“The Waiting Place...for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or the waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.
“Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for the wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.”
“It was lovely to realize that while the fat farmer was sitting up there on the hill waiting for them to starve, he was also giving them their dinner without knowing it.”
“She crept back into the silent house, past the closed bedroom door inside which the other mother and the other father [...] what? she wondered. Slept? Waited?”
“Nate had been spying on the candy shop for almost thirty minutes. His hour had to be waning. If he was going to risk a direct assault on the shop, he knew it was now or never.”
“We wait. We are bored. No, don’t protest, we are bored to death, there’s no denying it. Good. A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste. ...In an instant, all will vanish and we’ll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness.”
“Why are we here, that is the question? And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come...We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment.”
Vladimir: “He didn’t say for sure he’d come.”
Estragon: “And if he doesn’t come?”
Vladimir: “We’ll come back tomorrow.”
Estragon: “And then the day after tomorrow.”
Vladimir: “Possibly.”
Estragon: “And so on.”
Vladimir: “The point is—”
Estragon: “Until he comes.”
Vladimir: “You’re merciless.”
Estragon: “We came here yesterday.”
Vladimir: “Ah no, there you’re mistaken.”
“Promptly at seven the next morning Jurgis reported for work. He came to the door that had been pointed out to him, and there he waited for nearly two hours. The boss had meant for him to enter, but had not said this, and so it was only when on his way out to hire another man that he came upon Jurgis. He gave him a good cursing, but as Jurgis did not understand a word of it he did not object.”
“I was waiting for the longest time, she said. I thought you forgot.
It is hard to forget, I said, when there is such an empty space when you are gone.”
“It was during this period that he might have hearkened to the memories of the lair and the stream and run back to the Wild. But the memory of his mother held him...So he remained in his bondage waiting for her.”
“Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men.”
“I think fear had made us all a little cantankerous. I had spent the night in the waiting room. Gramps offered to get me a motel room, but I was afraid that if I left the hospital, I would never see Gram again.”
“When you’re feeling overwhelmed or your body is giving you signs that you’re overdoing it,: stop,breathe, and remember one thing: everything can wait. Fall in love with you. Love, support, validate, and nourish a relationship with yourself.”
“I can’t do this, I can’t just be a wife. I don’t understand how anyone does it—there is literally nothing to do but wait. Wait for a man to come home and love you. Either that or look around for something to distract you.”
“When that day comes, we’ll be waiting. Waiting for Charlie St. Cloud to come home to us. Until then we offer these parting words... May he live in peace.”
″Jon warned me that sometimes this took great patience—even years.’But in the end,’ he said, ‘people will show you their good side. Almost everybody has a good side. Just keep waiting. It will come out.’ ″
“Do not wait. The time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”
“It was nothing like what I’d dreamed of when I was a little girl—what I had hoped for myself growing up. But it was the only life I had, and it was mine. The days of waiting around for someone else to ride in and save the day for me were over.”
“During the whole underside of her life, ever since her first memory, Eleanor had been waiting for something like Hill House. Caring for her mother, lifting a cross old lady from her chair to her bed, setting out endless little trays of soup and oatmeal, steeling herself to the filthy laundry, Eleanor had held fast to the belief that someday something would happen.”
“Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.”
“Hell waits in a doctor’s office,
tapping his shoe against a loose strip of carpet,
holding a magazine in front of his face,
trying to look professional,
whilst eyeing the children’s toys.”
“Now I found it in writing sentences. You can write that sentence in a way that you would have written it last year. Or you can write it in the way of the exquisite nuance that is sitting in your mind now. But that takes a lot of ... waiting for the right word to come.”
“The enemy wants to steal our peace and keep us stirred up, anxious, fearful, upset, and always in a stance of waiting for something terrible to happen at any minute.”
“Corduroy is a bear who once lived in the toy departments of a big store. Day after day he waited with all the other animals and dolls for somebody to come along and take him home.”
While waiting for help, Arthur notices two strange-looking men materializing out of thin air. They discuss a key and whether or not to give it to Arthur.
“The whole tribe was there, sitting around the kitchen table, waiting for dinner to be served. Except for the old man, of course. As usual, he was down the pub.”
Alem is now on his own, in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council. He lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear from his father, and in particular about his mother, who has now gone missing... A powerful, gripping new novel.
“Frog and Toad waited a long time. Four days later the snail got to Toad’s house and gave him the letter from Frog. Toad was very pleased to have it. ”
“You don’t have to chase around after creatures, Pismire had said. You watch them for long enough, and then you’ll find the place to wait and they’ll come to you. There’s nearly always a better way of doing something.”
“So they waited, and grumbled, and watched the macaroni cheese congeal between them on the table. But MCC Berkshire never came for his supper. Not that night or any night.”
“The air tasted just the same, smelled just the same. The wind making my hair feel sticky, the salty sea breeze, all of it felt just right. Like it had been waiting for me to get there.”
“The fox was stunned. He stared at Doctor De Soto, then at his wife. They smiled and waited. All he could do was say, ‘Frank oo berry mush’ through his clenched teeth, and get up and leave. He tried to do so with dignity.”
“Inside he could see a classroom. There were children sitting at their desks, and a teacher writing on the blackboard.
Mr Tickle waited a minute and then reached in through the window. Mr Tickles extraordinary long arm went right up to the teacher, paused, and then – tickled!
The teacher jumped in the air and turned round very quickly to see who was there.”
“Mr Tickle grinned a mischievous grin. He waited another minute, and then tickled the teacher again. This time he kept on tickling until soon the teacher was laughing out loud and saying, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ over and over again. “
“It is telling about a young boy. It tells you about his first love and his first heart breaking. One day he was late for school. He enters the bus in hurry and in about some stops later a girl enters the bus. She has red hair and a unique perfume. And it’s the most beautiful thing the boy ever saw.”
“The boy continues to wait, systematically destroying all of the objects from their short-lived relationship. He rips up the bus pass from their first meeting.
The phone is quiet.”
I knew that once I left [Topthorn] I would be alone in the world again, that I would no longer have his strength and support beside me. So I stayed with him and waited.
“For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy – a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts.”
″ ‘But there are other kinds of eggs. There are sunny-side-up and sunny-side-down eggs.’ ‘Yes’, said Frances. ‘But sunny-side-up eggs lie on the plate and look up at you in a funny way. And sunny-side-down eggs just lie on their stomachs and wait’. ”
“Ramona stood with both heels on the curb, but her toes out over the gutter. Henry could not say she was not standing on the curb, so he merely glared. ”
“Then I went in and shot the televisor, that insidious beast, that Medusa, which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little, but myself always going back, going back, hoping and waiting”
“Three little pussies,
All in a row,
Ranged on a table,
Two down below.
Five little pussies
Dressed all in silk,
Waiting for sugar,
Waiting for milk.
Dear little pussies,
If you would thrive,
Breakfast at nine o’clock,
Take tea at five.”
“The Potkoorok stirred. Its golden eyes gleamed. It slid like a ripple through the water, watching the boy. It waited while he explored the edges, examining brilliant green moss with air-bubbles trapped in it. It waited while he scooped up tiny slate-blue tadpoles and examined them and let them go. It waited till he stepped into deeper water; then it curled a coldness round his ankle, slithering like an eel.”
“Cilla, waiting and waiting for him at North Square—and then he got there only about when it pleased him. He loved Cilla. She and Rab were the best friends he had ever had. Why was he mean to her? He couldn’t think.”
“She could only wait. But she was not idle while she waited, because she was holding herself in readiness for whatever it was that she would have to do.”
At last she heard her mother calling. She started to her feet and ran to the banisters.
“Polly! Polly!”
“Yes, mamma?”
“Come down, dear. Mr Doran wants to speak to you.”
Then she remembered what she had been waiting for.
For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else than what we’re doin’; and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I’m content, for it’s comin’ to me, my deary, and comin’ quick.
She was sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since sitting and waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with all her might and main.
And as for Tamoszius—well, they had waited a long time, and they could wait a little longer. But day by day the music of Tamoszius’ violin became more passionate and heartbreaking;
“A blow more or less is nothing to thee, Bagheera or Baloo, but I—I have to wait and wait for days in a wood-path and climb half a night on the mere chance of a young ape.