A Quote by Barbara Kingsolver

You never knew which split second might be the zigzag bolt dividing all that went before from the everything that comes next. — © Barbara Kingsolver
You never knew which split second might be the zigzag bolt dividing all that went before from the everything that comes next.
Before, when Bolt was in the race, it was about who's going to get second. You just come and want to watch Bolt run, it's always exciting because you know he always puts on a show.
In the split-second before someone prepares to answer a question, he will consciously or subconsciously evaluate what the best possible answer might be. For a truthful person, the best possible answer might omit some information. It might have a few extraneous details. But it will still offer the information requested.
There is the past, and there is the future. The present is never more than the single second dividing one from the other. We live poised on that second as it's hurtling forward-toward what?
If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to.
In one split second I saw everything I could be, everything I want to be. And all that I'm not.
When the Spirit illuminates the heart, then a part of the man sees which never saw before; a part of him knows which never knew before, and that with a kind of knowing which the most acute thinker cannot imitate.
They were a strange and mercantile people, these Americans. One never knew what they might come up with next.
She saw Valentine's eyes as the sword hurtled toward her; it seemed like eons, though it could only have been a split second. She saw that he could stop the blow if he wanted. Saw that he knew it might well strike her if he didn't. Saw that he was going to do it anyway.
A typical master. Right to the end, he didn’t give me a chance to get a word in edgeways. Which is a pity, because at that last moment I’d have liked to tell him what I thought of him. Mind you, since in that split second we were, to all intents and purposes, one and the same, I rather think he knew anyway.
His gaze burned into mine, like he could see past my eyes into parts of me no one had ever seen, and I knew I was seeing the same in him. No one else had ever seen him so vulnerable before, like if I pushed him away, he might crumble into pieces that could never be put together again. Yet there was strength, too. He was strong beneath that fragile need, and I knew that I could never fall with him next to me. If I tripped, he would catch me. If I lost my balance, he would find it.
I don't think I've ever tried to be something that I'm not. People do that for you. People try to pigeonhole you. People tried typecasting me, before they even saw me in anything else. I've never understood that. I was like, "Why don't you wait until my next project, before you start telling my what my career is going to look like, for the next 10 years?" I've never let it set me back because I always knew the world would try to do that for me, anyway.
Before I knew that I was Jewish or a girl I knew that I was a member of the working class. At a time when I had not yet grasped the significance of the fact that in my house English was a second language, or that I wore dresses while my brother wore pants, I knew--and I knew it was important to know--that Papa worked hard all day long.
I myself lived in London for 20 years, and I never knew my next-door neighbors. I never knew what they did. I never knew their names. They didn't know what I did for a living, and they didn't know my name.
Thinking about the things that happened, I don't know any other ball player would could have done what he (Jackie Robinson) did. To be able to hit with everybody yelling at him. He had to block all that out, block out everything but this ball that is coming in at a hundred miles an hour and he's got a split second to make up his mind if it's in or out or down or coming at his head, a split second to swing. To do what he did has got to be the most tremendous thing I've ever seen in sports.
I knew police officers have a very difficult job. They have to make split second decisions that will impact not only the communities they serve but their families, their own personal lives.
A split second later, my life flashed before my eyes, and I came to one important conclusion about it. It was fun while it lasted.
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