Strange Moment Quotes

There's still a strange moment with every book when I move from the position of writer to the position of reader and I suddenly see my words with the eyes of the cold public. It gives me a terrible sense of exposure, as if I'd gotten sunburned. ~ Eudora Welty

Are the Trials starting?" The girl claps her hands over her mouth. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I - "

"It's all right." I don't smile at her. It will only scare her. For a female slave, a smile from a Mask is not usually a good thing. "I'm actually wondering the same thing. What's your name?"

"S-slave-Girl." Of course. My mother would already have scourged her name out of existence.

"Right. You work for the Commandant?" I want her to say no. I want her to say that my mother roped her into this. I want her to say she's assigned to the kitchens or infirmary, where slaves aren't scarred or missing body parts.

But the girl nods in response to my question. Don't let my mother break you, I think. The girl meets my eyes, and there is that feeling again, low and hot and consuming. Don't be weak. Fight. Escape.

A gust of wind whips a strand free from her bun and across her cheekbone. Defiance flashes across her face as she holds my gaze, and for a second, I see my own desire for freedom mirrored, intensified in her eyes. It's something I've never detected in the eyes of a fellow student, let alone a Scholar slave. For one strange moment, I feel less alone.

But then she looks down, and I wonder at my own naiveté. She can't fight. She can't scape. Not from Blackcliff. I smile joylessly; in this, at least, the slave and I are more similar than she'll ever know. ~ Sabaa Tahir

She said the words, and then she had a strange moment of seeing them, hanging there over her head.
"You're going to vacuum up that squirrel!"
There is just no predicting what kind of sentences you might say, thought Flora. For instance, who would ever think you would shout, "You're going to vacuum up that squirrel!"? ~ Kate DiCamillo

He is spent. His mind is mercury again, its brief surge of humanity melting into an oily residue on its surface, and he no longer understands the feelings he felt in that strange moment on the overpass.
But he did feel them. They did happen. They rest on the murky seabed of his mind, buried under sand and silt and miles of grey waves. Patient seeds waiting for light. ~ Isaac Marion

Then a strange moment came, a moment of the kind that determines the fate of nations, because when a crowd loses its fear of an army the world changes. ~ Salman Rushdie

A strange moment when the world stayed exactly the same, and changed forever. ~ Cat Hellisen

We were an island. Me and Holly. Completely alone in this strange moment. ~ Julie Cross

It's a strange moment when you realize that you don't want to be alive anymore. ~ Allie Brosh

It's always a strange moment when you get up on stage because in a way that's really the fulfilment of what you do, but at the same time when you write from a place that's very personal and quite isolated, at least for me, there's something that almost doesn't feel natural about it. ~ Alexi Murdoch

I want to be dipped into the world of a novel. I want to be immersed. I travel a lot for my work and my happiest moments are coming back to the hotel late at night, [knowing that a] book I've brought with me [is] waiting for me there. It's like my version of chocolates on a pillow. Fiction is a necessity in my life. It's a strange moment where the world is roiling. People are glued to the news, and rightly so. But what fiction can do is look with nuance and depth at something that's not always looked at that way. There are those studies that say fiction teaches empathy. I feel like, here's a chance. Reading fiction gives me a chance to look into other people and their lives. That's incredibly moving to me. ~ Meg Wolitzer

Her greatest wish I should think was that I would remain exactly as I was, and how I regret that that was not to be. It was only for her roses that she wished for change, the strange moment of loral enchantment when the branch of a rose mutates, and shows a "sport," something new arising from the known rose. A leap in beauty. ~ Sebastian Barry

Everything was floating and without weight. Future and past met and both were without desire or pain. No one thing was more important and stronger than anything else. The horizons were in equilibrium and for one strange moment the scales of his existence were even. Fate was never stronger than the serene courage with which one faced it. If one could no longer stand it, one could kill oneself. This was good to know, but it was also good to know that one was never completely lost so long as one was alive. ~ Erich Maria Remarque

There is a strange moment in time, after something horrible happens, when you know it's true, but you haven't told anyone yet. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

The clips hurt. The presence of a chainsaw was terrifying. And Noah did not want to hear about insane Nazi poets. ~ Michael Grant

The moment one accosts a stranger or is accosted by him is above all in this life the moment of drama ... Whoever we meet watches us intently at the quick, strange moment of meeting, to see whether we are disposed to be friendly. ~ Haniel Long

There's a strange moment in time, after something horrible happens, when you know it's true but you haven't told anyone yet. Of all things, that is what I remember most. It was so quiet. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Don't you sometimes find it hard to remember God all through your work?" asked Clementina.
"I don't try to consciously remember Him every moment. For He is in everything, whether I am thinking of it or not. When I go fishing, I go to catch God's fish. When I take Kelpie out, I am teaching one of God's wild creatures. When I read the Bible or Shakespeare, I am listening to the word of God, uttered in each after its own kind. When the wind blows on my face, it is God's wind. ~ George MacDonald

Imagine all of L.A. filled with windup men wandering empty-headed and waiting for orders and directions and purpose. That's L.A. in a nutshell. A city of driven creatures, but no one is a hundred percent sure what they're driven toward. Wealth. Fame. Power. Love. Revenge. These are all the obvious end points for the citizens of a spectral city, but none of them quite encompass a final goal. That's more fragile. Something that slips away like smoke the moment it's in your hands. It's a moonshine cocktail of desperation and desire, the certainty that you can find perfection through sheer willpower and the cold terror that if you do reach the goal it will have twisted into something new. A new fevered need born of the search for this one. Searching for the next goal will breed another. And on and on. L.A. and Kill City full of Pinocchios with whirring gears for brains, all wanting to be real boys but sunk in the certainty that they'll never become anything because they're nothing. They came from nothing and are headed for a further and harder nothing. ~ Richard Kadrey

I think one of my biggest strengths overall is staying in the moment. ~ Urijah Faber

No one can possess a sunset like the one we saw that evening. Just as no one can possess an afternoon of rain beating against the window, or serenity of a sleeping child, or the magical moment when the waves break on the rocks. No one can possess the beautiful things in this Earth, but we can know them and love them. ~ Paulo Coelho

Sebastian, who had begun to laugh, seemed struck by that last comment. "Ahhh," he said softly. "That explains it." He was silent for a moment, lost in some distant, pleasurable memory. "Dangerous creatures, wallflowers. Approach them with the utmost caution. They sit quietly in corners, appearing abandoned and forlorn, when in truth they're sirens who lure men to their downfall. You won't even notice the moment she steals the heart right out of your body - and then it's hers for good. A wallflower never gives your heart back." "Are you finished amusing yourself?" Gabriel asked, impatient with his father's flight of fancy. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Everyday is filled with opportunities to take a quiet moment ~ Dana Reinhardt

It had always been Roth; from the moment he swaggered into that d- alley, where I'd been unsuccessfully fighting off a demon, it had been him for me. Maybe I'd been too blind to see that after he returned from the pits.
Maybe I had been too angry with him after the way he initially acted. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Clearing his throat, he rumbled, "Miss Darling, a word if you please."
"Sesquipedalian," she said, keeping her back towards him.
The strange response momentarily stunned him. "Pardon?"
Turning around, she leaned against the counter and grinned at him, "You asked for a word and I gave you one. It means 'many syllabled' and while it's exceedingly pretentious it is a lot of fun to say. Sesquipedalian; it tangles up the tongue and then just falls right off.
"Or perhaps you would prefer a different word?" she continued guilelessly and he was completely charmed by her. "Tittle, which is the little dot over i's and j's; or Ornithopter, an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings; Tuatha De Danan Lora or Expector Patronum?"
"Now you're just making words up," he grinned, and realized he had missed talking to her. ~ A.C. Warneke

Back in Paris they had happy moments together, like stills from a perfume ad (dashing hand in hand down the steps of Montmartre; or suddenly revealed in motionless embrace on the Pont des Arts by the lights of a bateau-mouche as it turned). There were the Sunday afternoon half-arguments, too, the moments of silence when bodies curl up beneath the sheets on the long shores of silence and apathy where life founders. Annabelle's studio was so dark they had to turn on the lights at four in the afternoon. They sometimes were sad, but mostly they were serious. Both of them knew that this would be their last human relationship, and this feeling lacerated every moment they spent together. They had a great respect and a profound sympathy for each other, and there were days when, caught up in some sudden magic, they knew moments of fresh air and glorious, bracing sunshine. For the most part, however, they could feel a gray shadow moving over them, on the earth that supported them, and in everything they could glimpse the end. ~ Michel Houellebecq

Be alive to the moment, that's all you can do. ~ Marty Rubin

Every hour, stop and ask: Am I really present in this moment? If not, what are my thoughts focused on? Doing this often will help you return to the present moment. ~ Azim Jamal & Brian Tracy

When we kiss my heart's on fire, burning with a strange desire. And I know that every time I kiss you, that your heart's on fire, too. ~ Elvis Presley

Haven't you got any tenderness or love left for me at all?" Yvonne asked suddenly, almost piteously, turning round on him, and he thought: Yes, I do love you, I have all the love in the world left for you, only that love seems so far away from me and so strange too, for it is as though I could almost hear it, a droning or a weeping, but far, far away, and a sad lost sound, it might be either approaching or receding, I can't tell which. "Don't you think of anything except of how many drinks you're going to have? ~ Malcolm Lowry

Don't ever give up.
Don't ever give in.
Don't ever stop trying.
Don't ever sell out.
And if you find yourself succumbing to one of the above for a brief moment,
pick yourself up, brush yourself off, whisper a prayer, and start where you left off.
But never, ever, ever give up. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself ~ Aristotle.

I would stay and talk, but I have something I need to do."
Sifa shook her head. "It's strange for me not to know what someone is deciding."
"Embrace the uncertainty," I said. ~ Veronica Roth

Allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling. [...] Let go of the labels. Just feel what you are feeling, all the while cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, riding the waves of "up" and "down," "good" and "bad," weak" and "strong," until you see that they are all inadequate to fully describe your experience. Be with the experience itself. Trust in your deepest strength of all: to be present, to be wakeful. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Luck is of little moment to the great general, for it is under the control of his intellect and his judgment. ~ Livy

Eternity: a moment standing still for ever. ~ James Montgomery

It is easy to be calm when there is nothing to worry about, Eragon. The true test of your self-control, however, is whether you can remain calm in a trying situation. You cannot allow anger or frustration to cloud your thoughts, not at the moment. Right now, you need your mind to be clear.
Have you always been able to remain calm at times like this?
The old dragon seemed to chuckle. No. I used to growl and bite and knock down trees and tear up the ground. Once, I broke the top off of a mountain in the Spine; the other dragons were rather upset with me for that. But I have had many years to learn that losing my temper rarely helps. You have not, I know, but allow my experience to guide you in this. Let go of your worries and focus on the task at hand. The future will be what is will, and fretting about it will only make your fears more likely to come true.
I know, Eragon sighed, but it's not easy.
Of course not. Few things of worth are. Then Glaedr withdrew and left him to the silence of his own mind. ~ Christopher Paolini

God often grants in a moment what He has long denied. ~ Thomas A Kempis

As strange as it may seem, this decision is one of the options that a good architect leaves open. A system that is written as a monolith, and that depends on that monolithic structure, cannot easily be upgraded to multiple processes, multiple threads, or micro-services should the need arise. By comparison, an architecture that maintains the proper isolation of its components, and does not assume the means of communication between those components, will be much easier to transition through the spectrum of threads, processes, and services as the operational needs of the system change over time. ~ Robert C. Martin

Is there anything here I can call my own? A feeling? A moment? Anything? Will there ever be a time when I am truly loved? When I'll know it and not wonder if it's real? Is there something I can protect and love and care about? Is there a truth I can keep that has no fear attached? Will there ever be a time when I can be somewhere and it will feel like home? Will there ever be a time when I will look around me and know I am finally in the place I am supposed to be? Is there anything here, anything I can see, while I breathe and breathe, trying to stay alive long enough to just be able to be here and know that I am here? Not just any here but the here I am supposed to be in. Is there anything that I can call mine that will not eventually be take from me? Is there anything, anyone, ever? ~ Henry Rollins

In New York one lives in the moment rather more than Socrates advised, so that at a party or alone in your room it will always be difficult to guess at the long term worth of anything. ~ Harold Brodkey

At this moment he wished to be a man without qualities. But this is probably not so very different from what other people sometimes feel too. After all, by the time they have reached the middle of their life's journey few people remember how they have managed to arrive at themselves, at their amusements, their point of view, their wife, character, occupation and successes, but they cannot help feeling that not much is likely to change any more. It might even be asserted that they have been cheated, for one can nowhere discover any sufficient reason for everything's having come about as it has. ~ Robert Musil

I don't have a lot of valuables on me at the moment though... and I need the ones I have for my Quest. Could you perhaps agree to rob me later? - Anya ~ Garth Nix

She once complained that her stories were like 'birds bred in cages,' but that concentrated atmosphere, that claustrophobic hothouse of emotion, was her talent. Her stories were little masterpieces of compression: she succinctly contained whole lifetimes in a few pages, every moment loaded with as much as it could bear. ~ Katie Roiphe

The only living life is in the past and future - the present is an interlude - strange interlude in which we call on past and future to bear witness that we are living. ~ Eugene O'Neill

Make every moment last forever, because nothing else does. ~ Tapan Ghosh

If a person can live in the same house for seventy years and still be confused, then this thing that we call life, and imagine we have used up, must be such a strange and incomprehensible thing that no one can even know what their own life is. You stand there waiting and on it goes from place to place, no one knows why, and as it goes, you have many thoughts about where it's been and where it's headed; then just as you speak these strange thoughts, which aren't right or wrong, and lead to no conclusion, you look, and the journey ends here, Fatma, okay, this is where you get off! First one foot, then the other, I get out of the carriage. I take two steps, then step back and look at the carriage. ~ Orhan Pamuk

After spending the last hour with Cole, whose face revealed only the emotions he wanted me to see, it was strange to see undisguised pain on Sam's face. His thick dark eyebrows showed misery all by themselves. It occurred to me that he and Grace might have had a fight.
"Her parents kicked me out," Sam said, and he smiled for just a second, like people do when something's really not funny and they don't want to be telling you but they don't know what else to do. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

The day that robs a child of his parents severs him from his own kind; his head is bowed, his cheeks are wet with tears, and he will go about destitute among the friends of his father, plucking one by the cloak and another by the shirt. Some one or other of these may so far pity him as to hold the cup for a moment towards him and let him moisten his lips, but he must not drink enough to wet the roof of his mouth; then one whose parents are alive will drive him from the table with blows and angry words. ~ Homer

Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time. ~ Leo Buscaglia