going to believe a Poirot mystery again. Never. All those witnesses going, "Yes, I remember it was 3:06 p.m. exactly, because I glanced at the clock as I reached for the sugar tongs, and Lady Favisham was quite clearly sitting on the right-hand side of the fireplace." Bollocks. They have no idea where Lady Favisham was, they just don't want to admit it in front of Poirot. I'm amazed he gets anywhere.”

Want Believe Ideas Hands Remember Sides Mystery Fronts Sitting Witness No Idea Clock Sugar Amazed Fireplaces

Author:Sophie Kinsella

“Writing fiction takes me out of time. I sit down and the clock will not exist for me for a few hours. That’s probably as close to immortal as we’ll ever get.”

Writing Hours Fiction Down And Clock Immortal Take Me Writing Fiction

Author:David Foster Wallace

“Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.”

Reason House Hours Sun Minutes Demand Fairs Hot Blessed Tongue Cups Clock Reason Why Flames No Reason Superfluous Wenches Prince Hal

Author:William Shakespeare

“I have had to pay a price for leaving Islam and for speaking out. I have to pay for round-the-clock security because of the death threats against me.”

Pay Security Threat Islam Leaving Rounds Clock Speaking Out

Book:Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations

Source: Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations

“When his grandchildren had been little, they had asked if they could hide inside the clock. Now he wanted to gather them and open himself up and hide them among his ribs and faintly ticking heart.”

Ifs Heart Littles Wanted Clock Grandchildren Ribs

Book:Tinkers

Source: Tinkers

“You're with me, Sadie. When you're off the clock, you're not my employee. You're my.. Air." I frowned at him. "Your air?" He grinned. "Well, girlfriend seems to be a shallow word for what I feel for you.”

Feels Wells Seems Air Clock Girlfriend Employee Shallow Sadie

Book:Breathe

Source: Breathe

“Next year, Equality Now will celebrate - if that’s the word - will clock its twentieth year. Two decades of fighting the good fight, fighting the cause, and in case I haven’t been the clear, the cause is that one half of the human race is given the same basic equal rights that the other half enjoys. Or, not given. Given back. That is not a milestone, twenty years, that I intend to go unnoticed. I want to make some noise. I want to make a joyful noise, I want to make too much noise. I want the neighbors to complain. I’m tired of being polite about something that matters so much.”

“A quarter past three," she exclaimed, catching sight of the bedside clock. "What a time to be drinking tea!" "Anytime," Harold told her, "is time to be drinking tea.”

Past Three Sight Drinking Tea Clock Quarters Catching Drinking Tea

Book:Gossip from Thrush Green

Source: Gossip from Thrush Green

“I sit down to the piano regularly at nine-o'clock in the morning and Mesdames les Muses have learned to be on time for that rendezvous.”

Music Morning Nine Clock Piano Songwriting Muse Rendezvous

Author:Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

“Some day,' said Smee, 'the clock will run down, and then he'll get you.' Hook wetted his dry lips, 'Aye,' he said, 'that's the fear that haunts me.”

Said Running Down And Lips Clock Dry Hook Dry Lips

Book:Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy) (Annotated Edition)

Source: Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy) (Annotated Edition)

“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. an alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”

“Tick tock, this is a clock.”

Clock Tick Catching Fire Tock Tick Tock

Book:Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)

Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)

“Here's the thing. I hate kids. Always have. I mean, I know the job of the race, biologically speaking, is to achieve immortality through reproduction, but the idea of getting impregnated and blowing up like a balloon as I serve as a carrier and service unit for this other person who will eventually burst out of me in the most terrifying way imaginable, then carry on using me one way or another for the rest of my life, is right up there with throwing myself off the top of a twenty-story building. If I have a biological clock, it is digital and does not tick.”