Significant Moments Quotes

In the end, people don't view their life as merely the average of all its moments - which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people's minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. ~ Atul Gawande

There is too great a tendency (perhaps encouraged by popular journalism) to deal with the dramatic moments, forgetting that these are not always the most significant moments ... To find the significant rather than the dramatic features of industrial controversy, of a disagreement in regard to policy on board of directors or between managers, is essential to integrative business policies. ~ Mary Parker Follett

When I finish a book, I find I cannot start another one immediately. Each book needs time to settle in my mind, to be digested like a meal of many courses. It seems disrespectful to the characters to move on too quickly - after all, I have spent hours in their company, learnt their histories, looked on at significant moments of their lives. ~ Anna Lyndsey

What I'm feeling, I think, is joy. And it's been some time since I've felt that blinkered rush of happiness, This might be one of those rare events that lasts, one that'll be remembered and recalled as months and years wind and ravel. One of those sweet, significant moments that leaves a footprint in your mind. A photograph couldn't ever tell its story. It's like something you have to live to understand. One of those freak collisions of fizzing meteors and looming celestial bodies and floating debris and one single beautiful red ball that bursts into your life and through your body like an enormous firework. Where things shift into focus for a moment, and everything makes sense. And it becomes one of those things inside you, a pearl among sludge, one of those big exaggerated memories you can invoke at any moment to peel away a little layer of how you felt, like a lick of ice cream. The flavor of grace. ~ Craig Silvey

For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people's minute-by-minute ~ Atul Gawande

All of my most significant moments somehow involved music. It's like my life was a John Hughes film and somebody had to put together the perfect soundtrack. ~ Caprice Crane

Many of the most significant moments in our lives come not because it all went right but because it all fell apart ~ Rob Bell

The creative person is constantly seeking to discover himself, to remodel his own identity, and to find meaning in the universe through what he creates. He finds this a valuable integrating process which, like meditation or prayer, has little to do with other people, but which has its own separate validity. His most significant moments are those in which he attains some new insight, or makes some new discovery; and these moments are chiefly, if not invariably, those in which he is alone. ~ Anthony Storr

There are significant moments in everyone's day that can make literature. That's what you ought to write about. ~ Raymond Carver

You know we just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening. Back then I thought, well, there'll be other days. I didn't realize that that was the only day. ~ Moonlight Graham

It was often in small moments that significant things were revealed. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Social networks are more than just repositories for trivial, snap judgments; they are more than merely convenient outlets for mindless joy and outrage. They offer more than the common ground and the solace we may find during culturally significant moments. Social networks also provide us with something of a flawed but necessary conscience, a constant reminder that commitment, compassion, and advocacy neither can nor ever should be finite. ~ Roxane Gay

Unfortunately, the most significant moments of our lives are often unpleasant. ~ Andrea Cremer

In life's most significant moments we are always alone. ~ Paulo Coelho

But what is significant is that if you don't want to like and accept somebody, one excuse is as good as another. The objective facts don't matter, and the reasons are never as 'reasonable' as we like to think they are. ~ Sydney J. Harris

Number one is that it just scares people! Your hair is standing up on your arms, or at least that there's a few moments when you're jumping. That's what makes it a good horror movie. ~ Gina Philips

Focus on what makes you happiest and you will be happier. Focus the sadness and you will be more sad. It can be as that simple, it is your choice. ~ Hazel Butterworth

I also loved that there [in Into the Forest] was a beautiful balance to it, where they were strong and survivors and doing things in the film that we normally only see men do, but they were still human and vulnerable, and they still broke and had moments of weakness. That's something that we don't often get to see in these films, either. ~ Evan Rachel Wood

In moments of high emotion, whether they're triggered by anger or envy, humiliation or resentment, if the next thing you are going to say makes you feel better, than it's probably the wrong thing to say. ~ Amor Towles

Now, as we stand three feet apart and stare at each other, I feel the full distance that comes with spending so much time apart, a moment filled with the electricity of a first meeting and the uncertainty of strangers. ~ Marie Lu

At that moment, in the sunset on Watership Down, there was offered to General Woundwort the opportunity to show whether he was really the leader of vision and genius which he believed himself to be, or whether he was no more than a tyrant with the courage and cunning of a pirate. For one beat of his pulse the lame rabbit's idea shone clearly before him. He grasped it and realized what it meant. The next, he had pushed it away from him. ~ Richard Adams

Most magazines have peak moments. They live on, they do just okay, or they die. 'The New Yorker' has had a very different kind of existence. ~ David Remnick

I am in a key moment. I kind of understand that I have to use my work more completely without being ashamed. ~ Miuccia Prada

I've heard this sound before, she realized, her entire body tingling. She'd caught glimpses of it, like a distant haunting refrain, in her deepest moments of silence in the wood. When the long days stretched timelessly on, and her mind emptied of thoughts until there was only her footsteps in the snow, only the feel of the bow in her hand, the bite of cold on her cheeks. When everything else faded away, this sound was what was left. ~ Meagan Spooner

By being discontented, the spirit searches for ways to improve its condition and for a better channel for expressing itself. This sense of discontent is the engine that drives all creativity and innovation ... Our blue moments are a necessary part of our human evolution. ~ Chin-Ning Chu

The owner of the Post Office was called Maurice. A sixtyish-year-old with a large red nose that was pebble-dashed with broken capillaries, and a smooth bald head with a fuzz of grey hair around the side like the tide mark on a dirty bath. He had a gruff manner, distrusting eyes and a cough like kicked gravel. ~ R.D. Ronald

In Cuba they don't celebrate Halloween but my favorite moments have been trick-or-treating with my kids here in the U.S.: they really enjoy it. ~ Erislandy Lara

It is simply a confession that with all that I've seen in the last few years, all the events I've been invited to, and all the people whom I've met, I am less and less impressed by "impressive" things or people who are presented as having things figured out. I am impressed by people who are honest and kind. I am inspired by moments of vulnerability, moments of confession and compassion, moments where someone makes it clear that they are a person in need of other people and someone else makes it clear that the first person is not alone. ~ Jamie Tworkowski

I'm interested when things are upside down - because there are so many possibilities in that one moment. There is a lot that is exposed. ~ Anna Deavere Smith

The Warrior lives a life full of adventure, living on the edge of opportunity. Life on the edge keeps him in a space of heightened awareness and totally in the moment; therefore no matter what comes his way he is always prepared. ~ James Arthur Ray

I've been scraping little shavings off my ration of light
And I've formed it into a ball, and each time I pack a bit more onto it
I make a bowl of my hands and I scoop it from its secret cache
Under a loose board in the floor
And I blow across it and I send it to you
Against those moments when
The darkness blows under your door
Isn't that what friends are for? ~ Bruce Cockburn

To live for the moment: it sounds so right and so beautiful. But the more I want to, the less I understand what it means. ~ Pascal Mercier

We are living in one of those rare moments in history when things may come apart and be put back together again in ways that will determine the future for decades or more, despite the endless innovations of technology. ~ Robert Darnton

Everything that exists in this or any other world or dimension, does so because of the way that things were in the previous moment. I call this the karma of moment. ~ Frederick Lenz

I like to express myself creatively and it doesn't matter the medium. Whatever medium I choose at that moment, whatever works the best. ~ Joshua Radin

At some unnoticed moment, I began to understand that a life is written in indelible ink. What I've chosen, what's happened unchosen, can't be unmade or redone. Poetry, though, is a door that only continues to open. Even the unchangeable past changes inside a poem. Not the facts, but the feeling, the comprehension. ~ Jane Hirshfield

Try to remember the moment when all the stupid innocent things you thought about life and love, all the things you thought mattered, all the things you though were true ... try to remember when they all turned out to be lies. - Kyle ~ Chad Kultgen

Your true assets are the collections of your quality moments on the earth. ~ Amit Ray

For at the hour of death you became a celebrated film star, it is a moment of glory for everyone, when the choral music scales the top notes. ~ Clarice Lispector

Besides, often at difficult moments you'll catch yourself talking to the mountain, flattering it, cursing it, making promises or threats. And you will have the impression that the mountain answers you if you speak to it properly - by becoming gentler, more submissive. Don't think the less of yourself for that; don't be ashamed of behaving like those our specialists call primitives and animists. Just keep in mind, when you remember these moments later on, that your dialogue with nature was just the outward image of an inner dialogue with yourself. ~ Rene Daumal

When you suffer, you can look deeply at your situation and find the many blessings that are already surrounding you. It is wonderful to sit with a pen and paper and write down all the conditions for happiness that are already there, already available to you right in this moment. ~ Nhat Hanh

Poems On Time The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth. Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I remembered the pain as clearly as if I were shifting - the pain of loss. I felt the agony of the single moment that I lost myself. Lost what made me Sam. The part of me that could remember Grace's name. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Even if it is only for a matter of moments, because those moments bring with them a Love so intense that it justifies the rest of our days. ~ Paulo Coelho

Look back on your life and find something small that made a big difference. ~ Anne Lamott

Work grows out of other work, and there are very few eureka moments. ~ Anish Kapoor

Every moment is a moment of choice-to feel powerless or powerful. ~ Diana Loomans

Sometimes, comedy and entertainment is not all about telling jokes; sometimes you just have to be you for a few moments. ~ Ray William Johnson

The audience looked at him. They felt he had no chance. They could drop the nameless resentment, the sense of insecurity which he aroused in most people. And so, for the first time, they could see him as he was: a man totally innocent of fear. The fear of which they thought was not the normal kind, not a response to a tangible danger, but the chronic, unconfessed fear in which they all lived. They remembered the misery of the moments when, in loneliness, a man thinks of the bright words he could have said, but had not found, and hates those who robbed him of his courage. The misery of knowing how strong and able one is in one's own mind, the radiant picture never to be made real. Dreams? Self-delusion? Or a murdered reality, unborn, killed by that corroding emotion without name - fear - need - dependence - hatred? ~ Ayn Rand

Basically [Louise] Brandeis was a Jeffersonian. And you say the timing is great, and it is in a lot of senses, except not for [Tomas] Jefferson, because this is a Hamiltonian moment, and he's the rock star of the minute with a great musical. ~ Jeffrey Rosen

But what might a woman say about church as she? What might a woman say about the church as body and bride?

Perhaps she would speak of the way a regular body moves through the world - always changing, never perfect - capable of nurturing life, not simply through the womb, but through hands, feet, eyes, voice, and brain. Every part is sacred. Every part has a function.

Perhaps she would speak of impossible expectations and all the time she's wasted trying to contort herself into the shape of those amorphous silhouettes that flit from magazines and billboards into her mind. Or of this screwed-up notion of purity as a status, as something awarded by men with tests and checklists and the power to give it and take it away.

Perhaps she would speak of the surprise of seeing herself - flaws and all - in the mirror on her wedding day. Or of the reality that with new life comes swollen breasts, dry heaves, dirty diapers, snotty noses, late-night arguments, and a whole army of new dangers and fears she never even considered before because life-giving isn't nearly as glamorous as it sounds, but it's a thousand times more beautiful.

Perhaps she would talk about being underestimated, about surprising people and surprising herself. Or about how there are moments when her own strength startles her, and moments when her weakness - her forgetfulness, her fear, her exhaustion - unnerve her.

Maybe she would tell of the time, in the mount ~ Rachel Held Evans

Happiness is simply collecting and remembering all the good moments in your life ... ~ Ilsa Madden-Mills

The days are passing so quickly. This is the only time of year when I want to slow time down. I spend the entire year trying to get here as fast as I can, then once I'm here I want to slam on the brakes. I'm beginning to have those moments when the feel of autumn is so strong it drowns out everything else. Lately it's been making me think about the perfect soundtrack for a Halloween party.

The top of any Halloween music list as to be the theme song from the movie Halloween; right on its heels is "Pet Sematary" by the Ramones. For some reason I've always equated the old Van Morrison song "Moondance" with Halloween, too. I love that song. "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus is an October classic, as well as anything by Type O Negative. And Midnight Syndicate. If you've never heard anything by Midnight Syndicate, look them up right this moment. If you distilled the raw essence of every spooky story you ever heard, you would have Midnight Syndicate. I have a friend who swears by them, believing them to be a vital element of any Halloween party. To finish off the list you must have "The Lyre of Orpheus" by Nick Cave and "I Feel Alright" by Steve Earle. ~ Damien Echols

I love you, Bud," he whispered to Billy and two more tears escaped.
"I love you too, Mitch," Billy whispered back, my breath hitched and both males' eyes came to me.
I waved my wineglass at them and murmured, "Don't mind me. Have your moment."
Mitch leaned back, letting Billy go and grinning at me. "Men don't have moments."
"You do," I returned. "I'm witnessing one."
"This isn't a moment, honey, it's a meeting of the minds," Mitch contradicted me. ~ Kristen Ashley