The steward, according to custom, had stopped all the clocks. This, in the language of Narouz, said, "Your stay with us is so brief, let us not be reminded of the flight of the hours. God made eternity. Let us escape from the despotism of time altogether." These ancient and hereditary politenesses filled Nessim with emotion. Lawrence Durrell
About This Quote

The steward, according to custom, had stopped all the clocks. This, in the language of Narouz, said, "Your stay with us is so brief, let us not be reminded of the flight of the hours. God made eternity. Let us escape from the despotism of time altogether." These ancient and hereditary politenesses filled Nessim with emotion.

Nessim is describing his feelings when he first meets Lord Dunsany. He has travelled many miles to see this man and feels as though he has traveled thousands of miles because he has left his life behind him to be with Lord Dunsany.

Source: Balthazar

Some Similar Quotes
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  2. How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever. - David Norris

  3. Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them. - Dion Boucicault

  4. But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day. - Benjamin Disraeli

  5. Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time, ' is like saying, 'I don't want to. - Lao Tzu

More Quotes By Lawrence Durrell
  1. You see, nothing matters except pleasure - which is the opposite of happiness, its tragic part, I expect.

  2. I suppose the secret of his success is in his tremendous idleness which almost approaches the supernatural.

  3. The steward, according to custom, had stopped all the clocks. This, in the language of Narouz, said, "Your stay with us is so brief, let us not be reminded of the flight of the hours. God made eternity. Let us escape from the despotism of...

  4. People only see in us the contemptible skirt-fever which rules our actions but completely miss the beauty-hunger underlying it.

  5. Underneath an artist's preoccupations with sex, society, religion, etc. (all the staple abstractions that allow the forebrain to chatter) there is a soul tortured beyond endurance by the lack of tenderness in the world.

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