Top 80 Quotes About Retreating
#1. Unless the nightmare is strong enough to wake you up you go right on retreating, and either you end up on a bench or you end up as vice-president. It's all one and the same, a bloody fucking mess, a farce, a fiasco from start to finish.
Henry Miller
#2. Whenever you feel uncomfortable, instead of retreating back into your old comfort zone, pat yourself on the back and say, "I must be growing," and continue moving forward.
T. Harv Eker
#3. I'm not the head of Scotland Yard," said Mrs. Oliver, retreating from dangerous ground. "I'm a private individual -"
"Oh, you're not that," said Rhoda, confusedly complimentary.
Agatha Christie
#4. When I learned how to calculate, I stopped counting. When I learned how to smile, I stopped being afraid. When I learned to understand what my cowardice wants from me, I stopped retreating.
Angelos Michalopoulos
#5. He had approached the villa on that night of the storm not out of curiosity about the music but because of a danger to the piano player. The retreating army often left pencil mines within musical instruments. Returning owners opened up pianos and lost their hands.
Michael Ondaatje
#6. You should make someone a wonderful husband."
Even the tips of Jamie's ears were crimson now. But instead of retreating, he clenched his jaw and looked directly into her eyes.
"I suppose I would," he said. "Are you interested?
Bruce Coville
#7. Retreat, hell! We're not retreating, we're just advancing in a different direction.
Oliver P. Smith
#8. It was enough to make me feel like retreating into some wooded or snowy clime, where only the most determined photographers or Mary-hunters might find me.
Tara Altebrando
#9. Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the retreating, twinkling stars. "And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me!" thought Pierre. "And all this they've caught and put in a shed and boarded it up!
Leo Tolstoy
#10. Pretty stupid," I called after his retreating form. "To give up before all possible solutions have been tried.
Maria V. Snyder
#11. You guys are ridiculous," he says, retreating back to the kitchen.
"Your flirting just scared the hell out of me."
"Scared the hell out of me too.
Pittacus Lore
#12. Every advancing step I take toward my goal of comfort is yet another retreating step I take away from God's goal of the impossible.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
#13. Our art is a way of being dazzled by truth: the light on the grotesquely grimacing retreating face is true, and nothing else.
Franz Kafka
#14. They cared for no one, they were outside humanity, and death, had it come, would only have continued their pursuit of a retreating horizon.
E. M. Forster
#15. Meditating is not a matter of saying i am going to meditate. It is, just for a moment retreating from the need to do anything and instead just be.
Gangaji
#16. I am difficult to love, and I know it. I never learned the unconditional part, so trust evades me. Add sex and I fall apart, eventually retreating back into the swamp. Very few people can put up with me, and I can't blame them. I am a constant contradiction. I annoy myself.
Rosie O'Donnell
#18. And for goodness' sake put some of the county back where it belongs, the soil erosion's bad enough as it is."
Dill stared at my father's retreating figure.
"He's trying tryin' to be funny," I said.
Harper Lee
#19. A conclusion I've come to at the Idler is that it starts with retreating from work but it's really about making work into something that isn't drudgery and slavery, and then work and life can become one thing.
Tom Hodgkinson
#20. The progress of the Way seems retreating.
Laozi
#21. -Nice concept.
-What is?
-Retreating. Getting away from the grind.
-Oh, you never do. You just change gears.
Jonathan Kellerman
#22. Craving that old sweet oneness yet dreading engulfment, wishing to be our mother's and yet be our own, we stormily swing from mood to mood, advancing and retreating-the quintessential model of two-mindedness.
Judith Viorst
#23. She knew that in all stories she must be left out-the life she had made for herself was a life of flight, of discarding the inessential and the essential alike, making use of the stolen pieces and memories, retreating to the lost moments of other people's lives.
Yiyun Li
#24. I could have become a soldier if I had waited; I knew more about retreating than the man who invented retreating.
Mark Twain
#25. Hermione, will you please - "
"Don't you tell me what to do, Harry Potter!" she screeched. "Don't you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!"
She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Harry could not blame Ron for retreating several steps.
J.K. Rowling
#26. If you want to know anything about community, you have to realize that the contemplative side is essential. Community without retreating and quiet time never survives.
Henri Nouwen
#27. Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.
Norman Mailer
#28. I always found myself more drawn to each religious milieu than I would have anticipated, but in time, a ghoulish threat of being absorbed in alien territory always sent me retreating to the blander and safer ground of home.
Vanessa L Ochs
#29. That is the way leaves fall around a tree in autumn, a tree unaware of the rain running down its sides, of the sun or the frost, and of life gradually retreating inward. The tree does not die. It waits.
Hermann Hesse
#30. We can't solve modern problems by going back in time. Retreating to the safety of the familiar is an understandable response, but God has called us to a life of faith. And faith requires us to face the unknown while trusting Him completely.
Charles R. Swindoll
#31. Kiernan reaches to pull out my chair, but I beat him to it and then nudge the chair across from me out about six inches with my foot.
He pulls it out the rest of the way and says, "Thank you, dearest," in a droll tone before retreating behind the menu.
Rysa Walker
#32. Most people just want to be part of the world, they want to live, love, and enjoy themselves - to take part in the world around them. Whereas artists are always retreating, locking the door, and inventing other worlds.
Paul Auster
#33. And now, dear sister, I must leave this house or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it by filling up the road I am directed to take.
Dolley Madison
#34. The storm is ended! The impartial sunLaughs down upon the battle lost and won,And crowns the triumph of the cloudy hostIn rolling lines retreating to the coast.
Henry Van Dyke
#35. Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions; where it can get a foothold it makes a stand; where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall.
Ambrose Bierce
#36. Some observers compare elections in some countries with sports events, where people are but spectators. Moreover, elections must not be mere interludes for pushing a lever and then retreating to passivity, for democracy demands committed participation in the daily workings of society.
Alfred-Maurice De Zayas
#37. Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Wilfred Owen
#38. You're an English major, aren't you?"
"Hey!" Immediately retreating, Keith swatted at him with a dishcloth. "Leave my brain alone. It's resting."
"Sorry, sorry." He leaned away, hands up to display his surrender. "I didn't mean it, I take it back."
"You'd better
Matthew Haldeman-Time
#39. I swoon into a standing eight count. Goddamn, I actually feel my consciousness want to detach and hide like a turtle retreating into a hopelessly soft shell that won't save anyone.
Paul Tremblay
#40. A glacier will frequently move forward one foot while retreating three feet ... Which reminds me a lot of myself!
Charles M. Schulz
#41. Take notes my love," Trik pointed at Syndra's retreating form. "That is why she is Queen."
Cassie nodded. "Got it. Note to self: Successful Queen equals bitch."
"I heard that," Syndra yelled.
Cassie gave Trik a high five. "You're well on your way, beautiful," he told her with a wink.
Quinn Loftis
#42. For me, beauty is always retreating from one's grasp: the only thing I consider important is what existed once, or ought to have existed.
Yukio Mishima
#43. In other countries, congenital introverts simply remain introverts all their lives, neither advancing nor retreating, but America's commitment to extroversion as a national art form can abrade some naturally aloof personalities until they flower into deadly nightshade.
Florence King
#44. Few of us are satisfied with retreating from the world and just working on ourselves. We want our training to manifest and to be of benefit. The bodhisattva-warrior, therefore, makes a vow to wake up not just for himself but for the welfare of all beings.
Pema Chodron
#45. Everyone needs to escape sometimes, and retreating into somebody else's fantasy isn't nearly as satisfying as slipping into your own.
Nenia Campbell
#46. The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Matthew Arnold
#47. Though I was retreating from the Truth, I appeared to myself to be going toward it because I did not yet know that evil with nothing but the privation of good.
Augustine Of Hippo
#48. I think there's a danger, for me at least, in retreating and going inward and depression. I have to stay diligent against that tendency.
Conor Oberst
#49. Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree.
T. S. Eliot
#50. Men with no faith can still fear the faith of men with more faith than fear," Hari chorused toward the raiders. Flinching at the first musket fired above his head, Hari collected himself and continued to berate the men retreating before him.
Chris Paton
#51. I'm just a shy and retreating kind of person. Sometimes I get in a real talkative mood - but not very often.
Brian Wilson
#52. I feel myself retreating to someplace deep inside. It is a pitiful kind of childhood, to know that no one loves you or is taking care of you, to always be on the outside looking in.
Christina Baker Kline
#53. Certain battles were won by retreating.
Eoin Colfer
#54. Beside her, Adam was once again retreating inside himself, most interested, as always, in the thing that remained unknowable to him: his own mind.
Maggie Stiefvater
#55. The man who now confronted Gashford, was a squat, thickset personage, with a low, retreating forehead, a coarse shock head of hair, and eyes so small and near together, that his broken nose alone seemed to prevent their meeting and fusing into one of the usual size.
Charles Dickens
#56. Let me lose everything on earth and the world beyond, but let me not lose what I'm craving for, let it be that i died on the way than retreating from getting it.
Michael Bassey
#57. I felt how important the simplest things were, like feeling proud, finding something funny, stretching yourself, retreating into yourself.
Banana Yoshimoto
#58. I thought of all the times we'd been together, how I kept coming closer, then retreating, while he stayed right where he was. A constant in a world where few, if any, really existed.
Sarah Dessen
#59. I want to be just fast enough for Zach to have to run to catch up, because if I stay ahead, I won't ever have to see his retreating back.
Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
#60. And I felt fear. Fear of that bleak horizon, fear of that destiny. I felt my soul shriveling, I felt it retreating, and I was frightened by the thought that it could not escape its encirclement.
Milan Kundera
#61. Hemingway described his process in similar terms: acquiring rich experiences, then retreating to cogitate and write about them. I needed words to go forward. And so it was literature that brought.
Paul Kalanithi
#62. I wonder: instead of retreating and hiding, instead of pining for the way it was, what if I accept the way it is? This strikes me as both the most obvious thing in the world and the most profound.
Ann Kidd Taylor
#63. We're not retreating, we're advancing in reverse.'
Skulduggery Pleasant
Derek Landy
#64. The particular thing about science is to combine that [the dreams of obtaining power] with a retreat from the world. Other people want to obtain power by going out into the world, but the scientist really wants to obtain power by retreating from the world.
Max Delbruck
#65. And Kelsea wondered suddenly whether humanity ever actually changed. Did people grow and learn at all as the centuries past? Or was humanity merely like the tide, enlightenment advancing and then retreating as circumstances shifted? The most defining characteristic of the species might be lapse.
Erika Johansen
#66. RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION is a manual and a call to action for awakened patriots who are too intelligent to believe the leftist media lies and distortions ... Breitbart reminds us why we must fight for our country's future by staying true to core values and never retreating.
Sarah Palin
#67. Go with the pain, let it take you. Open your palms and your body to the pain. It comes in waves like the tide and you must be open as a vessel lying on the beach, letting it fill you up and then, retreating, leaving you empty and clear ...
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
#68. Alice twists a lock of her hair as she sucks on her straw and swivels back and forth on her seat. The shush of the ball bearings sounds like the sea to her, like waves retreating through the sand. She is a thousand miles away. I know this, but I'm not going to let her know I know.
Jan Strnad
#69. We're just going to retreat?"
"We are not retreating, we're advancing in reverse.
Derek Landy
#70. When people keep repeating
That you'll never fall in love
When everybody keeps retreating
But you can't seem to get enough
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
To your heart.
Pete Townshend
#71. And so when the scar wraith approached him, he took a diagonal step backward putting himself behind Squirrel like a king retreating behind a pawn.
Neal Shusterman
#72. Pamela looked at his retreating back with admiration. He represented the backbone of Britain at this moment. A skinny, awkward bookworm, yet determined to keep going for as long as it took to defeat Hitler.
Rhys Bowen
#73. The sun was as flirty as Scarlett O'Hara with the Tarleton twins, breaking through the clouds in spectacular bursts that seemed like personal favors and then retreating for hours, days, and making us all ache for just a glimpse.
Lorna Landvik
#74. The light faded slowly, retreating through the trees. The thick mossy trunks grew dense with shadow, edges still rimmed with a fugitive light that hid among the leaves, green shadows shifting with the sunset breeze.
Diana Gabaldon
#75. We ought instead of retreating should follow up the enemy and take Richmond. And in full view of all responsible for such declaration, I say to you all, such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or treason.
Philip Kearny
#76. I can't change any of this.
'No. But you're giving up. I can see it happening.'
I'm temporarily retreating, Dave. Don't worry. I'll find my sea legs again.
Dee Henderson
#77. The dreams had ceased coming, as they often did, retreating somewhere else for years, until another event of sufficient significance neared, and the patterns of circumstance dragged them to the surface again.
Anthony Doerr
#78. Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason; there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity.
Michel De Montaigne
#79. No, it was too much. The line between madness and masochism was already hazy; the time had come to pull back ... to retire, hunker down, back off and "cop out," as it were. Why not? in every gig like this, there comes a time to either cut your losses or consolidate your winnings - whichever fits.
Hunter S. Thompson
#80. Coordinating the retreat was important too, so important that Jiaan had assigned Aram as Fasal's assistant, to be sure he didn't overlook anything important. Like the fact that they were supposed to retreat.
Hilari Bell
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