Quotes about paste
page 8

“You seemed so far away," Miss Honey whispered, awestruck.

"Oh, I was. I was flying past the stars on silver wings," Matilda said. "It was wonderful.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Star, Past, Flying

“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, Future

“I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches his home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.”

Jean-Dominique Bauby book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Source: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Life, Home, Memory, Past

“It is not only species of animal that die out, but whole species of feeling. And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know, but pity yourself for what it did.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

Feeling, Past, Animals

“When the past is recaptured by the imagination, breath is put back into life.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

Life, Imagination, Past

“no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Variant: It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Source: The Great Gatsby

Past

“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, Future

“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.”

Laurie Colwin (1944–1992) Novelist, short story writer, food writer

Wisdom, Past, Cooking

“We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past, but by the love we're not extending in the present.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Love, Past

“Night falls fast.
Today is in the past.

Blown from the dark hill hither to my door
Three flakes, then four
Arrive, then many more.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Past, Night

“The past does not have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: When God Whispers Your Name

Life, Past

“Wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Love, Truth, Lie, Spring

“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, Future

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

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Source: Unbelievable

Thinking, Past, Future

“If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you've made your own sculpture.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

School, Way, Past

“some of us have so much defeat in our past that we feel we lost the race before we knew it started.”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

Source: Believing in God - Member Book

Feeling, Past

“The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Past

“A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age - regardless of how they look on the outside - pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives.”

Douglas Coupland The Gum Thief

Source: The Gum Thief

Age, Dreams, 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, Future, Parting

“History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past”

John Berger book Ways of Seeing

Source: Ways of Seeing

Fear, History, Past

“But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Lunar Park

Source: Lunar Park

Past

“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, Future

“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

“What remains of your past if you didn't allow yourself to feel it when it happened? If you don't have your experiences in the moment, if you gloss them over with jokes or zoom past them, you end up with curiously dispassionate memories.”

David Rakoff (1964–2012) writer

Source: Fraud: Essays

Feeling, Memory, Past

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

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Past, Future

“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, Future

“For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Life, Men, Books, Age

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to compute it.”

Steven Pinker book Words and Rules

Source: Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language

Past

“The older you get the more you live in the past”

Walter Mosley (1952) American writer

Source: The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

Past

“No use dwelling on the past. What you do tomorrow and the next day and the day after that is what matters.”

Kieran Scott (1974) American writer

Source: She's So Dead to Us

Past

“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, Future

“It has been a mistake living my life in the past. One cannot ride a horse backwards and still hold its reins.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Life, Past, Horse

“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, Future

“I'm 65 years old. Everyday the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

Time, Past, Future, Parting

“It is not as important how we start (our past), but how we finish.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Past

“Are you okay? (Simone)
No, I’m in ecstasy. I blew straight past okay the minute you touched me. (Xypher)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Chaser

Past

“You're always free to change your mind
and choose a different future, or a different past.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Change, Past, Future

“When we put things off until some future-probably mythical-Laterland, we drag the past into the future. The burden of yesterday's incompletions is a heavy load to carry. Don't carry it.”

Peter McWilliams (1949–2000) American author and civil liberties advocate

Past, Future

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Benjamin Graham book The Intelligent Investor

Source: The Intelligent Investor

Past

“There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

War, Past

“You can't look back - you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Variant: A very wise man once told me that you can't look back-you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.
Source: Salem Falls

Missing You, Moving On, Past, Future

“People want pretty much the same things: They wanted to be happy. Most young people seemed to think that those things lay somewhere in the future, while most older people believed they lay in the past.”

Nicholas Sparks book Nights in Rodanthe

Source: Nights in Rodanthe

People, Thinking, Past, Future

“The past is dead. Tomorrow will become whatever decision you make it. ~ Acheron.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Decision, Past, Dead

“What is the past but what we choose to remember?”

Amy Tan book The Bonesetter's Daughter

Variant: After all, Bao Bomu says, what is the past but what we choose to remember?
Source: The Bonesetter's Daughter

Past

“The past always seems better when you look back on it than it did at the time. And the present never looks as good as it will in the future.”

Peter Benchley book Jaws

Source: Jaws

Time, Past, Future

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”

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

Hope, Forgiveness, Past

“Your past is not your potential”

Barbara Winter (1944)

Making a Living Without a Job: Winning Ways for Creating Work That You Love

Past

“Even people capable of living in the past don't really know what the future holds.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

People, Past, Future

“I didn't remember what month that was, or what year even. I only knew the memory lived in me, a perfectly encapsulated morsel of a good past, a brushstroke of color on the gray, barren canvas that our lives had become.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Color, Memory, Past

“A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.”

Lois Wyse (1926–2007) American advertising executive

For Wife, Friendship, Powerful, For Friend

“He was jealous of her future, and she of his past.”

Anaïs Nin book Delta of Venus

Source: Delta of Venus

Past, Future

“It struck me then how much the past - not just the past but history and family - was like the ocean tide. It was always the same ocean, but the waves made it fresh and new each time.”

Aimee Friedman (1979) American writer

Source: Sea Change

Family, History, Time, Past

“What makes you walk past thirty-thousand people without a second glance, and then you look at the thirty-thousandth-and-first person and know you'll never take your eyes off her again?”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

People, Past, Personality

“God is in the résumé-building business. He is always using past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day: How To Survive And Thrive When Opportunity Roars

God, Business, Past, Future

“I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying
the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I
now enjoy.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

Failure, Understanding, Past

“I’ll put it out there: I am scarred by the nostalgic indicipherability of my own desires; I an engulfed by the intimidating unknown, pushed through darkness and dragged down by the irretrievable past sweetness of my memories.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters

Memory, Past

“How real is any of the past, being every moment revalued to make the present possible…”

William Gaddis book The Recognitions

Source: The Recognitions

Past

“The future for me is already a thing of the past.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Love and Theft (2001), Bye and Bye
Source: Bob Dylan - Love and Theft: Piano/Vocal/Guitar

Valentine's Day, For Him, For Boyfriend, Past

“Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Source: Wanted

Past, Forgetting

“Everything is beautiful. We have all this beauty in the world and all we have to do is reach out and touch it, it is all there and all ours for the taking." -- Cecilia to Henry Chinaski, liberty taken changing past tense to present tense (173)”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

World, Beauty, Change, Past

“The past is gone-the future is not come. And we are here together, you and I.”

Diana Gabaldon book The Fiery Cross

Source: The Fiery Cross

Past, Future

“There is no past or future. Using tenses to divide time is like making chalk marks on water.”

Janet Frame (1924–2004) New Zealand author

Water, Time, Past, Future

“You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Past, Dead

“Sometimes we have to face the things that hurt us most. Maybe you won’t heal till you do. You haven’t yet.” They both knew that was true. “You can’t move ahead until you bury the past.”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

Past, Hurt

“I didn't dare think of the future; the past was still happening.”

John Grisham book The Street Lawyer

Source: The Street Lawyer

Thinking, Past, Future

“The city glitters past us with its sharp edges, reminding us of how tiny, how weak, how totally unimportant we are.”

Joe Meno (1974) American writer

Source: Demons in the Spring

Past

“You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

Past, Future

“Your thoughts and beliefs of the past have created this moment, and all the moments up to this moment. What you are now choosing to believe and think and say will create the next moment and the next day and the next month and the next year.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

Thinking, Past

“You can't go back, Ever. You can't change the past. It just is." I squint, having no idea what she's talking about. But just as I start to ask, she shakes her head and says, "This is our destiny. Not yours.”

Alyson Nöel book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

Idea, Change, Past

“A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 10

Women, Men, People, Way

“… I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, and songs of love for present tense.”

Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow

Source: The Sparrow

Love, Past, Future

“I refuse to let the past find me here.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Past

“After all, the wrong is done. It is past and cannot be changed. We have only the present and the future upon which to move forward.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Source: Loving Each Other

Change, Past, Future

“Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Past

“Later she remembered all the hours of the afternoon as happy -- one of those uneventful times that seem at the moment only a link between past and future pleasure, but turn out to have been the pleasure itself.”

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

Source: Tender is the Night

Pleasure, Time, Past, Future

“Immigration policy should be
generous; it should be fair; it should
be flexible. With such a policy we
can turn to the world, and to our own
past, with clean hands and a clear
conscience.”

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

Source: A Nation of Immigrants

World, Past

“The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow.”

Claudia Rankine book Citizen: An American Lyric

Source: Citizen: An American Lyric

Life, Past

“I mean, I knew I wasn't a nice person, but what did I do in my past life to deserve this? I must have hit a bus full of nuns while driving a stolen car on my way to selling drugs to schoolchildren!”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Life, Cars, Way, Past

“America was different. America was a river, roarng along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Water, Memory, Past

“Doesn't surprise me," Nana snorted. "I wouldn't put anything past your late husband."
"He's not dead, Nana."
Nana sighed. "Hope springs eternal.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

Hope, Spring, Past, Dead

“In every heart there is a room,
A sanctuary safe and strong,
To heal the wounds from lovers past,
Until a new one comes along”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Lovers, Strong, Past, Heart

“If I have to have a past, then I prefer it to be multiple choice.”

Alan Moore book Batman: The Killing Joke

Source: Batman: The Killing Joke

Past

“The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand”

Italo Calvino book Invisible Cities

Page 10
Invisible Cities (1972)
Context: As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. (di quest'onda che rifluisce dai ricordi la città s'imbeve coma una spugna e si dilata). The city, however, does not tell of its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand...

Past

“The past is our definition. We may strive with good reason to escape it or to escape what is bad in it but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Past

“Stories are propaganda, virii that slide past your critical immune system and insert themselves directly into your emotions.”

Cory Doctorow Eastern Standard Tribe

Source: Eastern Standard Tribe

Past

“I had come to regard him as a loner with no real past and a future so vague there was no sense talking about it.”

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary

Source: 1990s, The Rum Diary (1998)

Sense, Past, Future

“There are few phrases that annoy me more than I won't bite. The only line that pisses me off faster is when some drunk, ham-faced dude in a bar sees me trying to get past him and barks: Smile, it can't be that bad! Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad.”

Gillian Flynn book Dark Places

Source: Dark Places

Smile, Past

“If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Feeling, Reality, Change, Past

“You are unnerving the hell out of me, Valkyrie."
"oh" she frowned, petting her bat fitfully " I must have misread the future for the past." she shrugged. "It happens.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: MacRieve

Hell, Past, Future

“The future would end up finding out the truth about the past.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

Truth, Past, Future

“No life goes past so swiftly as an eventless one, no clock spins like a clock whose days are all alike.”

Wallace Stegner book Angle of Repose

Source: Angle of Repose

Life, Past

“We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past "weird" and "strange" and "goofy." Her ways knocked us off balance.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

Way, Past

“I may have been dead for the past hundred and fifty years, Susannah,… but that doesn't mean I don't know how people say good night. And generally, when people say good night, they keep their tongues to themselves.”

Meg Cabot book Ninth Key

Source: Ninth Key

People, Past, Night, Dead

“The past is no further away than the last breath you took.”

Robin Hobb book Fool's Errand

Source: Fool's Errand

Past

“So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.”

Alan Moore book Batman: The Killing Joke

Batman : The Killing Joke (1988)
Source: Batman: The Killing Joke
Context: When you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened.
Forever.

Past, Training, Madness

“Sometimes, Ms. Lane,” he said, “one must break with one’s past to embrace one’s future. It is never
an easy thing to do. It is one of the distinguishing characteristics between survivors and victims.
Letting go of what was, to survive what is.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Variant: Sometimes, Ms. Lane," he said, "one must break with one's past to embrace one's future. It is never an easy thing to do. It is one of the distinguishing characteristics between survivors and victims. Letting go of what was, to survive what is.
Source: Darkfever

Past, Future