Pause Quotes

Am unhappy, - very unhappy, for other things." "What other things? Can you tell me some of them?" How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words. Fearful, however, of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a meagre, though, as far as it went, true response. ~ Charlotte Bronte

This Sabbath day has been designated as a day of thanksgiving, a day of gratitude-even a day of prayer. We pause, we ponder, we reflect on the blessings an all-wise Heavenly Father has bestowed upon us, His children, by bringing peace to the battlefield of war and comfort to the hearts of so many in this wonderful world where we live and which we call home ~ Thomas S. Monson

Her little hands, Crumb. Her little paws, like a child's. She has no guile in her. And she never speaks. And if she does I hate to bend my head to hear what she says. And in the pause I can hear my heart. Her little bits of embroidery, her scraps of silk, her halcyon sleeves, she cut out of the cloth some admirer gave her once, some poor boy struck with love for her...and yet she has never succumbed. Her little sleeves, her seed pearl necklace...she has nothing...she expects nothing...' A tear at last sneaks from Henry's eye, meanders down his cheek and vanishes into the mottled grey and ginger of his beard. ~ Hilary Mantel

Ree is his. Is his, is devoted to him, is aggravatingly tender and possessively passionate and wrapped up in him in a thousand ways, loves him in a way that is very useful. It seems a law of nature, at this point. Even if the events of this startling evening have served to give him pause, a little. But Ree is still his. He's fairly sure. Such complex knots can't be untied so quickly, can they?

Still, it's not the only thing disturbing him, about the Dam's account of early events. She laughs when she sees his face, his sidewise look at her description, and there's definitely a mean note to it. "Oh, it was darling," she says, and he gets the feeling of a caged animal stuck behind bars, while a cruel child pokes at it. "You were enchanted by his wolf, would follow it anywhere, welcome or not, though mostly he tolerated it. But you couldn't manage his name – and a nickname hadn't stuck at that point – so instead you imitated the sound he made. Rather insultingly, too, if not intentionally – Ruff. Or Woof, or whatever it was that you intended to say, except that it actually came out as Wuff. Or Wuffy, depending, and at varying pitches and volume as you ran after him, falling down and rolling about half the time."

Penn is transfixed. It's outrageous, it's an outrage. It can't possibly be true. It was nothing like that. ~ Alex Ankarr

Don't forget to pause and nourish yourself a bit along the way. When you're born to help others sometimes you forget to help yourself. ~ Paula Heller Garland

She sat, rediscovering the fullness of her first tongue in one long submersion. Again and again she would pause on a word Melio uttered. She would roll it around in her mind, feeling the contours of it. At times her mouth gaped open, her lips moving as if she were drinking in his words instead of breathing. ~ David Anthony Durham

Your self-awareness is lacking," Simone said to me one day as I was leaving. "Without an ability to see yourself, you can't protect yourself. Do you understand? It's crucial to your survival that you pause the imaginary sound track in your head. Don't isolate your senses- you're interacting with an environment. ~ Stephanie Danler

The way to develop the habit of savoring is to pause when something is beautiful and good and catches our attention - the sound of rain, the look of the night sky - the glow in a child's eyes, or when we witness some kindness. Pause ... then totally immerse in the experience of savoring it. ~ Tara Brach

This is the key to life: the ability to reflect, the ability to know yourself, the ability to pause for a second before reacting automatically. If you can truly know yourself, you will begin the journey of transformation. ~ Deepak Chopra

I like the freedom of podcasting. With podcasting you can really mess around with the form and the format. You can do as much time as you like without having to pause for commercials. ~ Adam Carolla

Dear Mr. Chance and Ms. Brattle. Sorry about the mess. Great bed. Loved it. As a matter of fact, loved the whole house. Actually, I tried to kill your kids when I found them here. Yeah, funny story. Maybe not funny, hah hah.'"
Astrid heard nervous laughter from the media people, or maybe just from the hotel staff who were hovering around the edges grabbing a glimpse of the Hollywood royalty.
"'Anyway, I missed and they got away. I don't know what will happen to Sanjit and that stick-up-his butt Choo and the rest, but whatever happens next, it's not on me. However . . .'"
Astrid took a dramatic pause.
"'However, the rest of what happened was on me. Me, Caine Soren. You'll probably be hearing a lot of crazy stories from kids. But what they didn't know was that it was all me. Me. Me me. See, I had a power I never told anyone about. I had the power to make people do bad things. Crimes and whatnot. Especially Diana, who never did anything wrong on her own, by her own will, I mean. She - and the rest of them - were under my control. The responsibility is on me. I confess. Haul me away, officers.'"
Astrid suddenly felt her throat tightening, although she'd read the letter many times already, and knew what it said. Rotten son of a . . . And then this.
Redemption. Not a bad concept.
Well, partial redemption.
"It's signed Caine Soren. And below that, 'King of the FAYZ.'"
It was a full confession. A lie: a blatant, not-very-convincing lie. Bu ~ Michael Grant

Make it quick," I said when I picked up.
"Okay. Two men from the FBI are here." Cookie said. Quickly.
Crap. "Men in black are at the office?"
"Well, yes, but they're actually in more of a navy."
Crapola. I so don't have time for men. In any color. "Okay, two questions. Do they look mad, and are they hot?"
After a long, long, pause, Cookie said, "One, not really. Two, no comment at this time. And three, you're on speakerphone."
After another long, long pause, I said, "Okie dokie then. Be there in a jiff. ~ Darynda Jones

So I take it you and Gansey get along, then?" Maura's expression was annoyingly knowing.
"Mom."
"Orla told me about his muscle car," Maura continued. Her voice was still angry and artificially bright. The fact that Blue was well aware that she'd earned it made the sting of it even worse. "You aren't planning on kissing him, are you?"
"Mom, that will never happen," Blue assured her. "You did meet him, didn't you?"
"I wasn't sure if driving an old, loud Camaro was the male equivalent of shredding your T-shirts and gluing cardboard trees to your bedroom walls."
"Trust me," Blue said. "Gansey and I are nothing like each other. And they aren't cardboard. They're repurposed canvas."
"The environment breathes a sigh of relief." Maura attempted another sip of her drink; wrinkling her nose, she shot a glare at Persephone. Persephone looked martyred. After a pause, Maura noted, in a slightly softer voice, "I'm not entirely happy about you're getting in a car without air bags."
"Our car doesn't have air bags," Blue pointed out.
Maura picked a long strand of Persephone's hair from the rim of her glass. "Yes, but you always take your bike."
Blue stood up. She suspected that the green fuzz of the sofa was now adhered to the back of her leggings. "Can I go now? Am I in trouble?"
"You are in trouble. I told you to stay away from him and you didn't," Maura said. "I just haven't decided what to do about it yet. My feelings are hurt. I've consul ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I play it cool.
"Uh,yeah, I think so," I say, furioously kicking my feet in the air. "You?"
"Yeah,it should be pretty fun," he says.
"Yeah,it should be," I say.
Pause,pause,pause,heartbeat racing. I can't catch my breath.
"You know who you're going with?" he asks.
I'm sorry,but OH.MY.GOD.
"Nah," I say, pulling off nonchalance like a pro. "You know me; it's hard to choose when half the school is beating down my door."
He chuckles. "I don't doubt it."
Beat down my door, Wolf. Beat it down right now.I'll say yes! ~ Alecia Whitaker

My wife likes to pause before the meals with our kids and say grace. While I think this is a great opportunity for our children to learn to appreciate the gifts that God has given them, I view grace as kind of the "On your mark, get set ... " and the "Amen" as the "Go!" I am pretty sure that's the way God intended it. ~ Jim Gaffigan

My grandfather knows about hauntings, it occurs to me now. Here was where he knew his sisters, here was what he remembered, every day, in his Imperial school, as the Japanese grammar spread inside him, as he learned the language of the people who took his sisters and destroyed them. All his thoughts come to him in Japanese first, his dreams in Japanese also ... I think of how every single thing he says in Korean comes across a pause where the Japanese is stilled and the Korean brought forward. Each part of speech a rescue ~ Alexander Chee

The whole city stopped - And this is a pause worth savouring, because the world will soon be complicated again. ~ Jon McGregor

Creation sleeps! 'T is as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause,- An awful pause! prophetic of her end. ~ Edward Young

They are soldiers. They depend upon routine, and anything out of the ordinary will give them pause. And they are men. They hate to be insulted, but they love to hear others mocked. And they are fools, because they cannot imagine that a woman alone in the woods would be a threat. ~ Kiersten White

This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way. ~ Buzz Aldrin

A photograph is the pause button on life. ~ Various

Nix to Declan:

Begin transcript -
Testing. Hello, hellooo, anybody out there? Check, check, one, two. Soft pee. Puh, puh. Resonance! Sooooooft pee. Alpha bravo disco tango duck.
This is Nïx! I'm the Ever-Knowing One, a goddess incandescent, incomparable, and irresistible. But enough about what you think of me. It's a beautiful day in New Orleans. The wind is out of the east at a steady five knots and clouds look like rabbits … But enough about what you think of me!
Now, down to business -
Squirrel!
Where was I? [Long pause] Why am I in Regin's car? Bertil, you crawl right back out of that bong this minute!
Oh, I remember! I am hereby laying down this track for Magister Declan Chase. If you are a mortal of the recorder peon class, know that Dekko and I go waaaaay back, and he'll go berserk (snicker snicker) if he doesn't receive this transmittal. …
Chase, riddle me this: what's beautiful but monstrous, long of tooth but sharp of tooth and soft of mind, and can never ever tell a lie?
That's right. The Enemy of Old can be very useful to you. So use him already.
P.S. Your middle name's about to be spelled r-e-g-r-e-t.
And with that, I must bid you adieu. Don't worry, we'll catch up very soon. …
[Muffled] Who's mummy's wittle echolocator? That's right - you are!
- End transcript ~ Kresley Cole

Thou Moon! Sun of the Night, Sister mystic of the Day; Look down, pause in thy flight! Calm me with thy aural ray, Enchanting souls to silver sleep. Look down from out thy airy keep, My fevered senses hypnotize; Shut out the World, whereto Mind flies
Ambitious Mind, with travail sore; Its fibre rest, its calm restore. ~ William Batchelder Greene

In Japanese and Italian, the response to ["How are you?"] is "I'm fine, and you?" In German it's answered with a sigh and a slight pause, followed by "Not so good. ~ David Sedaris

Sometimes when a person is not being heard, it is appropriate to blame him or her. Perhaps he or she is speaking obscurely; perhaps he is claiming too much; perhaps she is speaking rather too personally. And one can, perhaps, charge Spielrein on all three counts. But, on balance, her inability to win recognition for her insight into repression was not her fault; it was Freud's and Jung's. Preoccupied with their own theories, and with each other, the two men simply did not pause even to take in the ideas of this junior colleague let alone to lend a helping hand in finding a more felicitous expression for her thought. More ominously still, both men privately justified their disregard by implicitly casting her once more into the role of patient, as though that role somehow precluded a person from having a voice or a vision of his or her own. It was and remains a damning comment on how psychoanalysis was evolving that so unfair a rhetorical maneuver, one so at odds with the essential genius of the new therapeutic method, came so easily to hand. In the great race between Freud and Jung to systematize psychoanalytic theory, to codify it once and for all, a simpler truth was lost sight of: Sometimes a person is not heard because she is not listened to. ~ John Kerr

The stops point out, with truth, the time of pause
A sentence doth require at ev'ry clause.
t ev'ry comma, stop while one you count;
At semicolon, two is the amount;
A colon doth require the time of three;
The period four, as learned men agree. ~ Cecil B. Hartley

Pause and remember - Nothing lasts forever. Better days are coming, but they will come faster with faith. ~ Jennifer Young

Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and sound - the tumultuous motion of the heart, and, in my ears, the sound of its beating. Then a pause in which all is blank. Then again sound, and motion, and touch - a tingling sensation pervading my frame. Then the mere consciousness of existence, without thought - a condition which lasted long. Then, very suddenly, thought, and shuddering terror, and earnest endeavor to comprehend my true state. Then a strong desire to lapse into insensibility. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Our lives are crazy. When moments to remember happen, you have to pause a second to appreciate them. Otherwise none of this is worth it. And getting married to you is definitely a moment to remember." ~ Kellan Kyle ~ S.C. Stephens

Are you ready to put the 'fun' in Fall Fun Fest?" he says as I slap his palm.
"I can at least put the 'trip' in 'Triple F.'" A pause. "By being clumsy, I mean. Not by, like, sharing drugs with the group." Three sets of eyes are on me, and I can't stop myself from talking. "I don't have any drugs. In case you were worried. Or, in case you were … expecting me to have drugs.…"
Gideon grins. ~ Emma Mills

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully. ~ Norton Juster

You're not quite the one because you don't feel permanent. You're lovely. You're here. You're soft and comfortable and I can curl up beside you and hey, at least neither of us are alone. You don't feel like the start of something, you feel like the continuation of nothing. You're not quite the one because we're not even thinking about crazy concepts like the "one." No one is meeting anyone's parents. No one is going to be a plus-one at anyone's friend's weddings. No one is holding hands on the subway train. You're not quite the one because you're not meant to be the one. You're a bookmark, a beautiful pause, a blinking light on hold at an office desk. ~ Karen Noble

I phoned the Admiral back.
'It's no use, Admiral, the French speak nothing but French.'
There was a short pause on the end of the line then his voice rattled into life like a sabre.
'They're lying, Tim!'
'What?'
'The French Navy must by law speak English, as English is the international maritime language of the sea.'
'Has anyone told the French that?'
The line went dead for a moment before he thundered, 'Yes Nelson. At the battle of Trafalgar.'
I tried to stifle an irresistibly British giggle not knowing if the Admiral was making a joke or not. I got it right. He was serious. ~ Tim FitzHigham

Pause and remember - The more you stay focused on your blessings the less stressed your life will be! ~ Jennifer Young

I cannot be your mistress," I say simply. "I would rather die than dishonor my name. I cannot bring that shame on my family." I pause. I am anxious not to be too discouraging. "Whatever I might wish in my heart," I say very softly. ~ Philippa Gregory

She opened her eyes and met his. The impact was so strong he was amazed that his fingers continued playing without pause. ~ Patricia Briggs

Apart from writing books, my 40s have been about pursuing personal growth. Whatever were the mistakes of my earlier life, I've been committed to a pause, a regroup. I don't want to make the same mistakes in the future. ~ Monique Roffey

I'm glad you misdialed."
"Well. Easy mistake to make," she said. Might do it again." A very, very long pause. She opened her mouth to fill it, then changed her mind and didn't. She was shivering again, even though she wasn't cold with the pillow on her legs.
"Shouldn't," Gansey said finally. "But I hope you do. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I say, Bertie," he said, after a pause of about an hour and a quarter.
"Hallo!"
"Do you like the name Mabel?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"You don't think there's a kind of music in the word, like the wind rustling gently through the tree-tops?"
"No."
He seemed disappointed for a moment; then cheered up.
"Of course, you wouldn't. You always were a fat-headed worm without any soul, weren't you?"
"Just as you say. Who is she? Tell me all. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

The 'deep pause' needed to cultivate wonder is far too often back-filled with an incessant busyness, as busyness errantly presumes a 'deep pause' to be deeply wasteful. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Some Christians mistrust or de-emphasize the role of the senses in spirituality, considering them to be inferior to reason and cognition. Such a view fails to appreciate the indispensable part of human personhood the senses actually form. It falls into the gnostic error of denying human embodiment. Because Christians affirm the goodness of the physical body and believe in the physicality of the incarnation, we should also affirm the importance of encountering God through our senses. God gave us senses to enrich our lives. They are channels that can be spiritually tuned so as to register the traces of the divine that saturate the world . . . it could be the sight of a child, the sound of birds
singing, the smell of flowers or freshly cut grass, or the feeling of warmth. Any of these things-and many more-can serve as a call to pause and, even if just for a moment, turn our heart toward God. ~ David G. Benner

Then, towards the end of the meal, Anthony Hicks leant across the table towards me and looked me straight in the eye. 'I want you to remember', he said, a touch fiercely, 'that we, the audience, can and will smile with Poirot.' Then he paused. 'But we must never, ever, laugh at him.' There was another pause. 'And I am most certainly not joking.' I gulped, before Rosalind said, equally forcefully, 'And that is why we want you to play him. ~ David Suchet

She didn't care anymore ... and she got no pleasure from the work she did, but she did it. Everything bored her. She found that when she didn't have a notebook it was hard for her to think. The thoughts came slowly, as though they had to squeeze through a tiny door to get to her, whereas when she wrote, they flowed out faster than she could put them down. She sat very stupidly with a blank mind until finall 'I feel different' came slowly to her mind.
Yes, she thought, after a long pause. And then, after more time, 'Mean, I feel mean. ~ Louise Fitzhugh

In crises of this sort the Dyckmanns had usually found it effective to stare into space, encouraging the long pause that might fetch the witty words, 'Well, dear, we must go.' But the Bairds were on an entirely different wavelength, and this was the fault of the Dyckmanns. With the removal of the bottles it had been the mutual impulse of the Bairds to shoot out the door, but their second thought was that they must not... (from "Dinner on the Rocks" (1954) by Dawn Powell) ~ Diana Secker Tesdell

Time had lost its importance. That was one of the good things about getting old: you weren't perpetually in a hurry. All her life, Penelope had looked after other people, but now she had no one to think about but herself. There was time to stop and look, and, looking, to remember. Visions widened, like views seen from the slopes of a painfully climbed mountain, and having come so far, it seemed ridiculous not to pause and enjoy them. ~ Rosamunde Pilcher

Sahara knew she should be worried about the fact that she'd been in bed with a man who'd caused that kind of damage with a momentary and, according to him, minor loss of telekinetic control during intimacy, but she felt her lips kick up at the corners. So we literally made the earth move?
A slight pause, before Kaleb said, I suggest we don't engage in sex in populated areas.
The cool comment made her burst into laughter. ~ Nalini Singh

It's great to celebrate the victories along the way in living your dreams
but never allow the praises of your past pause you from pursuing higher heights. ~ Bernard Kelvin Clive

Morgan," I said into the receiver. And if I'd known what was coming I would not have said it so cheerfully. Someone on the other end made a throat-clearing noise, and with a jolt of surprise I recognized it. It was the sound Captain Matthews made when he wanted to call attention to the fact that he was about to make an important pronouncement. But what momentous declaration could he possibly have now, for me, before I even finished one doughnut, and why would he speak it on the phone to a mere forensics wonk? "Ahem, uh, Morgan," the captain said. And then there was silence. "This is Morgan," I said helpfully. "There's a, um," he said, and cleared his throat again. "I have a special assignment. For you. Can you come up to my office? Right now," he said. There was another slight pause, and then, most baffling of all, he added, "Uh. Please." And then he hung up. I ~ Jeff Lindsay

We overeat because there are signals and cues around us that tell us to eat. It's simply not in our nature to pause after every bite and contemplate whether we're full. As we eat, we unknowingly - mindlessly - look for signals or cues that we've had enough. ~ Brian Wansink

This benefit of seeing ... can come only if you pause a while, extricate yourself from the maddening mob of quick impressions ceaselessly battering our lives, and look thoughtfully at a quiet image ... the viewer must be willing to pause, to look again, to meditate. ~ Dorothea Lange

PS, I want a stripper for my birthday," GQ announces. "Just decided now. Get on it."

"I'll make a couple calls," Garrett promises, but the second his friend wanders off, he confides, "He's not getting a stripper. We all chipped in to get him a new iPod. He dropped his in the koi pond behind Hartford House."

When I snicker, Garrett pounces like a mountain lion. "Holy shit. Was that a laugh? I didn't think you were capable of showing amusement. Can you do it again and let me film it?"

"I laugh all the time." I pause. "Mostly at you, though."

He grabs his chest in mock pain as if I've shot him. "You're terrible for a guy's ego, y'know that? ~ Elle Kennedy

The girl galloped to catch up with him, but she didn't pause when she reached him. She preferred to form a lopsided perimeter of frantic activity around his person. Anything else might give the appearance of willing obedience, and she would do a lot to avoid that. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

You must decide whether you want a DO-CONFIRM checklist or a READ-DO checklist. With a DO-CONFIRM checklist, he said, team members perform their jobs from memory and experience, often separately. But then they stop. They pause to run the checklist and confirm that everything that was supposed to be done was done. With a READ-DO checklist, on the other hand, people carry out the tasks as they check them off - it's more like a recipe. So for any new checklist created from scratch, you have to pick the type that makes the most sense for the situation. ~ Atul Gawande

A pause. Then she said: "Tell me, Noah, what do you remember most from the summer we spent together?"

"All of it."

"Anything in particular?"

"No," he said.

"You don't remember?"

He answered quietly. "No, it's not that. It's not what you're thinking. I was serious when I said 'all of it.' I can remember every moment we were together, and in each or them there was something wonderful. I can't pick any one time that meant more than any other.

The entire summer was perfect, the kind of summer everyone should have. How could I pick one moment over another?

"Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can't control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense. That's what it was like for me. I didn't plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of use could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has happened only once, and that's why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory.

I'll never forget a single moment of it."

Allie stare at him. No one had ever said anything lik that to her before. Ever. She didn't know what to say and stayed silent, her face hot. ~ Nicholas Sparks

Right now I don't call it the menopause, I call it men-on-pause. ~ Marie Osmond

I'm sorry," I say and the words start spilling out. "I'm sorry. I should have just talked to you and then you wouldn't have felt guilty and then you wouldn't have gotten into this accident. It's my fault. I'm so sorry."
I'm still holding his hand and he's looking at me with his beautiful blue eyes.
"You're sorry?" he asks in confusion. "You're sorry? For what? It's not your fault. None of this is your fault."
"I was being a baby," I tell him. "I didn't know what to say to you and I was trying to be strong but I was so upset that you were kissing Elena."
"Elena kissed me," he answers. "I just want to clarify that. And she kissed me because I had just told her that I can't see her anymore. Because I want to be with someone else."
"Someone else?" My voice is small in the large hospital suite and all of a sudden my heart is numb again. This time, it is numb because it is waiting hopefully for words that I am desperately wanting to hear.
"Yes," he nods. "Someone else."
My heart is still waiting.
There is a pause.
Then another pause.
He doesn't say anything so I do.
"Is it anyone I know?"
I look down and he looks up and our eyes lock.
"I should hope so since it is you," he says.
My heart stops.
And then starts again.
And then I bend down and kiss Dante Gili-bear-ti as softly and gently as I can.
"You want to be with me?" I ask this as I pull away and look at him. He smells like iodine an ~ Courtney Cole

Greetings, Mother!" I say sarcastically when I walk through the front door. "Greetings, Father!"
No one responds.
This is beyond stupid.
"Greetings, family," I scream.
"What are you doing?" calls Hunter from upstairs.
"Children's Home Rule number one: Children will greet their parents when they come home, and say good-bye to them when they leave."
"Oh my God, are you like, reverting?"
"Greetings, Brother."
A pause.
"Greetings, Sister. ~ Sarah Skilton

Absence does not so much make the heart grow fonder as give the heart time to integrate what it has not previously absorbed, time to make sense of what happened too quickly to have any meaning in the instant. This is always true. If it is in absence that people forget each other, it is also in the quiet pause of absence that, minds running in symmetry, people come to know each other; there is sometimes as much intimacy in the span of continents as in the shared hours before dawn. ~ Andrew Solomon

You died here," I said quietly.

"October -"

"I wasn't here, and the girl I'm supposed to be finding was, and you died ." I looked up at him, glaring through the tears in my eyes. I left my fingers balanced on the floor, letting his blood sing its song of pain and longing. Longing to live; refusal to let go of the world. Maybe that's what differentiates the Kings and Queens of Cats from the rest of Faerie. They have a cat's stubbornness and the power to back it up. So when death says, "Go," they just refuse.

My heart hurt. My heart hurt so badly, and I was still trying to recover from Connor, and oh, Titania, I couldn't do this again. The thought startled me. I froze where I was, still glaring.

Tybalt sighed. "I know." he hesitated before adding, "This is not the time, and this is not the place, and my nephew needs us. But I ask you to consider this. I got better. I will always get better." He hesitated again - possibly the first time I'd ever seen him pause more than once after he'd decided he was going to say something.

Finally, he said, "Some of us, October, will not leave you. ~ Seanan McGuire

The Ilhalmiut do not fill canvases with their paintings, or inscribe figures on rocks, or carve figurines in clay or in stone, because in the lives of the People there is no room for the creation of objects of no practical value. What purpose is there in creating beautiful things if these must be abandoned when the family treks out over the Barrens? But the artistic sense is present and strongly developed. It is strongly alive in their stories and songs, and in the string-figures, but they also use it on the construction of things which assist in their living and in these cases it is no less an art. The pleasure of abstract creation is largely denied to them by the nature of the land, but still they know how to make beauty.
They know how to make beauty, and they also know how to enjoy it-- for it is no uncommon thing to see an Ilhalmio man squatting silently on a hill crest and watching, for hours at a time, the swift interplay of colors that sweep the sky at sunset and dawn. It is not unusual to see an Ilhalmio pause for long minutes to watch the sleek beauty of a weasel or to stare into the brilliant heart of some minuscule flower. And these things are done quite unconsciously, too. There is no word for 'beauty'--as such--in their language; it needs no words in their hearts. ~ Farley Mowat

One of the problems of our modern world is that there's a lot of things to work through, but, at some point, everybody should take a pause from that and make something, so that it's not just all one-way traffic. ~ Jarvis Cocker

Ah ... do Frost Giants eat people?'
There was a pause. The fox said, 'Occasionally,' at the same time as the bear said, 'Almost never. ~ Neil Gaiman

The Crucifixion and other historical precedents notwithstanding, many of us still believe that outstanding goodness is a kind of armor, that virtue, seen plain and bare, gives pause to criminality. But perhaps it is the other way around. ~ Mary McCarthy

It may take little time to get where you want to be, but if you pause and think for a moment, you will notice that you are no longer where you were. Do not stop - keep going. ~ Rodolfo Costa

Love is all around you like the air and is the very breath of your being. But you cannot know it, feel its unfeeling touch, until you pause in your busy-ness, are still and poised and empty of your wanting and desiring. When at rest the air is easily offended and will flee even from the fanning of a leaf, as love flees from the first thought. But when the air or love moves of its own accord it is a hurricane that drives all before it. ~ Barry Long

Well, the reality of her father was that he was a very diseased alcoholic, who died at the age of 34. And one always has to pause to wonder how much you have to drink to die at 34. And he was a really tragic father. I mean, he was absolutely unreliable. He was absolutely involved with various people. He had outside families, outside children, outside wives. He made his wife's life miserable. And she [Eleanor Roosevelt]ignored all of his faults and retained this sense of him as the perfect father. ~ Blanche Wiesen Cook

Life is the only game which has no pause, no resume and no restart. You have to be careful enough to never fail. ~ M.F. Moonzajer

It's only in books--actual printed books--that you can easily start and stop your reading, that you can preread and reread, and, these days, as the book itself suffers from a cluster of plagues, it seems only right to pause and assert that the books that ought to be rescued these days are not the books that require a "spoiler alert"--such books are already spoiled--but books that aren't spoiled even if you know what's going to happen, even if you peek at the end, even if you're reading them for a second, or fifth, or dozenth time. ~ J.C. Hallman

You could have an experience with the gift of the Holy Ghost today. You could begin a private prayer with thanks. You could start to count your blessings, and then pause for a moment. If you exercise faith, and with the gift of the Holy Ghost, you will find that memories of other blessings will flood into your mind. If you begin to express gratitude for each of them, your prayer may take a little longer than usual. Remembrance will come. And so will gratitude. ~ Henry B. Eyring

Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"She the reason you're pissed off all the time?"
"Yeah."
"She the reason you left mom?"
"Yeah."
"You love her?"
"Yeah."
There was a long pause.
"Cool."
"…yeah."
"Dad?"
"Jesus, Cage. What?"
"Does this mean I can have at Miranda?"
Christ.
"Yeah, you fuckin' hornball. Have at it."
"Cool. ~ Madeline Sheehan

Cordelia looked at Edric. "Which way will lead to our respite, think you?"
"I don't know, my lady," he admitted.
There was a pause.
"This way," Tania decided, heading off to the left and pulling him with her.
"Why?"
"It's downhill. ~ Allan Frewin Jones

sometimes I feel my heart fall to vague depths between words
there are such spaces that I can't help but feel my heart fall between the pregnant pause of all you will not say
and all i can not ask ~ Jewel

I listened to time clicking like hooves on pavement. But time isn't something you can rein in. It moves on without pause, taking us with it no matter how much we wish it otherwise. ~ Ron Rash

The decline of geography in academia is easy to understand: we live in an age of ever-increasing specialization, and geography is a generalist's discipline. Imagine the poor geographer trying to explain to someone at a campus cocktail party (or even to an unsympathetic adminitrator) exactly what it is he or she studies.
"Geography is Greek for 'writing about the earth.' We study the Earth."
"Right, like geologists."
"Well, yes, but we're interested in the whole world, not just the rocky bits. Geographers also study oceans, lakes, the water cycle..."
"So, it's like oceanography or hydrology."
"And the atmosphere."
"Meteorology, climatology..."
"It's broader than just physical geography. We're also interested in how humans relate to their planet."
"How is that different from ecology or environmental science?"
"Well, it encompasses them. Aspects of them. But we also study the social and economic and cultural and geopolitical sides of--"
"Sociology, economics, cultural studies, poli sci."
"Some geographers specialize in different world regions."
"Ah, right, we have Asian and African and Latin American studies programs here. But I didn't know they were part of the geography department."
"They're not."
(Long pause.)
"So, uh, what is it that do study then? ~ Ken Jennings

Become accustomed to seeing life as something we can pause in order to document it, get another thread running in it, or hook it up to another feed. We've seen that in all of this activity, we no longer experience interruptions as disruptions. We experience them as connection. We seek them out, and when they're not there, we create them. Interruptions enable us to avoid difficult feelings and awkward moments. They become a convenience. And over time we have trained our brains to crave them. Of course, all of this makes it hard to settle down into conversation. ~ Sherry Turkle

I learned that it was in hard times that people usually changed the course of their life; in good times, they frequently only talked about change. Hard times forced them to overcome the doubts that normally gave them pause.It surprised me how often we hold ourselves back until we have no choice. ~ Po Bronson

But the dead, thought Lily, encountering some obstacle in her design which made her pause and ponder, stepping back a foot or so, oh the dead! she murmured, one pitied them, one brushed them aside, one had even a little contempt for them. They are at our mercy. rs Ramsay has faded and gone, she thought. We can over-ride her wished, improve away her limited, old-fashioned ideas. She recedes further and further from us. Mockingly, she seemed to see her there at the end of the corridor of years saying, of all kind of incongruous things, "Marry, marry!" [...] Some winey smell mixed with it and intoxicated her, for she felt again her own headlong desire to throw herself off the cliff and be drowned looking for a pearl brooch on a beach. ~ Virginia Woolf

By the way, Dorian, he (Lord Henry) said, after a pause, what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose - how does the quotation run? - his own soul? ~ Oscar Wilde

Hold the old holding hand. Hold and be held. Plod on and never recede. Slowly with never a pause plod on and never recede. ~ Samuel Beckett

THERE WAS A BOY"

THERE was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander!--many a time,
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, 10
That they might answer him.--And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call,--with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild
Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause
Of silence such as baffled his best skill:
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice 20
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.
This boy was taken from his mates, and died
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.
Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale
Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs
Upon a slope above the village-school; 30
An ~ William Wordsworth

And once the others started shouting too, she stopped speaking and just watched. Pleased, as if it was what she had wanted all the time. That hate spreading like a wild fire on the hill.' A pause. 'It was as if she was drunk on the power. ~ Cleeves Ann

Part of the process of reading is constantly hitting the pause button, and now and then the rewind button, to ponder a word that's been chosen by the author as exquisitely as the filmmaker chooses an image or a sound editor chooses a sonic clue - the tolling of a bell in the distance to evoke memory, for instance. ~ Steve Erickson

The Secretary, working in the Dismal Swamp betimes next morning, was informed that a youth waited in the hall who gave the name of Sloppy. The footman who communicated this intelligence made a decent pause before uttering the name, to express that it was forced on his reluctance by the youth in question, and that if the youth had had the good sense and good taste to inherit some other name it would have spared the feelings of him the bearer. ~ Charles Dickens

VLADIMIR: (after a moment of bewilderment). We'll see when the time comes. (Pause.) I was saying that things have changed here since yesterday.
ESTRAGON: Everything oozes.
VLADIMIR: Look at the tree.
ESTRAGON: It's never the same pus from one second to the next.
VLADIMIR: The tree, look at the tree. Estragon looks at the tree.
ESTRAGON: Was it not there yesterday?
VLADIMIR: Yes of course it was there. Do you not remember? We nearly hanged ourselves from it. But you wouldn't. Do you not remember?
ESTRAGON: You dreamt it.
VLADIMIR: Is it possible you've forgotten already?
ESTRAGON: That's the way I am. Either I forget immediately or I never forget. ~ Samuel Beckett

When Pidge wakes up, let me know, okay?" he said in a soft voice. "I got spaghetti,
and pancakes, and strawberries, and that oatmeal shit with the chocolate packets, and she
likes Fruity Pebbles cereal, right, Mare?" he asked, turning.
When he saw me, he froze. After an awkward pause, his expression melted, and his
voice was smooth and sweet."Hey, Pigeon."
I couldn't have been more confused if I had woken up in a foreign country. Nothing
made sense. At first I thought I had been evicted, and then Travis comes home with bags
full of my favorite foods.
He took a few steps into the living room, nervously shoving his hands in his pockets.
"You hungry, Pidge? I'll make you some pancakes. Or there's uh…there's some oatmeal.
And I got you some of that pink foamy shit that girl's shave with, and a hairdryer, and a…
a….just a sec, it's in here," he said, rushing to the bedroom.
The door opened, shut, and then he rounded the corner, the color gone from his face.
He took a deep breath and his eyebrows pulled in. "Your stuff's packed."
"I know," I said.
"You're leaving," he said, defeated. ~ Jamie McGuire

There's a pause so yawning I can't help but think about what it would be like to lean in and kiss her, but if I'm getting the signals wrong then I'm about to destroy the best run we've had all evening. It's been at least ten minutes since I've done or said anything stupid. ~ Leanne Hall

Laurent said, 'What do you think of Jord?'
'I like him,' said Damen. 'You should be pleased with him. He was the right choice for Captain.'
There was an unhurried pause. Aside from the sounds Damen made when he picked up a vambrace, the tent was quiet.
'No,' said Laurent. 'You were. ~ C.S. Pacat

Susan paused a pause which, the moment Malcolm heard it, he knew something ugly was on the other end of it. He waited for the ugliness, and here it was: "He's asked me to marry him," Susan said. ~ Patrick DeWitt

Don't be distracted by the noise going on. Pause & reflect. You'll realize how much time you've wasted on all that nonsense around you. ~ Mufti Ismail Menk

I let out another groan. "What if I lost her for good this time?"

Garrett and Tucker instantly shake their heads. "You didn't," Garrett assures me.

"How can you be so sure of that?"

"Because she told you she loves you."

"You stupid jackass," Tucker adds with a grin.

I love you, you stupid jackass. Not the words a man wants to hear. The first three, sure. The last three? Pass.

"How do I fix this?" I ask, sighing.

"Quick. Write her another poem," Garrett suggests.

I scowl at him.

"No, I think G's onto something," Tuck says. "I think the only way to save this is to bust out another grand gesture. What else was on her list?"

"Nothing," I moan. "I did everything on the list."

Tucker shrugs. "Then come up with something else."

A grand gesture? I'm a guy, damn it. I need direction. "Is Wellsy coming back here?" I ask Garrett.

He smirks at my pleading tone. "Even if she is, I'm not letting you pick her brain. You're gonna have to fix this one all on your own."

There's a pause, and then…

"You stupid jackass," my friends say in unison. ~ Elle Kennedy

This position is untenable, and there can be no pause in the agitation for full political power and responsibility until these are granted to all the women of the nation. ~ Florence Kelley

After a long pause, Mama said, "Well, I don't know what to say." Daddy checked his watch and marked the time. "It took thirty years, but it was bound to happen sometime. ~ Molly Harper

He called me a pie!" she announced, defensively. There was a pause. "Wait. That's not right."
"A tart?"
"Yes! That's it! ~ Sarah MacLean

White people need to listen, to pause so that people of color can clearly articulate both the disappointment they've endured and what it would take for reparations to be made. Too often, dialogue functions as a stall tactic, allowing white people to believe they've done something heroic when the real work is yet to come. ~ Austin Channing Brown

I pray that in the heat of planning, of running, of achieving and performing, that you would pause. Hear the Lord calling you to draw close to him. God loves you, and as unbelievable as it is, he wants to be with you. Find some time today to climb up in your Father's arms, let him drive the universe, and just rest. He's a strong dad. And you never get too big for his lap. ~ Mike Howerton

The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It's the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home. ~ E.L. Konigsburg

I don't care about that," he says, lower. Another pause, and then: "I just don't want you to hate me. ~ Lauren Oliver

Another longish pause. His eyelids were getting heavy. "Ever kill a man, Marlowe?" "Yes." "Nasty feeling, isn't it?" "Some people like it." His eyes went shut all the way. Then they opened again, but they looked vague. "How could they? ~ Raymond Chandler

Let me digress a moment to talk about beginnings. How much simpler life would be if we were wise enough to stop at the first blush of romance, the start of a business transaction or a casual friendship. If we knew enough to pause and think: this is as good as it gets. Everything will go downhill from this moment on. So once again our instincts are the opposite of what they should be, propelling us forward exactly when they should be holding us back. ~ Francine Prose

No, really Patrick. What do you want me to call you?"

King, I'm thinking. King, Evelyn. I want you to call me King. But I don't say this. "Evelyn. I don't want you to call me anything. I don't think we should see each other anymore."

"But your friends are my friends. My friends are your friends. I don't think it would work," she says, and then, staring at a spot above my mouth, "You have a tiny fleck on the top of your lip. Use your napkin."

Exasperated, I brush the fleck away. "Listen, I, know that your friends are my friends and vice versa. I've thought about that." After a pause I say, breathing in, "You can have them."

Finally she looks at me, confused, and murmurs, "You're really serious, aren't you?"

"Yes", I say, "I am."

"But... what about us? What about the past?" she asks blankly.

"The past isn't real. It's just a dream," I say. "Don't mention the past."

She narrows her eyes with suspicion. "Do you have something against me, Patrick?" And then the hardness in her face changes instantaneously to expectation, maybe hope.

"Evelyn," I sigh. "I'm sorry. You're just... not terribly important... to me. ~ Bret Easton Ellis