Quotes from Time and Again

Jack Finney ·  399 pages

Rating: (15.5K votes)


“Have you ever given someone a book you enjoyed enormously, with a feeling of envy because they were about to read it for the first time, an experience you could never have again?”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again


“So all in all there wasn't anything really wrong with my life. Except that, like most everyone else's I knew about, it had a big gaping hole in it, an enormous emptiness, and I didn't know how to fill it or even know what belonged there.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again


“It may be that the strongest instinct of the human race, stronger than sex or hunger, is curiosity: the absolute need to know. It can and often does motivate a lifetime, it kills more than cats, and the prospect of satisfying it can be the most exciting of emotions.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again


“As Einstein himself pointed out. He said we’re like people in a boat without oars drifting along a winding river. Around us we see only the present. We can’t see the past, back in the bends and curves behind us. But it’s there.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again


“Would you have references?"
"I'm awfully sorry but I haven't. I just arrived in New York, and don't know a soul. Except you." I smiled but she didn't smile back. She stood hesitating, and I said, "It's true that I'm an escaped convict, an active counterfeiter, and occasional murderer. And I howl during the full of the moon. But I'm neat.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again



“He's got to have the ability, and it seems to be fairly rare, to see things as they are and at the same time as they might have been. What we mean is the eye of an artist.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again


“Set flush in the wall behind the desk was a steel door. It was knobless, and along one edge were three brass keyholes spaced a few inches apart. Rube brought out a key ring, selected a key, then walked around the desk, inserted the key in the topmost lock, and turned it. From his watch pocket he took a single key, pushed it into the middle keyhole, and turned. The guard stood waiting beside him, and now the guard inserted a key in the bottom keyhole, turned it and pulled the door open with the key. Rube removed his two keys and gestured me in through the open door before him. He followed, and the door swung solidly shut behind us. I heard the multiple click of the locks engaging, and we were standing in a space hardly larger than a big closet, dimly lighted by an overhead bulb in a wire cage. Then I saw that we were at the top of a circular metal staircase.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again


“and—we’re all actors by instinct, hams from birth—she”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again


About the author

Jack Finney
Born place: in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, The United States
Born date October 2, 1911
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Popular quotes

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― Skyla Madi, quote from Forever Consumed


“If Cape wasn't your last name, what was your real one?" I asked, deathly curious now. "Ahhhh," he complained. "Pincas Huckleburr.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Mastiff


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― quote from Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis


“E se tu dormissi?

E se nel sonno

tu sognassi?

E se nel tuo sogno

salissi al cielo

e lì cogliessi un mirabile fiore?

E se al tuo risveglio

quel fiore

fosse fra le tue mani?
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)”
― Kerstin Gier, quote from Dream a Little Dream


“You’re with Hunter.” It was more of a question than a statement.
Tears welled up in my eyes. “But it hasn’t been right. It hasn’t been you. I can’t . . . I haven’t been able to—” I sucked in a deep breath. “I can’t be a real girlfriend to him when all I can do is think about you.”
“Ah, shit, Pepper.” Still holding my face, he lowered his forehead to mine. “I’m not going through this again with you just so you can run when you get scared that I’m not like some ideal you built up in your head. I love you. I’m fucking in love with you, but it’s all or nothing. I won’t do this again unless it’s going to be like that.”
Now I was crying, choking on my sobs. “I know. I want that. It took me so long to figure that out, but I know now. You are the safest thing I’ll ever find.” I deliberately repeated his words, holding his gaze and letting them sink in. “Because you love me. Because I love you.”
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