quotations about sleep
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
Sleep brings dreams; and dreams are often most vivid and fantastical, before we have yet been wholly lost in slumber.
ROBERT MONTGOMERY BIRD
Calavar; or, The Knight of the Conquest
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
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
THEODORE ROETHKE
"The Waking", Collected Poems
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
Sleep. To lie down and shut out the noise, the fear, the unceasing misery.
TAD WILLIAMS
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow
The emptiness under sleep is all you fear,
The dead directionless winds that blow there.
HOWARD NEMEROV
"To the Memory of John Wheelwright"
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
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
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
I'm so good at sleeping I can do it with my eyes closed.
ANONYMOUS
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"
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
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"
To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.
JOAN KLEMPNER
Women's Health, April 2006
Sleep, those little slices of death -- how I loathe them.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
attributed, Survival, issue 1
Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes,
Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose.
JOHN FLETCHER
The Tragedy of Valentinian
The truth is, everyone has different sleep requirements -- some people needing as little as four hours and others up to 10. A good night's sleep is one where you wake up feeling well rested and refreshed, irrespective of how many hours you've had.
GUY MEADOWS
"Health myths debunked: How to cook your veg, how much sunlight is harmful and how many hours sleep you really need", Mirror, August 29, 2017