Jane Smiley Quotes

It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.

Wait and wait. Most people's lives are spent waiting.

Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.

Tell me, he said, "What is this thing about time? Why is it better to be late than early? People are always saying, we must wait, we must wait. what are they waiting for?" "Well […] I guess people wait in order to make sure of what they feel." "And when you have waited—-has it made you sure?

Waiting is not always a bad thing; it can bring its own joy -the thrill of anticipation.

Waiting, waiting, waiting. All my life, I've been waiting for my life to begin, as if somehow my life was ahead of me, and that someday I would arrive at it.

If something anticipated arrives too late it finds us numb, wrung out from waiting, and we feel - nothing at all. The best things arrive on time.

What's the use of watching? A watched pot never boils.

She was no stranger to waiting, after all. Her man had always made her wait.

You have to sit by the side of a river a very long time before a roast duck will fly into your mouth.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living.

Some things in life are worth waiting for.

Waiting is one of the great arts.

We usually learn to wait only when we have no longer anything to wait for.

Everything comes to him who waits -- if he waits till it comes.

Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.

Sometimes waiting is the hardest thing.

You don't get everything all at once. You wait.

A watched supper dish never fills!

So the day became one of waiting, which was, he knew, a sin: moments were to be experienced; waiting was a sin against both the time that was still to come and the moments one was currently disregarding.

Waiting is a large part of living. Great, passive, negative chunks of our time are consumed by waiting, from birth to death. Waiting is a special kind of activity - if activity is the right word for it - because we are held in enforced suspension between people and places, removed from the normal rhythms of our days and lives.

Why always "not yet"? Do flowers in spring say "not yet"?

Some things are worth the wait.

I have always found it difficult to wait for things - whether it was to see my father or sailor brother, Alan, again after their long sea trips, or the chance of a better job, or even new curtains.

I have a hard time waiting for things to happen.