Quotes about the future
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“But it's our curse and our blessing to remember the past and to know there's a future.

—Charlie”

Susan Beth Pfeffer (1948) American writer

Source: This World We Live In

Past

“Love is the only future God offers.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Love, God

“Just me and the future, finally together. Now there was a happy ending I could believe in.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Happiness

“Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Re: United States Committee for UNICEF (25 July 1963); Box 11, President's Outgoing Executive Correspondence Series, White House Central Chronological File, Presidential Papers, Papers of John F. Kennedy http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx <br class="br">1963

Children, World, Hope, Hope

“The world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.”

Norbert Wiener book God & Golem, Inc.

Source: God & Golem, Inc. (1964), p. 69
Source: The Human Use Of Human Beings: Cybernetics And Society
Context: [T]he future offers very little hope for those who expect that our new mechanical slaves will offer us a world in which we may rest from thinking. Help us they may, but at the cost of supreme demands upon our honesty and our intelligence. The world of the future will be an ever more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.

Lie, World, Intelligence, Waiting

“In the future, I'll be braver, she told herself. In the future, I will always speak my mind, eloquently, passionately.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Passion

“So my own sister will not promote me? Speaking of which, weren't you supposed to find me a beautiful future wife with a small fortune? Have you had any success on that front?
- Yes - I have warned them all.”

Libba Bray book Rebel Angels

Source: Rebel Angels

Beauty, Sister, Success

“Always choose the future over the past. What do we do now?”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Source: Create Your Own Future: How to Master the 12 Critical Factors of Unlimited Success

Past

“For me, the release was a spot in time with no past and no future. Just the extraordinary simplicity of a moment— the kind of moment that has a funny way of making a person believe that life and love can last forever.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Love, Life, Way, Time

“He doesn't know which is worse, a past he can't regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Past

“the choices we made today were templates for the future.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

“There is no future for e-books, because they are not books. E-books smell like burned fuel.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

BookExpo America, Los Angeles (May 2008). Reported in USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-06-01-1819108364_x.htm (June 1, 2008) and The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jun/03/news.amazon (3 June 2008)

Books

“One day you're young with all your fine plans for the future. The next you're in the future and it doesn't look at all the way you thought it would.”

Jayne Ann Krentz (1948) American novelist

Source: Burning Lamp

Way

“You don't destroy what you want to
acquire in the future.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

Source: The Golden Notebook

Personality

“If I knew I was going to die at a specific moment in the future, it would be nice to be able to control what song I was listening to; this is why I always bring my iPod on airplanes.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“We should try to be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Parent, Past

“I used to be afraid of dying. Now I’m afraid of not living. There’s a difference. We go through life planning for a future, but sometimes that future never comes.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Challenger Deep

Life

“Today is mine. Tomorrow is none of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future, I will strain my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Keep a Quiet Heart

Business

“I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“And it was this image that was stamped on the hearts and minds of all who were present that day. Of Froi of the Exiles holding the future of Lumatere in his hands.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Heart

“Suddenly she realized that what she was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Past

“Apologize, v. To lay the foundation for a future offense.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his (sic)patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Disease

“It is possible to live happily in the here and now. So many conditions of happiness are available—more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don't have to run into the future in order to get more.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Being Peace

Happiness

“I filled my head with thoughts of the future, of infinite possibly. There's someone out there who will one day find me and fall in love with me and prove that all this waiting actually meant something….”

Perry Moore book Hero

Source: Hero

Love, Waiting

“Children of the future Age
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

A Little Girl Lost, st. 1
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

Love, Children, Age, Time

“F**k them is what I say. I hate those ebooks. They can not be the future. They may well be. I will be dead. I won't give a s**t.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Hate, Dead

“and I shudder sometimes to think of all that stellar mystery of how she IS going to get me in a future lifetime, wow - And I seriously do believe that will be my salvation, too.
A long way to go.”

Jack Kerouac book Big Sur

Source: Big Sur

Way, Thinking

“In such seconds of decision entire futures are made.”

Dan Simmons book Hyperion

Source: Hyperion (1989), Chapter 6 (p. 431)

Decision

“No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you don't pay attention to the past, you'll never understand the future. It's all linked together.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

World, Understanding, Time, Past

“I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.”

Dave Eggers book What Is the What

Variant: If I ever fall in love again, I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.
Source: What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (2006), Ch. 21, pp. 317-318
Source: What Is the What
Context: I cannot count the times I have cursed our lack of urgency. If I ever love again, I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.

Love, Way, Thinking, Time

“Relationships are incredibly amorphous. They could get back together. They could stay friends. Who's to say what will happen in the future?”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“They told us not to wish in the first place, not to aspire, not to try; to be quiet, to play nice, to shoot low and aspire not at all. They are always wrong. Follow your dreams. Make your wishes. Create the future. And above all, believe in yourself. That is the lesson of Babylon 5.”

J. Michael Straczynski (1954) American writer and television producer

From the Babylon 5 Calendar (1998).

Dreams

“The past does not only draw us back to the past. There are certain memories of the past that have strong steel springs and, when we who live in the present touch them, they are suddenly stretched taut and then they propel us into the future.”

Yukio Mishima book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Source: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Spring, Strong, Memory, Past

“The past is history written in stone that can't be altered. The future is transitory and never guaranteed. Today is the only thing you can alter for certain. Make the most of it.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Silence

History, Past

“Fine art is something wonderful that's left long into the future… eternal beauty.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Beauty, Art

“All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Source: Personal Success

Women, Men, People, Imagination

“You can't insure against the future, except by really believing in the best bit of you, and in the power beyond it.”

D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover

Source: Lady Chatterley's Lover

“Was life like that? You could look ahead to the future or back to the past, but the present moved too quickly to absorb.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Life, Past

“You are actually pre-paving your future experiences constantly…. You are continually projecting your expectations into your future experiences.”

Esther Hicks (1948) American writer

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Light

“One cannot let the events of one's past murder one's future.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnSouled

Past

“Veins practically popping out of his neck, the jerk leaned out his window and yelled a bunch of swear words, including a new one I tucked away in my brain for future use, if necessary.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Jerk

“[Percy] kept hoping things would get better for Annabeth and him, but their lives just got more dangerous, as if the Three Fates were up there spinning their futures with barbed wire instead of thread just to see how much two demigods could tolerate.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Fate, Hope

“As long as you have a garden you have a future and as long as you have a future you are alive.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) English-American childrens' playwright and author

“Through it [literature] we know the past, govern the present, and influence the future.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

Source: The Man-Made World

Literature, Past

“And in the end, I lost him. I did it on purpose, the way Garance lost
Baptiste in the crowd. I needed to be alone, I felt. I wanted to be going on alone to my future.”

Susanna Kaysen (1948) American writer

Way

“It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph

Change, Past

“This is how fast your life can turn around. How the future you have tomorrow won't be the same future you had yesterday.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Variant: The future you have, tomorrow, won't be the same future you had, yesterday.
Source: Rant

Life

“The future is now. It's time to grow up and be strong. Tomorrow may well be too late.”

Neil LaBute (1963) Film director, playwright, screenwriter

Source: Reasons to Be Pretty

Strong, Time

“June smiled. "So what will it be? Safety, or a future of pain and possibility?”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Pain, Smile

“Watch for the thing that will show itself to you. Because that thing, when you find it, will be your future.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“I loved her for so long. Our past trails behind us like a comet's tail, the future stretched out before us like the universe. Things happen. People get lost and love breaks.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

Love, People, Universe, Past

“The future is unclear. But it’s still mine.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

“One day, maybe not in the next few weeks, but certainly in the conceivable future, someone will be able to refer to me without using the word 'arse' somewhere in the sentence.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

“If that is what this world is, what humans are… There is no future. Understanding and faith… If you take those away, all that's left is fear. I can't accept immoral methods or giving up.”

Masashi Kishimoto book Naruto

Source: Naruto, Band 11

World, Fear, Faith, Understanding

“So many objects, so many memories. Each was being labelled and packed away in bags just as it was in her mind. To be stored in an area that would sometime be called upon to teach and help in future life.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

Life, Memory, Help

“Who really can face the future? All you can do is project from the past, even when the past shows that such projections are often wrong. And who really can forget the past? What else is there to know?”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Past, Forgetting

“I stood face to face with the moon and the ocean and the future that spread out with all its bewildering immensity before me.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

“Side by Side:
We sat side by side in the morning light & looked out at the future together.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Light

“Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.”

Michael Palin (1943) British comedian, actor, writer and television presenter

"Letter from London" (18 September 2003) http://palinstravels.co.uk/static-51?topic=1752&forum=12 <br class="br">Context: Contrary to what the politicians and religious leaders would like us to believe, the world won’t be made safer by creating barriers between people. Cries of “They’re evil, let’s get ‘em” or “The infidels must die” sound frightening, but they’re desperately empty of argument and understanding. They’re the rallying cries of prejudice, the call to arms of those who find it easier to hate than admit they might be not be right about everything.<br>Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.

People, World, Hope

“What could be duller than past history!' Therese said, smiling. 'Maybe futures that won't have any history.”

Patricia Highsmith book The Price of Salt

Source: The Price of Salt

Smile, History, Past

“Everything which is done in the present, affects the future by consequence, and the past by redemption.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Past

“Even if we no longer have much in common, we would have always had the past, which, in some ways, is just as important as the present or future. It is where we come from, what makes us who we are.”

Emily Giffin book Where We Belong

Source: Where We Belong

Way, Past

“Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Love, Dreams

“As his mother said, once you started worrying about the future, you started obsessing about the past.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Past

“And then there was Jeremiah. When I looked at Jeremiah, I saw past, present, and future. He didn’t just know the girl I used to be. He knew the right-now me, and he loved me anyway.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Love, Girl, Past

“It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Youth, Age, Past

“A man who denies his past is a man who truly denies himself a future, for he refuses to know himself, and to deny knowledge of oneself is to stumble through life as handicapped as the blind mute.”

Tobsha Learner (1959) British writer

Source: The Witch of Cologne

Life, Knowledge, Past

“You're a hero and a gentleman, you're kind and honest, but more than that, you're the first man I ever truly loved. And no matter what the future brings, you always will be, and I know that my life is better for it.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Love, Life

“There is never any turning back Gemma. You have to go forward. Make the future yours.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

“The future is just wasted on some people.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

People

“I am an optimist. Anyone interested in the future has to be otherwise he would simply shoot himself.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

“Books, I found, had the power to make time
stand still, retreat or fly into the future.”

Jim Bishop (1907–1987) American journalist and author

Books, Time, Flying

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to John Adams (1 August 1816)
1810s

Dreams, History, Past, Night

“I have no word of yours to assure me that our brief friendship held for you the same significance it held for me, but I must go on believing so. Every hope of the future is meaningless unless I have faith that you and I will share it together.”

Elizabeth George Speare book Calico Captive

Source: Calico Captive

Friendship, Faith, Hope

“The word “future” and females is a dangerous combination.”

Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

“Even if times got bad, he would never again deny himself the possibility that the future might be happy even if the present was painful. He would allow himself dreams.”

Suzanne Collins book Gregor the Overlander

Source: Gregor the Overlander

Pain, Happiness, Dreams, Time

“People don't get to our ages without having pasts. I'm more interested in the future.”

Robyn Donald (1940) New Zealand writer

Source: Tiger, Tiger

People, Age, Past

“Its more fun to think of the future than dwell on the past.”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Source: Unbelievable

Thinking, Past

“With each passing moment I'm becoming part of the past. There is no future for me, just the past steadily accumulating.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Past, Parting

“When I look at the future, it's so bright it burns my eyes!”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

“We have no future because our present is too volatile. We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition.”

William Gibson book Pattern Recognition

Source: Pattern Recognition

“The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Life, Feeling, Success, Despair

“I don't want my past to become anyone else's future.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Past

“People are all over the world telling their one dramatic story and how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than their future.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Life, People, World, Past

“We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability?”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Learning

“In your past lies your future. [Acheron Parthenopaeus]”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Past

“Like the wild beasts, she lives without a future. She inhabits only the present tense, a fugue of the continuous, a world of sensual immediacy as without hope as it is without despair.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Source: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

World, Hope, Despair

“The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Variant: Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.

Life, Past

“Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone, I learned it late.”

Beryl Markham book West with the Night

Source: West with the Night

Learning

“Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future.”

Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless

Source: Mostly Harmless

Past

“a dream is only a memory of the future”

Steve Erickson (1950) novelist, essayist, film critic

Dreams, Memory

“Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) American businessman and philanthropist

“God only rarely reveals the future. When he does so, it is for one reason: it's a future that was written so as to be altered.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

God

“You may have created my past and screwed up my present, but you have no control over my future.”

David Klass book You Don't Know Me

Variant: The good news is that you may have created my past and screwed up my present, but you havce no control over my future. You don't know me at all.
Source: You Don't Know Me

Past