John Banville Quotes

Everything you see, you might be seeing for the last time.

To venerate the simple days Which lead the seasons by, Needs but to remember That from you or I They may take the trifle Termed mortality!

Today's today. Tomorrow we may be ourselves gone down the drain of Eternity.

In the end, the wind takes everything, doesn't it? And why not? Why other? If the sweetness of our lives did not depart, there would be no sweetness at all.

It's a lot harder to find fault with the mundane details of daily existence when you really, really know on a cellular level that you're going to go, and that this moment, right now, is life. Life isn't what happens to you in 20 years. This moment, right now, is your life.

Life - how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.

Since fame is an illusion and death is in our future all we have is the next moment before we are swallowed into oblivion.

What makes us really human is it's in the presence of death that we start valuing life.

If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair.

Life is like a fire. Flames which the passer-by forgets. Ashes which the wind scatters. A man lived.

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.

Things pass us by. Nobody can catch them. That's the way we live our lives.

Every moment was a precious thing, having in it the essence of finality.

Nothing lasts forever but we always try, and I just can't help but wonder why we let it pass us by

Driving home, it's all I can do to keep from crying. Time's come, time's gone, time's never returning, I say to myself. What's here in front of me is all I've got, I decide, and as I drive my car through the blowing snow it doesn't seem like much, except for the kindness that I've just exchanged with an old lady, so I concentrate on that.

The morning Sunne never lasts a day.

I could even feel how perishable all my moments really were, how all my life they had come to me begging to be lived, to be cherished even.

Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment.

Impermanence is the very essence of joy-the drop of bitterness that enables one to perceive the sweet.

For one thing we may be grateful: this life is not eternal.

What I've been thinking about recently is the idea of finite and fragility. Either we're acknowledging that our lives here are finite, this moment is finite, and that this whole world is fragile, or we're not, but it is really happening and that is really true.

Life is only a flicker of melted ice.

Look thy last on all things lovely, Every hour

Not to hope for things to last forever, is what the year teaches and even the hour which snatches a nice day away.