The Book of Lost Hours Quotes

“A memory, once it’s over, is never exactly what it was when it was happening. Whatever comes later changes the meaning of it.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“Time is the axis on which the world spins. Humans count their lives in months and weeks, as if calculating the cumulative measure of their existence will somehow earn them more of it. Accidents occur in three clicks of the second hand. Hearts stop in a moment of time. But there are things that happen in the space between seconds. Worlds are built. Planets burn. Souls fade into the space between one instant and the next and memories fall to depths, lost to the silence and flames.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“Time is the beast that makes mortals of all one way or another. It takes everything, heedless of wealth or status.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“Time is an intentional thing,” he told her as he worked. “You have to look after it and it will look after you.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“It was the same way with the present. You never knew the future you were creating with your actions.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“The version of the past we remember is often very different from what actually occurred.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“We’re linked, you and me. No matter where we end up, be it a country, an era, or an alternative version of the past, we’ll always find each other.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“What could be so dangerous about a life that made somebody want to erase it?”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“It’s the place where conscious thought becomes a memory. Where the memories of the dead, and the thoughts of those still living, become something else.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“We always feel as though we’re standing at the precipice of our lives, all our years still stretched before us. Not realizing that at any moment, something could come along and push us over the edge. We are all immortal in our own time. Until we aren’t.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“But have you looked at the moon?” Lisavet asked, her voice soft, eyes wide. “I don’t need to,” Ernest whispered, touching her cheek. “You are the moon.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“For Ernest, whose memory I would visit every day if I could”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“It is the weak man who follows the orders of others without questioning. Obedience may make for good soldiers”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“The place where consciousness drifts when bodies die. It exists in the space between the fabric of tangible things, one moment to the next. Here, all things that happened on Earth linger in the form of memories.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“We fill our homes with furniture and our minds with facs, but poetry is how we fill our souls. It's the poor man's medicine...the deepest expression of mankind. If you can read poetry, then you have already felt the shadows of humanity's most potent emotions.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“In many religions, graves are portals, too, my dear. Doors to a world that lies within our own, but beyond it.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“Timekeepers destroy the memories they don't want the world to remember."

Lisavet jumped. Azrael had caught up to her and was watching the scene over her shoulder, his expression grave.

"But why?" she asked.

Azrael shrugged. "To uphold their ideology. The past is a mirror of us. It tells us who we've been and what we have become. Some people don't like what they see in their reflection, so they change it by erasing memories from the face of the earth. By erasing people form existence.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“Am I dreaming?"

"Not dreaming either. I assure you this is all very real."

"But you just said that you're a memory. You can't be real."

"Why not? Memories are the realest thing any of us have, Lisavet.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“To every person who came before me upon whose histories my own life has been built, thank you.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“is the weak man who follows the orders of others without questioning. Obedience may make for good soldiers, but it makes for even greater tragedies.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“Not knowing the outcome was one of the many dangers of living”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“To know too much about the course Time is taking before it happens is to fill oneself with torment. Living is the most dangerous thing”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“Because it let them talk to Time itself,” Lisavet said in a hushed voice. “That’s right.” Ezekiel smiled and tapped her on the nose. “Time is the axis on which the world spins. Humans count their lives in months and weeks”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“We fill our homes with furniture and our minds with facts”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours

“There is no thought that has only been had by just one man. Some ideas are inevitable.”
― Hayley Gelfuso, The Book of Lost Hours