Time Quotes
The Midnight Library [Book]
By: Matt Haig
Book Overview: Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”
Mitch Albom
“Time assets vs. Time debts. Time assets are choices that save you time in the future. Think: saying no to a meeting, automating a task, working on something that persists and compounds. Time debts are choices that must be repaid and cost you time in the future. Think: saying yes to a meeting, doing sloppy work that will need to be revised, etc. Time assets are an investment. Time debts are an expense.”
James Clear, Blog
”Seneca notes how much time we waste in life. It may well be that we are wasting much of that time and energy thinking about things as unfulfilling and unproductive as being on time. Being punctual is important, yes. But more critical is making time for the things that really matter… and then being on time for those.“
Ryan Holiday
“Parkinson’s has made me aware of time. Like, really aware of it. My sense of mission, my sense of this is what I’m supposed to do, that got much stronger in me. If I don’t do that, I start to think about, ‘Oh, shit, this happened to me. What a drag.’ You know, it makes life harder. Then you go into this whole pity party thing. It’s a complete waste of time.”
Phil Stutz, Stutz
“The time that you’re alive is the only thing you truly possess, and you can give it away. You can give it away by working for other people—they own your time and you can be miserable. You can give it away by reaching for external pleasures and distractions—spending the time that you have as a slave to different passions and different obsessions. Or you can make the time that you’re alive your own.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 426)
“People can take away your possessions, but—short of murder—not even the most powerful aggressors can take time away from you unless you let them. Even in prison your time is your own, if you use it for your own purposes. To waste your time in battles not of your choosing is more than just a mistake, it is stupidity of the highest order.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 320)
