Great Work Quote #53: “Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got.”

Follow Michael Bungay Stanier/@boxofcrayons on Twitter

Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got.
~ Art Buchwald

I like the bluntness of this. I had been toying with putting in the lovely lines from the Renaissance poet Andrew Marvell:

At my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity

(”deserts of vast eternity”. Is that not an amazing turn of phrase?”)

But Buchwald’s quote gets to a different point, and somewhat faster.

It’s not about time ticking away, it’s about Now being the only time there is.

Whether it’s good times, whether it’s bad times – if you want to do more Great Work, now’s the time to do it.

  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • del.icio.us
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print
  • email
  1. Great Work Quote #43: “A lot of times you’re going to get worse before you do get better.”
  2. Great Work Quotes #20: “timidity will do a thousand times more damage…”
  3. Great Work Quote #67: “Can you see anything?”
  4. Great Work Quote #46: “I got the blues thinking of the future, so I…”

One Response to “Great Work Quote #53: “Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got.””

  1. 1.
    Dave Berndt said:

    I loved the quote and the poetry. They both speak to different parts of the same thing – TIME. It is such a universal concept and it is amazing to think that it’s an invention of man. I like this from Pink Floyd

    And then one day you find
    Ten years have got behind you
    No one told you when to run
    You missed the starting gun

    And you run and you run
    To catch up with the sun
    But it’s sinking
    Racing around
    To come up behind you again.
    The sun is the same in a relative way
    But you’re older
    Shorter of breath
    And one day closer to death
    Every year is getting shorter
    Never seem to find the time
    Plans that either come to naught
    Or half a page of scribbled lines
    Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English wah
    The time is gone
    The song is over
    Thought I’d something more to say

Leave a Reply

Name

Mail (never published)

Website