Transient Quotes

Try listening to yourself sometime, alone in a transient room in a strange town. The worst is when you draw a blank, and the ash-blonde ghosts of the past carry on long twittering long-distance calls with your inner ear, and there's no way to hang up. ~ Ross Macdonald

Now I want you to think that in life troubles will come, which seem as if they never would pass away. The night and storm look as if they would last forever; but the calm and the morning cannot be stayed; the storm in its very nature is transient. The effort of nature, as that of the human heart, ever is to return to its repose, for God is Peace. ~ George MacDonald

For a few minutes the anxiety that tormented him had vanished, leaving his mind as serene as the beauty he looked at. Very lovely, he thought, are the sudden moments of relief that come in the midst of strain, those moments of forgetfulness when we are "teased out of thought" by a bird or a flower or the sight of old roofs in the sun; lovely though so transient, the reversal of those brief moments of misery that visit us even in the midst of joy. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really droppped anchor. It was a transient place. People drawn by the dream, people running from the nightmare. Twelve million people and all of them ready to make a break for it if necessary. Figuratively, literally, metaphorically
any way you want to look at it
everbody in L.A. keeps a bag packed. Just in case. ~ Michael Connelly

All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Christians have inherited from Saint Augustine and from Plato the vision of this transient world as an icon of another and changeless order. They understand the sacred as a revelation in the here and now of the eternal sense of our being. ~ Roger Scruton

I love to see the bud bursting into maturity; I love to mark the deepening tints with which the beams of heaven paint the expanded flower; nay, with a melancholy sort of pleasure, I love to watch that progress towards decay, so endearingly bespeaking a fellowship in man's transient glory ~ Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna

Prying out a stump reminded him of how deeply a tree clung to the ground, how tenacious a hold it had on a place. Though he was not a sentimental man - he did not cry when his children died, he simply dug the graves and buried them - James was silent each time he killed a tree, thinking of its time spent in that spot. He never did this with the animals he hunted - they were food, and transient, passing through this world and out again, as people did. But trees felt permanent - until you had to cut them down. ~ Tracy Chevalier

Meditation transports one from the transient world of matter to the real world of dreamings, visions, and imaginings where idea is and concepts are born. ~ Walter Russell

Owing to ignorance of the rope the rope appears to be a snake; owing to ignorance of the Self the transient state arises of the individualized, limited, phenomenal aspect of the Self. ~ Guru Nanak

economic - when economic security and basic materialistic needs are guaranteed to all - then incentive will not disappear, but be of a different sort, increasing in strength and determination, producing true greatness, not the kind of transparent, transient "greatness" which present incentives produce. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

There is a plain distinction to be made betwixt pleasure and happiness. For tho' there can be no happiness without pleasure
yet the converse of the proposition will not hold true.
We are so made, that from the common gratifications of our appetites, and the impressions of a thousand objects, we snatch the one, like a transient gleam, without being suffered to taste the other. ~ Laurence Sterne

We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment, but it is transient. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. If we share with caring, lightheartedness, and love, we will create abundance and joy for each other. And then this moment will have been worthwhile. ~ Deepak Chopra

We all dimly feel that our transient historical identity is the only chance in all eternity to be alive as a somebody in a here and a now. We, therefore, dread the possibility, of which we are most aware when deeply young or very old, that at the end we may find that we have lived the wrong life or not really lived at all. ~ Erik Erikson

The earth itself was unchangeable, the endless tracts of sand and water and pavement. It was the people, the perturbable madmen who roamed its surface, who viewed the world as transient and broken. Everett wished the earth could somehow reach up and still them, the crazy people, and invest them with its silence and permanence and depth. ~ Jonathan Lethem

God is the ultimate source of all power. All human power is therefore derived, limited, unstable and transient. ~ Os Guinness

Pain and suffering only occur in temporal time. They don't occur in the world of forever. They only occur in limited transient time, which is a state of mind. ~ Frederick Lenz

Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use, but that it disengages us from the allurements of sense. In the state of future perfection, to which we all aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and security without restraint. ~ Samuel Johnson

So we do not lose heart...Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal...So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (Second Corinthians) ~ John Irving

I was taking care of people my age who were dying. The constant feeling, hearing from them, was that life is transient and can end very quickly, so don't postpone your dreams. ~ Abraham Verghese

Relationships, like all human experiences, are transient; they change every day and are meant to be enjoyed in the present. When I hear people say you need to "work" at a relationship, what that often really means is just seeing through the day-to-day; listening to another person, listening to yourself, not getting stuck on hurts from the past, and not getting lost in what might come. To be in a relationship with someone you respect, care about and value is a gift, and when you take that in the day-to-day, you honor yourself and your partner each day. Eating is no different in that you can honor yourself at each meal. So much time in relationships is spent hashing the past, and arguing about things that haven't yet happened. A relationship cannot be "hoarded", just like a meal cannot be prolonged by taking home the leftovers. ~ Ramani Durvasula

I couldn't look away. My guts wrenched with the transient impact, like walking through a humming electric shock. ~ S.J. Lomas

The imprint left on her mind by the long famished body that had seemed in the darkness to consist of nothing by sharp crags and angles, the memory of its painfully-defined almost skeletal ribcage, a pattern of ridges like a washboard, was fading as rapidly as any other transient impression on a soft surface. ~ Margaret Atwood

Life is so short, transient, and beautiful that there is not enough time to get old. ~ Debasish Mridha

The snow crystals ... come to us not only to reveal the wondrous beauty of the minute in Nature, but to teach us that all earthly beauty is transient and must soon fade way. But though the beauty of the snow is evanescent, like the beauties of the autumn, as of the evening sky, it fades but to come again. ~ Wilson A. Bentley

As to what the things were - explanations naturally varied. The common name applied to them was "those ones," or "the old ones," though other terms had a local and transient use. Perhaps the bulk of the Puritan settlers set them down bluntly as familiars of the devil, and made them a basis of awed theological speculation. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

The whole message of the piece was that possessions are transient. You don't know if you are going to be able to have time with somebody, so you better be careful. ~ J.H. Wyman

Survival is as much a matter of grace as fight. The expression, 'grace under pressure' implies the attainment of equanimity and equilibrium. The fundamental durability of the human body surprises us because the pain can be so intense - yet pain is often transient and hides the tremendous effforts the body is engaged in to heal itself. ~ Gretel Ehrlich

Just as on a dark night black with clouds, The sudden lightning glares and all is clearly shown, Likewise rarely, through the Buddhas' power, Virtuous thoughts rise, brief and transient, in the world. ~ Santideva

I don't make resolutions, because resolutions seem so ephemeral and transient to go away. ~ Ian K. Smith

To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own face. The thought 'I am' is the polishing cloth. Use it. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Love is the language of life and all others are transient epi-phenomena. Like a fish, we are swimming in the ocean of love. We are so busy seeking love that we don't realize we are swimming in love. ~ Debasish Mridha

Look about and contemplate life! 1 Everything is transient and nothing endures. There is birth and death, growth and decay; there is combination and separation. 2 The glory of the world is like a flower: it stands in full bloom in the morning and fades in the heat of the day. 3 Wherever you look, there is a rushing and a struggling, and an eager pursuit of pleasure. There is a panic flight from pain and death, and hot are the flames of burning desires. The world is vanity fair, full of changes and transformations. ~ Paul Carus

To subdue and crush the masses of a nation by military force, when all are unanimous in the determination to be free, is to attempt the imprisonment of a whole people; all such projects must be temporary and transient, and terminate in a catastrophe... ~ William Dalrymple

To say I woke up one day and reached a point where I no longer cared about the pains to befall me would be a lie. Nor can I say that I have ever fully forgiven those who willfully did me harm. On a deep, internal battlefield, I wrestle with the thought that I have been robbed of any chance of normalcy by the losses suffered. Therapists and gurus alike tell us to, "Let go or be dragged," as Zen proverb urges - to forgive for our own sake. But, in my experience, there is no letting go and forgiveness is transient. My inability to be free of it all isn't for lack of an evolved consciousness on my part. I've "done the work" to process it all; rather, it is my irreconcilable, inescapable humanity that causes to clutch the pain close to me. ~ L.M. Browning

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent relieves we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life. ~ Malcolm De Chazal

Mathematics, in the development of its ideas, has only to take account of the immanent reality of its concepts and has absolutely no obligation to examine their transient reality. ~ Georg Cantor

Time, space, and natural law hold for me suggestions of intolerable bondage, and I can form no picture of emotional satisfaction which does not involve their defeat
especially the defeat of time, so that one may merge oneself with the whole historic stream and be wholly emancipated from the transient and the ephemeral. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Success is transient; value is eternal. ~ Debasish Mridha

PROCESS PHILOSOPHY, a school greatly influenced by Alfred North Whitehead, holds that mind and brain are manifestations of a single reality, one that is in constant flux. It thus is compatible with classical Buddhist philosophy, which views clear and penetrating awareness of change and impermanence (anicca in Pali) as the essence of insight. Thus, as Whitehead put it, "The reality is the process," and it is a process made up of vital transient "drops of experience, complex, and interdependent." This view is strikingly consistent with recent developments in quantum physics. ~ Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Critics are the products of their own times and biases and what they have to say about works of art is as transient and insubstantial as fashion. ~ Robert Genn

Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished. ~ Daniel M. Gilbert

Heroism is no extempore work of transient impulse
a rocket rushing fretfully up to disturb the darkness by which, after a moment's insulting radiance, it is ruthlessly swallowed up,
but a steady fire, which darts forth tongues of flame. It is no sparkling epigram of action, but a luminous epic of character. ~ Edwin Percy Whipple

Part of what we seek in Buddhism is the sense of quiet observation. We don't get so involved in a state of mind that we forget that it's just another transient state of mind, no matter how much ecstasy or agony is involved. ~ Frederick Lenz

Words, you see," he said, looking at me again, "allow us to make permanent what is essentially transient.Turn a world filled with injustice and hurt into a place that is beautiful and lyrical. ~ Vaddey Ratner

From these prejudices there arises conflict, transient joys and suffering. But we are unconscious of this, unconscious that we are slaves to certain forms of tradition, to social and political environment, to false values. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Outbox and its inherent transient nature - is it a take on life itself ? momentary, independent, fleeting and somewhat meaningless dwelling for all creations on their way out - to sent items. ~ Sunil Raina

The experience of the past lives little doubt that every economic system must sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity. Substitutes like slavery, police supervision, or ideological enthusiasm prove too unproductive, too expensive, or too transient. ~ Will Durant

analogue tape is notoriously forgiving on transient peaks, applying small amounts of tape saturation (or distortion) on the occasional stray hit, and thereby keeping the transient levels in some degree of order. Of course, in an entirely digital production chain, it's highly likely that these transient peaks have passed through the majority of recording and mixing without any of these pleasant 'non-linearities' slipping in, and therefore the average level is several decibels quieter than a comparable analogue recording. ~ Mark Cousins

Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Now I was just a transient in the valley, a one-eyed passerby too fat for his years, and life there had the power to summon up neither the memory nor the illusion of any other, truer self. As a passerby I had a right to insist on my identity. ~ Kenzaburo Oe

I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.

Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall ?

Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly !

What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away ?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway ?

Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.

Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair ! ~ Charlotte Bronte

In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Clouds are the most transient of nature's creations. They come out of a clear sky, disintegrate before your eyes, vanish. You never see the same cloud twice. Every moment of its brief existence brings a change, a change of form or tint or texture; but its beauty remains constant to the end. The beauty of the clouds is there for us to see every day, if we are not too busy to look up.... ~ Alfred Wainwright

Don't cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. ~ Charlotte Bronte

He refused categorically all ideas of fidelity or serious commitments. He explained that they were arbitrary and sterile. From anyone else such views would have shocked me, but I knew that in his case they did not exclude tenderness and devotion - feelings which came all the more easily to him since he was determined that they should be transient. ~ Francoise Sagan

In its rational form [dialectic] is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary. ~ Karl Marx

Life is a transient phenomenon with eternal reflection. ~ Debasish Mridha

Modernity is the most transient of qualities. ~ Anthony Daniels

Success is transient. Failure makes us diligent. But yearning to succeed is constant. ~ Debasish Mridha

We stand on the edge of the abyss, across whose unknowable face we paint meaning so as not to see into it. It is always there. But we're here too, and we are no less real than the abyss. We are no less meaningful for being transient creatures caught up in something too big for us. There is still value to our lives. I've learned that those things that are most fragile are also the most precious. ~ Ovadya Ben Malka

Primarily, that means learning to recognize thoughts as thoughts - as transient appearances in consciousness - and to no longer be distracted by them, if only for short periods of time. ~ Sam Harris

To be cut down to size is good for all of us, but particularly so for those who forget how transient are our cultures and institutions, how pointless and cruel our divisions, how vain our claims to special status for our practices and beliefs above those of others. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Civilization is a transient sickness. ~ Robinson Jeffers

Those who serve and those who rule
Lepers, kings and mindless fools
Empire leaders, tyrant's tools
All will fade with time
Hail the cowards, brave at heart
The ugly and the beautiful
Those who never felt their souls
All live transient lives ~ Kreator

I am a diamond in the rut. A diamond to an untrained eye looks like a rock stone. So men will kick it around on the ground. It takes a man with an expert eye for fine Jewelry to notice its worth. Do not feel bad when men treat you like the little boys in Africa who gave away stones in exchange for candy. The hungry boys thought they were getting something better but had exchange wealth for a sugar high. Some men will do that. Exchange a valuable woman for the transient high of another. The boys didn't know better and so do some of these men. They don't know your worth. ~ Crystal Evans

The glorified will not be pilgrims, transient visitors, or tenants at will, but settled, permanent, walled, established by title, through eternity by warrantee deed, signed, sealed, recorded, possession given. No renters, no lessees of Heaven, but all property and home owners. ~ Edward McKendree Bounds

In chess, knowledge is a very transient thing. It changes so fast that even a single mouse-slip sometimes changes the evaluation. ~ Viswanathan Anand

There's a path in enlightenment called the path of negation where we intentionally throw ourselves into experiences that are extremely transient. In other words, we do all the stuff you're supposed to normally avoid to become enlightened, intentionally. ~ Frederick Lenz

Fear and failure are always present. Accept them as part of life and learn how to manage these realities. Be scared, but keep going. Being scared is usually transient. It will pass. If you fail, fix the causes and keep going. ~ Colin Powell

If boys and men are to be welded together in the glow of transient feeling, they must be made of metal that will mix, else they inevitably fall asunder when the heat dies out. ~ George Eliot

I see no good reason why the views given this volume [The Origin of Species] should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, 'as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.' ~ Charles Darwin

I'm the one who made many of the bold comments that we'd seen the technologies from AMD as pretty good. Their technology in many areas was leading. But those are transient. ~ Kevin Rollins

Everything is indefinite, misty, and transient; only virtue is clear, and it cannot be destroyed by any force. - MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO ~ Leo Tolstoy

Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species. ~ Samuel Johnson

We must convince each generation that they are transient passengers on this planet earth. It does not belong to them. They are not free to doom generations yet unborn. They are not at liberty to erase humanity's past nor dim its future. ~ Bernard Lown

I was quite small as a kid and maybe a little afraid physically. When I grew into myself, the realisation changed. That when you hurt yourself, it's transient; it doesn't stay forever. ~ Brian O'Driscoll

She now discovered amidst them, the poet's flights of fancy, and the historian's seldom pleasing - ever instructive page. The first may transmit to posterity the records of a sublime genius, which once flashed in strong, but transient rays, through the tenement of clay it was given a moment to inhabit: and though the tenement decayed and the spirit fled, the essence of a mind which darted through the universe to cull each created and creative image to enrich an ever-varying fancy, is thus snatched from oblivion, and retained, spite of nature, amidst the mortality from which it has struggled, and is freed. The page of the historian can monarchs behold, and not offer up the sceptre to be disencumbered of the ponderous load that clogs their elevation! Can they read of armies stretch upon the plain, provinces laid waste, and countries desolated, and wish to be the mortal whose vengeance, or whose less fierce, but fatal decision sent those armies forth! ~ Mary Charlton

The thought of the future life with its prerogatives and joys helps to make the trials of the present seem light and transient. ~ Billy Graham

The vicious demand for happiness, regardless of circumstance, is not what one expects from one's own. Life is hard enough. Requiring a loved one to always be happy-happy-joy in the face of that strain, that cruelty, is not love. It is unforgivable narcissism." She smiled sourly. "The greastest gift you could give someone is space to be sad. Or tired. The failure to understand that simple fact may be why your generation doesn't seem able to form lasting bonds. You all seem to be in it for what the other person can give you, here and now - resources, time, transient euphoria. Not for what you can be together. Over the decades."
–Christopher Zenos
Autumn in Carthage ~ Christopher Zenos

I feel to that the gap between my new life in New York and the situation at home in Africa is stretching into a gulf, as Zimbabwe spirals downwards into a violent dictatorship. My head bulges with the effort to contain both worlds. When I am back in New York, Africa immediately seems fantastical – a wildly plumaged bird, as exotic as it is unlikely.

Most of us struggle in life to maintain the illusion of control, but in Africa that illusion is almost impossible to maintain. I always have the sense there that there is no equilibrium, that everything perpetually teeters on the brink of some dramatic change, that society constantly stands poised for some spasm, some tsunami in which you can do nothing but hope to bob up to the surface and not be sucked out into a dark and hungry sea. The origin of my permanent sense of unease, my general foreboding, is probably the fact that I have lived through just such change, such a sudden and violent upending of value systems.

In my part of Africa, death is never far away. With more Zimbabweans dying in their early thirties now, mortality has a seat at every table. The urgent, tugging winds themselves seem to whisper the message, memento mori, you too shall die. In Africa, you do not view death from the auditorium of life, as a spectator, but from the edge of the stage, waiting only for your cue. You feel perishable, temporary, transient. You feel mortal.

Maybe that is why you seem to live more vividly in A ~ Peter Godwin

Kindness can be short, sweet, transient, and random, but its effects echo forever. ~ Debasish Mridha

Life is a wildly transient thing with people coming into your life and dropping away. It definitely takes work to maintain relationships. ~ Natasha Lyonne

Do they merit vitriol, even a drop of it? Yes, because they corrupt the young, persuading them that the mature world, which produced Beethoven and Schweitzer, sets an even higher value on the transient anodynes of youth than does youth itself ... They are the Hollow Men. They are electronic lice. ~ Anthony Burgess

Life is transient and ephemeral so dance in your own way. ~ Debasish Mridha

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

Be. And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
The emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in full resonance with your world. Use it for once.

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

I don't see myself as having made the transition. I aim to be more transient than transitional. Life is constantly changing, now at a rate faster than ever, so being in a transitory state is the best way to keep pace. ~ Marc Forster

Reflect upon the defects of your character: thoroughly realize their evils and the transient pleasures they give you, and firmly will that you shall try your best not to yield to them the next time. ~ H. P. Blavatsky

The window glows. The slow sandy light of dawn permeates the room. Everything transient and aching; everything tentative. To be here, in this room, high in this house, out of the cellar, with her: it is like medicine. ~ Anthony Doerr

A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. ~ William Wordsworth

Making friends with the impersonal necessity of death is an ethical way of installing oneself in life as a transient, slightly wounded visitor. ~ Rosi Braidotti

There is nothing wrong with the world of physicality. There is nothing wrong with existence. It's perfect ... but it's terribly transient. ~ Frederick Lenz

In real life I fell easily under the spell of all traveling artists. En route to New Orleans, entertainments of many kinds would stop over in those days for a single performance in Jackson's Century Theatre. Then, as now, my imagination was magnetized toward transient artists - toward the transience as much as the artists. I must have seen "Acrobats in a Park" at the time I wrote the story as exotic, free of any experience as I knew it. At the center of the little story is the Zorro's act: the feat of erecting a structure of their bodies that holds together, interlocked, and stands like a wall. Writing about the family act, I was writing about the family itself, its strength as a unit, testing its frailty under stress. I treated it in an artificial and oddly formal way; the stronghold of the family is put on view as a structure built each night; on the night before the story opens, the Wall has come down when the most vulnerable member slips, and the act is done for. But from various points within it and from outside it, I've been writing about the structure of the family in stories and novels ever since. In spite of my uncompromising approach to it, my fundamental story form might have been trying to announce itself to me. ~ Eudora Welty

The beauty of a face is transient, but the beauty of a heart is everlasting and magnificent. ~ Debasish Mridha

Though Jack Nubbins was extremely talented, Quenten Cassidy had viewed the Specter; when he reached down through the familiar layers of gloom and fatigue he generally found more there than a nameless and transient desire to acquire plastic trophies. He and Nubbins were not even in the same ball park. ~ John L. Parker Jr.

Life seemed more transient now, with people commonly relocating and changing jobs during their lifetime - things that had almost never happened a century ago. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Doesn't it make you wonder about your own sexual identity, not to mention your sanity, that the two women you love are, respectively, a virtual woman existing only in the transient ansible connections between computers and a woman whose soul is in fact that of a man who is the husband of your mother? ~ Orson Scott Card

I'll begin with the most basic.What are you?"
"Pussy Cat Doll?" she asked, immediately doing a slow headshake at his look. "Judge, jury and
executioner." He scowled. Her eyes lit up. "Transient! What? Really. No? Babe in Toyland? ~ Kresley Cole

As he watched Joe stand, blazing, on the fire escape, Sammy felt an ache in his chest that turned out to be, as so often occurs when memory and desire conjoin with a transient effect of weather, the pang of creation. The desire he felt, watching Joe, was unquestionably physical, but in the sense that Sammy wanted to inhabit the body of his cousin, not possess it. It was, in part, a longing
common enough among the inventors of heroes
to be someone else; to be more than the result of two hundred regimens and scenarios and self-improvement campaigns that always ran afoul of his perennial inability to locate an actual self to be improved. Joe Kavalier had an air of competence, of faith in his own abilities, that Sammy, by means of constant effort over the whole of his life, had finally learned only to fake. ~ Michael Chabon