Killing Time Quotes

“Wishing, like sipping a glass of punch, or pulling aside a bearskin rug in order to access a hidden trapdoor in the floor, is merely a quiet way to spend one's time before the candles are extinguished on one's birthday cake.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“Modern man thinks he loses something—time—when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains—except kill it.”
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

“A friend to kill time is a friend sublime.”
― Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

“One sin seldom mentioned is that of killing time.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Do we kill time, or does time ultimately kill us?”
― Anthony Liccione

“And she was really good at that: even since she was a little girl, she could eliminate the hours, knew how to kill the minutes. Without them suffering from it, she put them to sleep.”
― Nicola Lecca, Ritratto notturno (Farfalle)

“Most criminals in prison can trace their crime to their first murderous act—that of killing time.”
― Wyatt Allen

“Now it is at once well worth noting that, on the one hand, the sufferings and afflictions of life can easily grow to such an extent that even death, in the flight from which the whole of life consists, becomes desirable, and a man voluntarily hastens to it. Again, on the other hand, it is worth noting that, as soon as want and suffering give man a relaxation, boredom is at once so near that he necessarily requires diversion and amusement. The striving after existence is what occupies all living things, and keeps them in motion. When existence is assured to them, they do not know what to do with it. Therefore the second thing that sets them in motion is the effort to get rid of the burden of existence, to make it no longer felt, “to kill time,” in other words, to escape from boredom. Accordingly we see that almost all men, secure from want and cares, are now a burden to themselves, after having finally cast off all other burdens. They regard as a gain every hour that is got through, and hence every deduction from that very life, whose maintenance as long as possible has till then been the object of all their efforts. Boredom is anything but an evil to be thought of lightly; ultimately it depicts on the countenance real despair. It causes beings who love one another as little as men do, to seek one another so much, and thus becomes the source of sociability. From political prudence public measures are taken against it everywhere, as against other universal calamities, since this evil, like its opposite extreme, famine, can drive people to the greatest excesses and anarchy; the people need panem et circenses.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume I

“That is the story of life after all, isn't it? Killing time until time kills you. Pretty desolate if one thinks about it. Well, let's collect memories, lots and lots of them, all before we might realise that our lives were just a shimmer!”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2018: Our Summer of Creeping Boredom and Beautiful Shimmering

“Tim Ferriss, Rogaine, Brian Rose, Rich Roll... etc. how do they get away with this shit. Have long talks with mostly uninteresting characters, and sometimes they just fucking interview each other. How do I get in on the action. On this little scam. Just kidding. I have better things to do. I got Runescape. Sometimes I watch Mishlove. At least he talks to dogs and poltergeists.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov