Per Petterson Quotes

I think I have a strange relationship with time. I'm not really aware of that time passing. I don't feel that I'm wasteful with time. But I'm not aware of it passing.

These tenses-past, present and future-are not the tenses of time; they are tenses of the mind. That which is no longer before the mind becomes the past. That which is before the mind is the present. And that which is going to be before the mind is the future. Past is that which is no longer before you. Future is that which is not yet before you. And present is that which is before you and is slipping out of your sight. Soon it will be past.

I've got absolutely no real perception, properly, of time.

Time does not always pass at the same speed. We are the ones who determine that speed.

If you change your relationship with time, you will change your life. The most important time of your life is right now.

What we perceive as the present is the vivid fringe of memory tinged with anticipation.

We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to stay it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own.

Because time isn't something that always proceeds at the same pace. It is we who determine how quickly time passes.

The mind exists in time, in fact the mind is time; it exists in the past and the future. And remember, time consists of only two tenses, the past and the future. The present is not part of time, the present is part of eternity.

Time is a fluid condition which has no existence except in the momentary avatars of individual people. There is no such thing as was - only is.

Time, as is well known, sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes crawls like a worm, but human beings are generally particularly happy when they don't notice whether it's passing quickly or slowly.

We think we’re in the present, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past.

Time is measured by the quality and not the quanity of sensations it contains.

NOW is the only reality. All else is either memory or imagination.

A year's a long time, but it also flickers past in no time at all.

There is this thing about time that you can't see at the time you're at.

What Time Is It? You Mean Now?

Time means little; I never notice its passing.

No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.

The more you are focused on time-past and future-the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.

Time is not outside us, but inside. Only we live with past, present, and future, and the present is too brief to experience anyway; it is retained afterward and then it is either codified or it slips into amnesia.

Sometimes I don't know whether I'm thening or nowing.

You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable. You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons. Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.

The perception of duration itself presupposes a duration of perception.

Most people think it's the other way around: that time is going faster and we're doing less. But really time seems to be going faster because we're cramming so much into it.