quotations about sleep
A man who falls straight into bed night after night, and ceases to live until the moment when he wakes and rises, will surely never dream of making, I don't say great discoveries, but even minor observations about sleep. He scarcely knows that he is asleep. A little insomnia is not without its value in making us appreciate sleep, in throwing a ray of light upon that darkness.
MARCEL PROUST
Sodom and Gomorrah
Oh sleep awhile, and stop the wheels of fate.
I think that there is privilege in woe,
And sorrow may not seize us everywhere,
And havoc doth not hunt where'er he list,
And sleep is halcyon time when griefs are still.
SYDNEY THOMPSON DOBELL
Balder
Sleeping people are so remote.... Right here, but out of communication. That's what strikes humans as uncanny about sleep. Its utter privacy. The sleeper turns his back on everyone.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Lathe of Heaven
I wonder why I don't go to bed and go to sleep. But then it would be tomorrow, so I decide that no matter how tired, no matter how incoherent I am, I can skip on hour more of sleep and live.
SYLVIA PLATH
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Sleep is a skilled magician, it changes the proportions of things, the distances between them, it separates people and they're lying next to each other, brings them together and they can barely see one another.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
The Tale of the Unknown Island
The emptiness under sleep is all you fear,
The dead directionless winds that blow there.
HOWARD NEMEROV
"To the Memory of John Wheelwright"
Sleep. To lie down and shut out the noise, the fear, the unceasing misery.
TAD WILLIAMS
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow
Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.
ABRAHAM COWLEY
The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley
At the close of day
When the joys of the day fade away and the memories sweet
Of the day repeat
In our dreams they creep
While we sleep, sleep, sleep
EARL BOSTIC
"Sleep"
It's in the morning, for most of us. It's that time, those few seconds when we're coming out of sleep but we're not really awake yet. For those few seconds we're something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be.
JERRY SPINELLI
Stargirl
I'm so good at sleeping I can do it with my eyes closed.
ANONYMOUS
Sleep is the salutary bath that renovates life, the entire being growing younger under its influence; it is a station in the desert of this world; and often, after dull and wearying journeys, one comes to repose in this oasis prepared by divine Providence, enabled the next day to pursue the route with renewed courage and activity.
ANONYMOUS
"Early Rising", Catholic World, vol. 5
One truly ought to enter upon sleep as into a strange, fair chapel. Fragrant and melodious antechamber of the unseen, sleep is a novitiate for the beyond.
EDWARD THOMAS
"Autumn Thoughts", Atlantic Monthly, September 1902
Waking is strife; sleep is the truce of God!
HENRY VAN DYKE
"The House of Rimmon"
While the city sleeps
Men are scheming
New ways to kill us
And tell us dirty lies
CHICAGO
"While the City Sleeps"
While the city sleeps
Men are dreaming
A world enlightened
Beyond this darkest age
CHICAGO
"While the City Sleeps"
Sleep, those little slices of death -- how I loathe them.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
attributed, Survival, issue 1
Sleep is not a waste of time. During sleep, a variety of biological processes take place that restore our bodies and minds.
NANCY FOLDVARY-SCHAEFER
Getting a Good Night's Sleep
Sleep is the gift of many spiders
The webs tie down the sleepers easy.
CARL SANDBURG
"Drowsy"
Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes,
Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose.
JOHN FLETCHER
The Tragedy of Valentinian