“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.”
Source: Oryx and Crake
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Margaret Atwood 348
Canadian writer 1939Related quotes
Source: Everything Is Illuminated
The Golden Man (1954)
Context: "He can look ahead. See what's coming. He can — prethink. Let's call it that. He can see into the future. Probably he doesn't perceive it as the future."
"No," Anita said thoughtfully. "It would seem like the present. He has a broader present. But his present lies ahead, not back. Our present is related to the past. Only the past is certain, to us. To him, the future is certain. And he probably doesn't remember the past, any more than any animal remembers what happened."
"As he develops," Baines said, "as his race evolves, it'll probably expand its ability to prethink. Instead of ten minutes, thirty minutes. Then an hour. A day. A year. Eventually they'll be able to keep ahead a whole lifetime. Each one of them will live in a solid, unchanging world. There'll be no variables, no uncertainty. No motion! They won't have anything to fear. Their world will be perfectly static, a solid block of matter."
"And when death comes," Anita said, "they'll accept it. There won't be any struggle; to them, it'll already have happened."
“He who doesn't prize his past, ill-prepares his future.”
Original: (pt) Quem mal-preza o seu passado, mal-prepara o seu futuro.
Source: "A Alma e a Gente - Os Lusitanos", 24 Jan 2010
“He who spends time regretting the past loses the present and risks the future.”
Travis Parker, Chapter 22, p. 258-259
Source: 2000s, The Choice (2007)
