Used to be Quotes

“I had gotten so used to being alone, but never entirely used to it. Never used to it enough to stop wanting the alternative.”

“In the days before computers and emails,” she explained, “people used to write messages on paper and send them to each other using a fax machine. It’s sort of like sending a photograph through a telephone line. Hardly anyone uses a fax these days. They’re very old fashioned,” she continued, “but they used to be very popular once upon a time. Lots of little children used to send their letters to Santa that way.” "Wow!” said Poppy Noodle. “That sounds like Magic.” “No,” answered Flora sharply. “That’s not Magic, that’s technology. Never confuse the two.”

“This empty kitchen's whereI'd while away the hoursJust next to my old chairYou'd usually have some flowersThe shelves of booksEven the picture hooksEverything is goneBut my heart is hanging onIf this old neighborhoodSurvived us both alrightDon't know that it withstoodAll the things that took our lightYou on the stairI can see you thereEverything is goneBut my heart is hanging onOnce there was a little girlUsed to wonder what she would beWent out into the big wide worldNow she's just a memoryThere used to be a little school hereWhere I learned to write my nameBut time has been a little cruel hereTime has no shameIt's just a place whereWe used to liveIt's just a place whereWe used to liveNow in another townYou lead another lifeAnd now upstairs and downYou're someone else's wifeHere in the dustThere's not a trace of usEverything is goneBut my heart is hanging onIt's just a place whereWe used to liveIt's just a place whereWe used to live.”

“Issib wasn't thrilled to see him. I'm busy and don't need interruptions." "This is the household library," said Nafai. "This is where we always come to do research." "See? You're interrupting already." "Look, I didn't say anything, I just came in here, and you started picking at me the second I walked in the door." "I was hoping you'd walk back out." "I can't. Mother sent me here." Nafai walked over behind Issib, who was floating comfortably in the air in front of his computer display. It was layered thirty pages deep, but each page had only a few words on it, so he could see almost everything at once. Like a game of solitaire, in which Issib was simply moving fragments from place to place. The fragments were all words in weird languages. The ones Nafai recognized were very old. "What language is that?" Nafai asked pointing, to one. Issib signed. "I'm so glad you're not interrupting me." "What is it, some ancient form of Vijati?" "Very good. It's Slucajan, which came from Obilazati, the original form of Vijati. It's dead now." "I read Vijati, you know." "I don't." "Oh, so you're specializing in ancient, obscure languages that nobody speaks anymore, including you?" "I'm not learning these languages, I'm researching lost words." "If the whole language is dead, then all the words are lost." "Words that used to have meanings, but that died out or survived only in idiomatic expressions. Like 'dancing bear.' What's a bear, do you know?" "I don't know. I always thought it was some kind of graceful bird." "Wrong. It's an ancient mammal. Known only on Earth, I think, and not brought here. Or it died out soon. It was bigger than a man, very powerful. A predator." "And it danced?" "The expression used to mean something absurdly clumsy. Like a dog walking on its hind legs." "And now it means the opposite. That's weird. How could it change?" "Because there aren't any bears. THe meaning used to be obvious, because everybody knew a bear and how clumsy it would look, dancing. But when the bears were gone, the meaning could go anywhere. Now we use it for a person who's extremely deft in getting out of an embarrassing social situation. It's the only case that we use the word bear anymore. And you see a lot of people misspelling it, too." "Great stuff. You doing a linguistics project?" "No." "What's this for, then?" "Me." "Just collection old idioms?" "Lost words." "Like bear? The word isn't lost, Issya. It's the bears that are gone." "Very good, Nyef. You get full credit for the assignment. Go away now.”

“There comes a point at which you stop giving things up. That is what i won't give up. None of it will i give up, for my beautiful sister Ivy who lies in bed. Ivy who used to be alive. Ivy who used to be. Ivy who used. Ivy who. Ivy-who-is-not-me.Not me. Not me. Not me.”

“With every breath, the old moment is lost; a new moment arrives. We exhale and we let go of the old moment. It is lost to us. In doing so, we let go of the person we used to be. We inhale and breathe in the moment that is becoming. In doing so, we welcome the person we are becoming. We repeat the process. This is meditation. This is renewal. This is life.”

“I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I'm supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I'm praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.”

“It's just like when you've got some coffee that's too black, which means it's too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won't even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.”

“The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.”