Not Rushing Quotes

1. "Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment - an attitude that has never again left me.- Albert Einstein, Autobiographical Notes, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp"
Author: Albert Einstein

2. "He bursts into tears, and not some manlike tears either, where you pretend you're brushing something off your face and, incidentally, wipe a tear. Nope. He starts bawling like a kid who spilled his Slushie..."
Author: Alex Flinn

3. "I can't marry Tove!""Why ever not?" She batted her dark lashes at me."Because I don't love him!""Love is a fairy tale that manks tell their children so they'll have grandchildren," Elora said, brushing me off."
Author: Amanda Hocking

4. "Right." He slowly stood up. "This is new territory for you. Stupid sequestering, the Keepers better not have turned you into a nun or something."I snatched a book off my nightstand and threw it at him. "Get out of my room!"He caught the book in midair and laid it on the bed. "Easy, Lily. That was a bad joke. I didn't mean any offense."I shook with humiliation. "You don't know what it's been like.""I know, and I'm sorry." He came to my side and cupped my face. "I'm sure it hasn't been fun. You deserve better."I nodded. He lowered his head, softly brushing his lips over mine. "I'll show you how much fun it can be. You need to trust me."
Author: Andrea Cremer

5. "Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.... Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away."
Author: Ann Voskamp

6. "Jaenelle opened her mouth, closed it, and finally said timidly, "Do you think, when I'm grown up, I could wear an outfit like that?" Daemon bit his cheek. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Buying time, he looked down at himself. "Well," he said, giving it slow consideration, "the shirt would have to be altered somewhat to accommodate a female figure, but I don't see why not." Jaenelle beamed. "Daemon, it's a wonderful hat." It took him a moment to admit it to himself, but he was miffed. He stood in front of her, on display as it were, and the thing that fascinated her most was his hat. You do know how to bruise a man's ego, don't you, little one? he thought dryly as he said, "Would you like to try it on?" Jaenelle bounced to the mirror, brushing against him as she passed."
Author: Anne Bishop

7. "Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man."
Author: Aung San Suu Kyi

8. "It was only after my head started reeling and my body started weaving and I tumbled into bed that I'd hear that soothing voice singing...The reverbations of that voice wandered sweetly, softly, working like a massage on the area of my heart that was the most tightly clenched, helping those knots to loosen. It was like the rush of waves, and like the laughter of people I'd met in all kinds of places, people I'd become friendly with and then separated from, and like the kind words all those people had said to me, and like the mewing of a cat I had lost, and like the mixture of noises that rang in the background in a place that was dear to me, a place far away, a place that no longer existed, and like the rushing of trees that whisked past my ears as I breathed in a scent of fresh greenery on a trip someplace... the voice was like a combination of all this."
Author: Banana Yoshimoto

9. "Southern Europe has not done enough to enhance its competitiveness, while northern Europe has not done enough to boost demand. Debt burdens remain crushing, and Europe's economy remains unable to grow."
Author: Barry Eichengreen

10. "Screaming at children over their grades, especially to the point of the child's tears, is child abuse, pure and simple. It's not funny and it's not good parenting. It is a crushing, scarring, disastrous experience for the child. It isn't the least bit funny."
Author: Ben Stein

11. "I'll make a horrible housewife. It's not like I'm disgusting, but I'm pretty bad about having a drink or eating something and then leaving the plate and rushing to go."
Author: Camilla Luddington

12. "This was a voice that drew out memories stretched thin by years of recollection, like paper unfolded and refolded too many times. A voice that brought back, like a wave, the memory of another time on this bridge, a night so long ago, everything black and silver and the river rushing away under her feet..."
Author: Cassandra Clare

13. "It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion that we want on this same miry afternoon.… There is much good in it; there are many good and true people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun."
Author: Charles Dickens

14. "I turned and moved fast, focusing swiftly on a wave I had selected for no reason. There was whiteness and grenyess in it and a sort of blue and green. It was a line. It did not toss, nor did it stay still. It was all movement, all spillage, but it was pure containment as well, utterly focused just as I was watching it. It had an elemental hold; it was something coming towards us as though to save us but it did nothing instead, it withdrew in a shurgging irony, as if to suggest that this is what the world is, and our time in it, all lifted possibility, all complexity and rushing fervour, to end in nothing on a small strand, and go back out to rejoin the empty family from whom we had set out alone with such a burst of brave unknowing energy."
Author: Colm Tóibín

15. "And so, when the chips are down, I must say, though not without a sense of repugnance, that if you wish to show your belief in democracy, you also have to do so when you are in the minority, convinced both intellectually and, not least, in your innermost self, that the majority, in the name of democracy, is crushing everything you stand for and that means something to you, indeed, all that gives you the strength to endure, well, that gives a kind of meaning to your life, something that transcends your own fortuitous lot, one might say. When the heralds of democracy roar, triumphantly bawling out their vulgar victories day after day so that it really makes you suffer, as in my own case, you still have to accept it; I will not let anything else be said about me, he thought."
Author: Dag Solstad

16. "If you have not touched the rocky wall of a canyon. If you have not heard a rushing river pound over cobblestones. If you have not seen a native trout rise in a crystalline pool beneath a shattering riffle, or a golden eagle spread its wings and cover you in shadow. If you have not seen the tree line recede to the top of a bare crested mountain. If you have not looked into a pair of wild eyes and seen your own reflection. Please, for the good of your soul, travel west."
Author: Daniel J. Rice

17. "Sailing is the closest I can get to nature - it's adrenaline, fear, a constant challenge and learning experience, an adventure into the unknown. And of course there is nothing better than wearing the same T-shirt for days and not brushing my hair for weeks."
Author: Daria Werbowy

18. "When her muzzle grew more white than brown, the chipmunk forgot that she and the squirrel had had nothing to talk about. She forgot the definition of "jazz" as well and came to think of it as every beautiful thing she had ever failed to appreciate: the taste of warm rain; the smell of a baby; the din of a swollen river, rushing past her tree and onward to infinity."
Author: David Sedaris

19. "Daffy had stopped talking, without her noticing. It was if he'd run out of words. He did a peculiar thing, then; he reached out and touched Mary's cheekbone; lightly, as if he was brushing away a speck of coal dust. She thought of Doll, that first morning, wiping mud out of the lost child's eyes. Her throat hurt, all at once, as if she were swallowing a stone. She wished the two of them could stay forever frozen in this moment, hidden in the grass, as the setting sun slid across the fields of Monmouth. Before any asking, any refusal. While this strange, tame young man was still looking at her as is she were worth any price."
Author: Emma Donoghue

20. "Holly died without a friend to hold her hand. Artemis felt her go, another gift of the magic. He kept on counting, brushing away the tears on his cheeks."
Author: Eoin Colfer

21. "Slowly, Woyzeck, take it slowly. One thing after another one. You make me feel giddy. - What am I supposed to do with the ten minutes you save rushing that way? What use are they to me? Think about it, Woyzeck; you've got a good thirty years left. Thirty years. That makes three hundred and sizty months - and then there's days, hours, minutes! What're you going to do with such a monstrous amount of time? Eh? Space it out a bit, Woyzeck."
Author: Georg Büchner

22. "For much longer, he could have stayed with Kamaswami, made money, wasted money, filled his stomach, and let his soul die of thirst; for much longer he could have lived in this soft, well upholstered hell, if this had not happened: the moment of complete hopelessness and despair, that most extreme moment, when he hang over the rushing waters and was ready to destroy himself. That he had felt this despair, this deep disgust, and that he had not succumbed to it, that the bird, the joyful source and voice in him was still alive after all, this was why he felt joy, this was why he laughed, this was why his face was smiling brightly under his hair which had turned gray."
Author: Hermann Hesse

23. "You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do in this world, that they alone can do."
Author: Hilary Mantel

24. "Nothing endures for so long as fear. Everywhere in nature one sees evidence of innate releasing mechanisms literally millions of years old, which have lain dormant through thousands of generations but retained their power undiminished. The field rat's inherited image of the hawk's silhouette is the classic example - even a paper silhouette drawn across a cage sends it rushing frantically for cover. And how else can you explain the universal but completely groundless loathing of the spider, only one species of which has ever been known to sting? Or hatred of snakes and reptiles? Simply because we all carry within us a submerged memory of the time when the giant spiders were lethal, and when the reptiles were the planet's dominant life form."
Author: J.G. Ballard

25. "That the native does not like the tourist is not hard to explain. For every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native everywhere lives a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression, and every deed, good and bad, is an attempt to forget this. Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour. But some natives—most natives in the world—cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go—so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself."
Author: Jamaica Kincaid

26. "I hate you!" I screamed at Fang. Tucking my wings in, I aimed downward,diving toward the ground at more than two hundred miles an hour."No you dooonnn't!" Fang's voice spiraled away into nothingness, far aboveme.Inside my head, almost drowned out by the roar of wind rushing by my ears, Iheard the Voice make a tsking sound. You guys are crazy about each other, itsaid."
Author: James Patterson

27. "Ours has been an expansionist society, but that narrative must change as we run out of places to expand into. But our culture is like a cart stuck in the same old rut that has been leading us in one direction. The longer we've been using a path, the deeper the ruts get, the harder it is to escape them. We've been moving ever Westward, but there's only so far we can go in that direction before we fall into the ocean. It's a direction that we cannot continue on forever, but the breaking of those ruts will require a major rupture. The old narrative is dying, and it will be quite a crushing of gears before things are re-adjusted. A shared story is needed for a civilization to endure."
Author: James Rozoff

28. "But he was no longer in Tollygunge. He had stepped out of it as he had stepped so many mornings out of his dreams, its reality and its particular logic rendered meaningless in the light of day. The difference was so extreme that he could not accommodate the two places together in his mind. In this enormous new country, there seemed to be nowhere for the old to reside. There was nothing to link them; he was the sole link. Here life ceased to obstruct or assault him. Here was a place where humanity was not always pushing, rushing, running as if with a fire at its back"
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri

29. "Snow not falling but flying sidewise, and sudden, not signaled by the slow curdling of clouds all day and a flake or two drifting downward, but rushing forward all at once as though sent for. (The blizzard of '36 had looked like that.) And filling up the world's concavities, pillowing up in the gloaming, making night light with its whiteness, and then falling still in every one's dreams, falling for pages and pages... ("Novelty")"
Author: John Crowley

30. "Not entirely fair?" His voice became that of the inferno: a rushing, booming howl of icy evil that flew around the great cavern, as swift and cold as the Wendigo on skates. "I am Satan, also called Lucifer the Light Bearer..."Cabal winced. What was it about devils that they always had to give you their whole family history?"I was cast down from the presence of God himself into this dark, sulfurous pit and condemned to spend eternity here-""Have you tried saying sorry?" interrupted Cabal."No, I haven't! I was sent down for a sin of pride. It rather undermines my position if I say 'sorry'!"
Author: Jonathan L. Howard

31. "Touching him was always so important to me. It was something I lived for. Little, nothing touches. My fingers against his shoulder. The outsides of our thighs touching as we squeezed together on the bus. I couldn't explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love?"
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer

32. "Kate opens a jar of honey and pours a thick line of the sticky stuff over the top edge of the wound. Setting the jar back on the counter, she picks up the first strip of cloth and gently wraps it around his arm. As she works, she can feel his eyes on her, watching her silently. She stands close, and his injured arm is outstretched just enough for his hand to be hanging in the air beside her waist. When she tugs on the bandage to make the first knot, his hand is pulled to her, lightly brushing the side of her body with the tips of his fingers. When she tugs again, he presses his hand to her waist, and she feels the subtle constriction of his fingertips."
Author: Kari Aguila

33. "Time is precious and should be spent doing things that make you happy, not brushing those very moments aside. That's when you really die, and I plan on living."
Author: Katelin LaMontagne

34. "She slipped her hands beneath the front of his shirt, slowly running her fingertips over his chest and back down to his waist. He turned in her arms and smiled, but his grin was filled with mocking suspicion. "Are you trying to distract me, Violet Ambrose?""I guess you're smarter than you look," she teased as he pushed her backward so that they both fell on her bed."And you are not as funny as you think you are." His mouth hovered over hers, his arms tightening, crushing her against him. Violet giggled and tried to squirm free, but Jay wouldn't let her. He kissed her throat, his lips teasing her until it wasn't his grip that made it hard for Violet to breathe."Oh, and Violet, he whispered against her ear, his breath tickling her cheek, "I'm still your best friend. Don't ever forget it." His words were fervent and touching."
Author: Kimberly Derting

35. "..., It'd taken her several seconds to react to the sight of them together. She'd been almost hypnotized by the scene as Lothaire drank. Chase's masculine face had been tense, his gray eyes focused on the ground. Lothaire's face had been starkly beautiful, his pale blond hair brushing Chase's shoulder.Light and dark. One terrible, one tragic.And Lothaire had been... hard. "Oh, gods!" She cried as she ran back along the trail. Hot poker for my eyes! Hot poker!"
Author: Kresley Cole

36. "And they were quiet but their blood and nerves and butterflies were not—they were rampantly alive, rushing and thrumming in a wild and perfect melody, matched note for note."
Author: Laini Taylor

37. "Thinking has a quiet skin. But I feel the and of things inside it. Blue hills most gentle in calm light, then stretches of assailAnd ransack. Such tangles of charred wreckage, shrapnel-bits Singling and singeing where they fall. I feel the stumbling gait of what I am,The quiet uproar of undone, how to be hidden is a tempting, violent thing— Each thought breaking always in another.All the unlawful elsewheres rushing in."
Author: Laure Sheck

38. "I'd been brief with her, not wanting her to stress over me and Lia. I mean, she knew I'd narrowly escaped death in freeing Lia from Castel o Paratore, but she didn't know all of the details. That, like, I'd almost been killed a dozen times. You just didn't tell your mom that kind of thing—not if you were trying to keep her from rushing you off to some safe tower."
Author: Lisa Tawn Bergren

39. "He was fine, and foreign, and he did not belong here. I held him close, not crushing, not waking him, letting him sleep, and I suffered. I had never felt such feelings before. I would do anything for him; I would do anything. Anything that was asked of me, that would increase his happiness or health, I would do, and willingly. So I told myself, rocking him, the winter sky white at the window."
Author: Margo Lanagan

40. "Due to Jade's fortresslike manner, which, like any well-built castle, made access challenging, girls found her existence not only threatening but flat-out wrong. Although Bartelby Athletic Center featured the latest advertising campaign of Ms. Sturd's three member Benevolent Body-Image Club (laminated Vogue and Maxim covers above captions, "You Can't Have Thighs Like This and Still Walk" and "All Airbrushing"), Jade would only have to swan by, munching on a Snickers to reveal a disturbing truth: You could have thighs like that and still walk. She emphasized what few wanted to accept, that some people did win Trivial Pursuit: The Deity Looks Edition, and there wasn't a thing you could do about it, except come to terms with the fact that you'd only played Trivial Pursuit: John Doe Genes and come away with three pie pieces."
Author: Marisha Pessl

41. "Sorry, sorry, don't mind me, coming through, oh why hello there—" This to a particularly handsome Kai look-alike droid, which had no more reaction than any of the others. "Or not," she muttered, brushing past him. "Pardon me, a little space, please?"
Author: Marissa Meyer

42. "Of course, we can distinguish between males and females; we can also, if we choose, distinguish between different age categories; but any more advanced distinction comes close to pedantry, probably a result of boredom. A creature that is bored elaborates distinctions and hierarchies. According to Hutchinson and Rawlins, the development of systems of hierarchical dominance within animal societies does not correspond to any practical necessity, nor to any selective advantage; it simply constitutes a means of combating the crushing boredom of life in the heart of nature."
Author: Michel Houellebecq

43. "The voice came from the night all around him, in his head and out of it."What do you want?' it repeated.He wondered if he dared to turn and look, realised he did not.'Well? You come here every night, in a place where the living are not welcome. I have seen you.Why?''I wanted to meet you,' he said, without looking around. 'I want to live for ever.' His voice crackedas he said it.He had stepped over the precipice. There was no going back. In his imagination, he could alreadyfeel the prick of needle-sharp fangs in his neck, a sharp prelude to eternal life.The sound began. It was low and sad, like the rushing of an underground river. It took him severallong seconds to recognise it as laughter.'This is not life,' said the voice.It said nothing more, and after a while the young man knew he was alone in the graveyard."
Author: Neil Gaiman

44. "He wonders if words aren't an essential element of sex, if talking isn't finally a more subtle form of touching, and if the images dancing in our heads aren't just as important as the bodies we hold in our arms. Margot tells him that sex is the one thing in life that counts for her, that if she couldn't have sex she would probably kill herself to escape the boredom and monotony of being trapped inside her own skin. Walker doesn't say anything, but as he comes into her for the second time, he realizes that he shares her opinion. He is mad for sex. Even in the grip of the most crushing despair, he is mad for sex. Sex is the lord and the redeemer, the only salvation on earth."
Author: Paul Auster

45. "I felt the taste of mortality in my mouth, and at that moment I understood that I was not going to live forever. It takes a long time to learn that, but when you finally do, everything changes inside you, you can never be the same again. I was seventeen years old, and all of a sudden, without the slightest flicker of a doubt, I understood that my life was my own, that it belonged to me and no one else.I'm talking about freedom, Fogg. A sense of despair that becomes so great, so crushing, so catastrophic, that you have no choice but to be liberated by it. That's the only choice, or else you crawl into a corner and die."
Author: Paul Auster

46. "I usually make it a point not to cry in front of people, especially hot boys that I'd been totally crushing on before they'd tried to choke me.But for some reason, hearing that there was yet another thing I didn't know just sent me right on over the edge.Archer,to his credit, didn't look exactly horrified by my sobbing, and he even reached out like he might grab hold of my shoulders.Or possibly smack me.But before he could either comfort me or commit further acts of violence upon my person,I spun away from him and made my drama queen moment complete by running away.It wasn't pretty."
Author: Rachel Hawkins

47. "Her heart did not want to give up this burden, painful though it was ... The crushing pain in her chest was all she had to tie her to them until they were together again."
Author: Rosslyn Elliott

48. "A house is such a strange thing. Everything else gets more worn when people handle it, and sometimes you can feel a person's poison if you get too close to him, but that's not what happens to a house. Even a good house falls apart quickly when nobody stops by. A house is alive only when there are people living in it, brushing against it, staying in it."
Author: Shin Kyung Sook

49. "All this blackness was within him, but that was where it really mattered. It was night without moon or stars, it was a doorless pit in the earth's bowels, it was forever. He felt black ice growing, blooming in his veins. One last sharp feeling was left to him--the bitter taste of failure. Then that went too. All was nothing. Cold and everlasting night, and an everlasting laughter that was older and colder than the stars he would never see again. His heart squirmed wildly in his chest, seeking an escape that was denied it. Laughter like a glacier came again, rolling and crushing all else before it. A bird sang."
Author: Susan Dexter

50. "Your mother stands against everything my parents believe in," I say. "But I'm not my parents.""Aria," Hunter whispers into my ear."Yes?""Just kiss me."We press our lips together gentle, and it's like I am alive, on fire, like I can do anything in the world. I know this because he's a mystic, but there's something more familiar, something safe and sexy and irresistible about the way his lips feel, his tongue brushing lightly against mine. Our passion is like what's described in my love letters: it's like coming home, finally, when I never even knew I'd been away."
Author: Theo Lawrence

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