Time Lapse Quotes

Say you could view a time lapse film of our planet: what would you see?

Transparent images moving through light, "an infinite storm of beauty."
The beginning is swaddled in mists, blasted by random blinding flashes. Lava pours and cools; seas boil and flood. Clouds materialize and shift; now you can see the earth's face through only random patches of clarity. The land shudders and splits, like pack ice rent by widening lead. Mountains burst up, jutting, and dull and soften before your eyes, clothed in forests like felt. The ice rolls up, grinding green land under water forever; the ice rolls back. Forests erupt and disappear like fairy rings. The ice rolls up- mountains are mowed into lakes, land rises wet from the sea like a surfacing whale- the ice rolls back.

A blue-green streaks the highest ridges, a yellow-green spreads from the south like a wave up a strand. A red dye seems to leak from the north down the ridges and into the valleys, seeping south; a white follows the red, then yellow-green washes north, then red spreads again, then white, over and over, making patterns of color too intricate to follow. Slow the film. You see dust storms, locusts, floods, in dizzying flash-frames.

Zero in on a well-watered shore and see smoke from fires drifting. Stone cities rise, spread, and crumble, like paths of alpine blossoms that flourish for a day an inch above the permafrost, that iced earth no root can suck, and wither in a hour. New cit ~ Annie Dillard

It's daytime. A wall of billowing orange flame grows up silently from the tank farm a mile away, like a time-lapse chrysanthemum. It is so vast and complicated in its blooming, uncontrolled growth that Rife stops halfway up the stairs to watch. ~ Neal Stephenson

Thirteen years separate the death of her mother from that of her aunt.
And another thirteen passed between her mother's death and her grandmother's.
yes, exactly the same time lapse.
And all three died in almost exactly the same way.
A leap into the void.
Death has three different ages.
The girl, the mother, the grandmother.
So no age is worth living.
In the train that rolls toward the camp, Charlotte makes a calculation.
1940 + 13 = 1953.
So 1953 will be the year of her suicide.
If she doesn't die before that. ~ David Foenkinos

Sometimes one sees things clearly years afterwards than one could possibly at the time. ~ Agatha Christie

I become like a boulder on the beach in a time-lapse video. The sun and moon and stars cross the sky again and again, shadows lengthen and shrink, the tide rushes in and out. The sea heaves in the background, crabs and seabirds flicker in and out of view. Meanwhile, the boulder sits there, stolid, unmoving, all alone, as life whizzes past. ~ Misa Sugiura

I've been filming time lapse flowers continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 35 years. To watch them move is a dance I will never get tired of. Their sensual beauty immerses us with color, smell, taste and touch. ~ Louis Schwartzberg

I felt as though the temple curtain had been drawn aside without warning and I, a goggle-eyed stranger somehow mistaken for an initiate, had been ushered into the sanctuary to witness the mystery of mysteries. I saw a phantasmagoria, a living tapestry of forms jeweled in minute detail. They danced together like guests at a rowdy wedding. They changed their shapes. Within themselves they juggled geometrical shards like the fragments in a kaleidoscope. They sent forth extensions of themselves like the flares of suns. Yet all their activity was obviously interrelated; each being's actions were in step with its neighbors'. They were like bees swarming: They obviously recognised each other and were communicating avidly, but it was impossible to know what they were saying. They enacted a pageant whose beauty awed me.

As the lights came back on, the auditorium seemed dull and unreal.I'd been watching various kinds of ordinary cells going about their daily business, as seen through a microscope and recorded by the latest time-lapse movie techniques. The filmmaker frankly admitted that neither he nor anyone else knew just what the cells were doing, or how and why they were doing it. We biologists, especially during our formative years in school, spent most of our time dissecting dead animals and studying preparations of dead cells stained to make their structures more easily visible - "painted tombstones," as someone once called them. Of course, we all knew that life was m ~ Robert O. Becker

With high-speed cameras, we can do the opposite of time lapse. We can shoot images that are thousands of times faster than our vision. And we can see how nature's ingenious devices work, and perhaps we can even imitate them. ~ Louie Schwartzberg

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it
are no longer the same interpreters. ~ George Eliot

Because English has so many words of foreign origin, and words that look the same but mean something different depending on their context, and words that are in flux, opening and closing like flowers in time-lapse photography, the human element is especially important if we are to stay on top of the computers, which, in their determination to do our job for us, make decisions so subversive that even professional wordsmiths are taken by surprise. ~ Mary Norris

I sometimes wonder if I am crisscrossing my father's ghostly paths and we are entering same towns or roadside diners or the black ribbons of highways that gleam in the night rain. As if we were images in a time-lapse photograph. ~ Gloria Steinem

I don't know what I can do about the aging. Yes, I am aging. Oh my God, I'm aging all the time. It's like those flowers that wilt in front of you in time-lapse films. But what can I possibly do? Look like a lunatic? ~ Sarah Jessica Parker

Like the Party he had joined too late, too young, Chan was a lost claim check, a series of time lapse photos of a promise as it broke. ~ Michael Chabon

First I did animation films, when I was young, in time-lapse. And then in the '80s I went directly to video. The main reason for that was that I could control all the steps. ~ Pipilotti Rist

In order to know someone who is at some level unknowable, you must leave yourself wide open. If you don't, you foreclose the possibility of learning something critical about this person you need, your parent, the person upon whom your survival depends. It's like time-lapse photography; your lens at maximum aperture in order to capture something fleeting and elusive. The problem becomes one of calibration. How to protect yourself in the process. How to capture something without going blind. ~ Camilla Gibb

I know the expression love bloomed is metaphorical, but in my heart in this moment, there is one badass flower, captured in time-lapse photography, going from bud to wild radiant blossom in ten seconds flat. ~ Jandy Nelson

The main reason I went to digital was because I got time-lapse, video, and still images all in one camera. Having a minimal amount of gear is really important for someone who wants to walk around. That allowed me to have this flexibility to document things in different ways. ~ Andy Goldsworthy

The physical board had a huge psychological effect compared to anything we got from the electronic tracking tool we used at Microsoft. By attending the standup each day, team members were exposed to a sort of time-lapse photography of the flow of work across the board. Blocked work items were marked with pink tickets, and the team became much more focused on issue resolution and maintaining flow. Productivity jumped dramatically. ~ David J. Anderson

Last night I wept in a way I haven't wept for some time. I wept until I aged myself. I watched it happen in the mirror. I watched the lines arrive around my eyes like engraved sunbursts; it was like watching flowers open in time-lapse on a windowsill. The tears not only aged my face, they also changed its texture, turned the skin of my cheeks into putty. I recognized this as a rite of decadence, but I did not know how to stop it. ~ Maggie Nelson

The movie Koyaanisqatsi shows non-commented time-lapse footage and focuses our attention on the very rhythm of our civilized modern life and nature. A marijuana high can do something for a user similar to what this time-lapse footage does. The enhancement of episodic memory and the acceleration of associative streams of memories can alter and enhance our recognition of patterns in our lives in various ways. If we are presented with quick associative chains of past experiences, we can see a pattern in a body of information that is usually not at once presented to our "inner eye" as such. ~ Sebastian Marincolo

If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax, I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies. ~ Nadine Stair

Buster Keaton's 'The General,' from 1927, I think is still one of the great films of all time. ~ Peter Jackson

My father's coaching Misha and I just might help from time to time. ~ Richard Krajicek

A million million years gives us some time to prepare for the end ... let us make the best of it. ~ Bertrand Russell

Some of us find our way with a single light to guide us; others lose themselves even when the star field is as sharp as a neon ceiling. Ethics may not be situational, but feelings are. We learn to adjust, and, over time, the stars we use to guide ourselves come to reside within rather than without. ~ Robert Crais

--Suddenly the bus driver
stops with a jolt,
turns off his lights.

A moose has come out of
the impenetrable wood
and stands there, looms, rather,
in the middle of the road.
It approaches; it sniffs at
the bus's hot hood.

Towering, antlerless,
high as a church,
homely as a house
(or, safe as houses).
A man's voice assures us
'Perfectly harmless. . . .'

Some of the passengers
exclaim in whispers,
childishly, softly,
'Sure are big creatures.'
'It's awful plain.'
'Look! It's a she!'

Taking her time,
she looks the bus over,
grand, otherworldly.
Why, why do we feel
(we all feel) this sweet
sensation of joy?

'Curious creatures,'
says our quiet driver,
rolling his r's.
'Look at that, would you.'
Then he shifts gears.
For a moment longer,

by craning backward,
the moose can be seen
on the moonlit macadam;
then there's a dim
smell of moose, an acrid
smell of gasoline. ~ Elizabeth Bishop

I am alone a lot, which is good. I need that time to just be alone after a long day, just decompress. So, I go to either my house or the hotel, or my apartment, or whatever - wherever I am, I go home and I watch TV and I sit there, with my cat, and I just watch TV or go online, check my emails. ~ Taylor Swift

You'll be going back to Tokyo before much longer," Midorikawa quietly stated. "And you'll return to real life. You need to live life to the fullest. No matter how shallow and dull things might get, this life is worth living. I guarantee it. And I'm not being either ironic or paradoxical. It's just that, for me, what's worthwhile in life has become a burden, something I can't shoulder anymore. Maybe I'm just not cut out for it. So, like a dying cat, I've crawled into a quiet, dark place, silently waiting for my time to come. It's not so bad. But you're different. You should be able to handle what life sends your way. You need to use the thread of logic, as best as you can, to skillfully sew onto yourself everything that's worth living for. ~ Haruki Murakami

And he is a Farseer," Dutiful suddenly interjected, startling both of us. "One whose vow to his family has already cost him many things. So, this time, as your prince, I command this, FitzChivalry Farseer. Keep your vow, to yourself. Be as true to your own heart as you were to Verity's, and to King Shrewd's before him. That is the command of your king. ~ Robin Hobb

The universe is eternal; every person appears in the stream of time, and then disappears. The ego does not survive. Life is significant despite that it ends. The products of human life that we cherish – love, happiness, beauty, art, kindness, – have value without being everlasting. We must conquer human fearfulness in order to live a dignified life. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Does he call? No. Does he email or even text me? No. He just ran off and left me here to rust and die." He turned back to Syn. "You really suck as a friend."
"I do suck as a friend. I'm sorry."
"Mmm-hmm. You think you can sweet-talk me? Who you been two-timing me with anyway? Some low-tech battery-operated device? I hope it shocked you every time you touched it."
Syn laughed. "There's no one else, Vik. You're the only mecha I could ever stand."

-Vik & Syn ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

If you admit your fear to yourself and to him, then maybe this time you can face it instead of running away.' Even as he spoke the words to her, they hit him in the gut. He could dole out advice. But he wasn't great at following it. He'd been running away from his past for ten years. ~ Jody Hedlund

Time cannot be broken; that is our greatest burden. And our greatest challenge is to live in spite of that burden. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

The minutes tick by, and though it feels like an eternity, she appears. Her blue eyes find mine, and like every time before, I'm home. ~ Alexa Riley

For the first time, Araushnee realized how truly alone she was on the path she had chosen. With this realization came a moment's regret. But the emotion did not linger, and when it passed, something else went with it - a part of Araushnee's heart that had slowly been dying, unnoticed and unmourned. The slender thread of magic that connected her to the other gods of the Seldarine and to their elven children had finally snapped. Whatever else Araushnee had become, she was no longer truly elven. ~ Anonymous

Time is never wasted coming to an old man bar. ~ Bonnie Jo Campbell

Even in the realm of pure mathematics, the mathematician may use any set of symbols he desires within any given region of space-time; he may even go so far as to maintain that any one set of symbols fits the scheme as well as any other, but to erect this method into a philosophy and confuse independence of any one special meaning with independence of all meaning is unjustified and unwarranted. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

My father was like the Old Testament. I am the New Testament. I am part of a new generation. In time, people will realize this. ~ Ziggy Marley

And sometimes time really does stop. ~ Cynthia Hand

Agassiz would not lecture at five hundred dollars a night, because he had no time to make money. ~ Orison Swett Marden

Trying to be like me as a person is not a good idea. To have the same interest, to talk about the same and so on and so on... it's kind time waste! ~ Deyth Banger

The stiletto is the icon of erotic femininity. You're taller, thinner and curvier, all at the same time. What's not to like? ~ Valerie Steele

Privilege encased them, surrounded them like armor. In the cast of their faces was the assumption that they would never have to take anything very seriously. For the first time in my life I saw the truth in the old proposition that the rich were better-looking. ~ Peter Straub

My Best Friend and I have spent plenty of time together, despite me being in my First Ever Relationship. This is because friends should always come first. ~ Holly Smale

Good-bye, good-bye,' muttered Gwystyl. 'I hate to see you waste your time, not to mention your lives. But that's the way of it, I suppose. Here today, gone tomorrow, and what's anyone to do about it? Good-bye. I hope we meet again. But not soon. Good-bye. ~ Lloyd Alexander

The word conscience covers as a matter of fact several different feelings; the simplest of these is the fear of being found out. You, reader, have, I am sure, lived a completely blameless life, but if you will ask some one who has at some time acted in a manner for which he would be punished if it became known, you will find that when discovery seemed imminent, the person in question repented of his crime. ~ Bertrand Russell

One of the things Thich Nhat Hanh taught me: he says, "When you're in a hurry, go slower." That works every time, unless you're trying to catch a plane. ~ Sandra Cisneros

When you're frozen in time, nothing else really seems to matter. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

Foreword: Life is tension or the result of tension: without tension the creative impulse cannot exist. If human life be taken as the result of tension between the two polarities night and day, night, the negative pole, must share equal importance with the positive day. At night, under the influence of cosmic radiations quite different from those of the day, human affairs are apt to come to a crisis. At night most human beings die and are born.
Sleep Has His House describes in the night-time language certain stages in the development of one individual human being. No interpretation is needed of this language we have all spoken in childhood and in our dreams; but for the sake of unity a few words before every section indicate the corresponding events of the day. ~ Anna Kavan

As human beings we can't stop the flow of time, but we can choose to do something constructive with the time that we have. ~ D. Allen Miller