Quotes about presentation
page 8

“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

“Last Minute:
I have to buy all my presents at the last minute, she said, or I get too excited & just give them away.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“It was one of those moments when you feel the future so much that it humbles the present.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Feeling, Future

“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

“In every message she spoke of birds, of flight, of the world away. Even back then, she flew against what was presented to her. I wanted to cling to her wings and soar, no matter how intimidated I was.”

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

World, Bird

“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

“Every moment you steal from the present is a moment you've lost forever. There is only now.”

Jeanette Winterson book The Passion

Variant: every moment you steal from the present is a moment you have lost for ever. There's only now.
Source: The Passion

“It was the beginning of the greatest Christmas ever. Little food. No presents. But there was a snowman in their basement.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Food, Christmas

“One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your hear that every day is the best day of the year.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Life, Decision

“… 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

“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

“There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)
Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
Context: There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.
Everyone lets the present moment slip by, then looks for it as though he thought it were somewhere else.

Life, Understanding, Success

“I was learning that if I lived slightly in the future-what will happen next-I didn't have to feel so much about what was going on in the present.”

Augusten Burroughs book Running with Scissors

Source: Running with Scissors

Feeling, Learning, Future

“There is a reason they call God a presence - because God is right here, right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

God, Time

“Weren't you wearing a purity ring when we got here? Aren't you supposed to be saving yourself?" Shanti asked.

"Yeah," Mary Lou answered. "And then I thought, for what? You save leftovers. My sex is not a leftover, and it is not a Christmas present.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Sex, Christmas

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“Everyone has crap in their background, everyone has things they wish they could undo. But most people don't go around doing their best to screw up their present lives because of it.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Rescue

Source: The Rescue

People

“Enjoy the present, bid defiance to the future, laugh at all those reasonable beings who exercise their reason to avoid the misfortunes which they fear, destroying at the same time the pleasure that they might enjoy.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Pleasure, Fear, Exercises, Time

“What happens when you let an unsatisfactory present go on long enough? It becomes your entire history.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: The Plague of Doves

History

“The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us,… The madness of this planet is largely a result of the human being's difficulty in coming to viruous balance with himself.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Light, Madness

“It is youth’s felicity as well as its insufficiency that it can never live in the present, but must always be measuring up the day against its own radiantly imagined future”

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

Source: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, and Other Stories

Youth, Imagination, Future

“Society has provided [children] no rituals by which they become members of the tribe, of the community. All children need to be twice born, to learn to function rationally in the present world, leaving childhood behind.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth

Children, World, Communication, Learning

“No past. No future. Just present. Give it a chance.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Every Day

Chance, Past, Future

“Every time we burn a gallon of gas or an acre of rain forest, aren't we killing the future to preserve the present?”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Time, Future

“Death is the Santa Claus of the adult world. Except Santa Claus in reverse. The guy who takes all the presents away.”

Maria Dahvana Headley (1977) American writer

Source: Magonia

Death, World, Guy

“Plus it'll give you a chance to get us a wedding present. We're not registered anywhere, but we could seriously use some china and a blender.”

Richelle Mead book Silver Shadows

Source: Silver Shadows

Wedding, Chance

“Sometimes the things presented to us as choices aren't choices at all.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“… to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender…”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

Source: A Field Guide to Getting Lost

“When we're identified with Awareness, we're no longer living in a world of polarities. Everything is present at the same time.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

World, Time

“We go to the past to lay the blame - since the past can't argue. We go to our past selves to account for our present miseries.”

Glen Duncan (1965) British writer

Source: Love Remains

Past

“Only the weak blame their past for the faults they find in their present; the strong acknowledge the effects of their past and then move on from it. We are all free to choose whether we will be weak or strong.”

Penny Jordan (1946–2011) British women's author

Source: The Italian Duke's Virgin Mistress

Strong, Past

“The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

Source: The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Part One

Death, Past, Future

“There was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Usher II (1950)
The Martian Chronicles (1950)
Source: Fahrenheit 451
Context: They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressures; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.

Past, Future

“I changed it. I had to. Do you know why?" She studied him, her eyes grave. "Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

Study, Change, Past

“[M]emory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Time

“It's strange how memory gets twisted and pulled like taffy in its retelling, how a single event can mean something different to everyone present.”

Lisa Unger book Beautiful Lies

Source: Beautiful Lies

Memory

“Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons, June 18, 1940 "War Situation" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1940/jun/18/war-situation#column_52. The Second World War (1939–1945)

Past, Future

“I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story; and I have never believed that the novelist who properly performed this first condition of his art, was in danger, on that account, of neglecting the delineation of character — for this plain reason, that the effect produced, by any narrative of events is essentially dependent, not on the events themselves, but on the human interest which is directly connected with them. It may be possible in novel-writing to present characters successfully without telling a story; but it is not possible to tell a story successfully without presenting characters: their existence, as recognizable realities, being the sole condition on which the story can be effectively told. The only narrative which can hope to lay a strong hold on the attention of readers is a narrative which interests them about men and women — for the perfectly obvious reasons that they are men and women themselves.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: Collins explaining what he calls the literary principal guiding him, in the preface of the second edition of The Woman in White. Also in Reality's Dark Light: The Sensational Wilkie Collins by Maria K. Bachman & Don Richard Cox [University of Tennessee Press, 2003, ISBN 1-572-33274-3] ( p. xiv https://books.google.com/books?id=_X8AlmIp0dwC&pg=PR14)

Women, Men, Hope, Art

“Human beings suffer agonies, and their sad fates become legends; poets write verses about them and playwrights compose dramas, and the remembrance of past grief becomes a source of present pleasure - such is the strange alchemy of the spirit.”

Upton Sinclair book Dragon's Teeth

Source: Dragon's Teeth

Fate, Pleasure, Sadness, Suffering

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”

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

Variant: Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

Life, Law, Change, Past

“The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door —
To her divine Majority —
Present no more”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

303: The Soul selects her own Society --
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Soul

“Memories did one no good, not when one knew the truth in the present”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Truth, Memory

“Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Twentieth Century Faith : Hope and Survival (1972), p. 61
1970s

Children, People, Age, Religion

“12--Lose Battles, But Win The War: Grand Strategy

Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.”

Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War

Source: The 33 Strategies of War

War, Art

“Be here. Be present. Wherever you are, be there.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

“Hearing him say it now, that is was my birthday present, touched me in the last place I wanted him to touch me. My heart.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Birthday, Heart

“I don't care how much evidence the state presented. I've never for one moment believed he murdered that waitress.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Kiss an Angel

“A mother would have been always present. A mother would have been a constant friend; her influence would have been beyond all other.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

“When by my solitary hearth I sit,
When no fair dreams before my “mind’s eye” flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: The Complete Poems

Life, Dreams, Hope

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Light, Wise, Deep, Inspirational

“For me the most radical demand of Christian faith lies in summoning the courage to say yes to the present risenness of Jesus Christ.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

Faith, Courage, Christ

“She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Men, Smile, Time

“There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Past, Future

“The Master said, “A true teacher is one who, keeping the past alive, is also able to understand the present.”
(Analects 2.11)”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Understanding, Teachers, Past

“It's important to know the past, but your survival depends on knowing the present.”

Jonathan Maberry book Dust & Decay

Source: Dust & Decay

Past, Dependency

“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to Besso's family (March 1955) following the death of Michele Besso, as quoted in Disturbing the Universe (1979) by Freeman Dyson Ch. 17 "A Distant Mirror", p. 193 Sometimes misquoted as "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." 1950s Variant: "He has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn illusion." Quoted in Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson (2008), p. 540 http://books.google.com/books?id=cdxWNE7NY6QC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA540#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Quoted in Albert Einstein: The Miracle Mind by Tabatha Yeatts (2007), p. 116 http://books.google.com/books?id=XiyyVYvQBKQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT114#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "In quitting this strange world he has once again preceded me by a little. That doesn't mean anything. For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious." Quoted in The Structure of Physics by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (1985), p. 288 http://books.google.com/books?id=DeexONN0zDgC&lpg=PR2&pg=PA288#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "Now he has departed a little ahead of me from this quaint world. This means nothing. For us faithful physicists, the separation between past, present, and future has only the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent one." Quoted in Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer (2002), p. 161 http://books.google.com/books?id=TnCc1f1C25IC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA161#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "Now he has preceded me by a little bit in his departure from this strange world as well. This means nothing. For those of us who believe in physics, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious this illusion may be." Quoted in Einstein: A Biography by Jürgen Neff (2007), p. 402 http://books.google.com/books?id=B8K6n177ZwcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA402#v=onepage&q&f=false

People, World, Past, Future

“anyone can understand anything. You just have to know how to present your information.”

Jodi Picoult book Songs of the Humpback Whale

Source: Songs of the Humpback Whale

Understanding

“And is he honest who resists his genius or conscience only for the sake of present ease or gratification”

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

“Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran

Reality, Sense, Freedom

“I don’t know why it is that I have always been happier thinking of somewhere I have been or wanted to go, than where I am at the time. I find it difficult to be happy in the present.”

Pat Conroy book Beach Music

Source: Beach Music

Happiness, Thinking, Time

“Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.”

Rachel Carson book Silent Spring

Source: Silent Spring

World, Nature, Time

“We do not at present educate people to think but, rather, to have opinions, and that is something altogether different.”

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

People, Education, Thinking

“It stands to reason that anyone who learns to live well will die well. The skills are the same: being present in the moment, and humble, and brave, and keeping a sense of humor. (361)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

Sense, Learning

“It's not easy to find a topic. Talking of home is painful. Talking of the present unbearable.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Pain, Home

“Unless you can change the past, you’re wasting the present on this guilt”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Change, Past

“The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Life, Dreams, Reality, Appearance

“Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present".”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Past, Future

“It‘s funny how, when things seem the darkest, moments of beauty present themselves in the most unexpected places.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Beauty

“These are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present.”

Annie Dillard book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Source: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Season

“How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Country

“Won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses”

Joni Mitchell (1943) Canadian musician

Source: Chelsea Morning [With] CD

“Waking up to you is like… presents on Christmas morning."
His mouth curved. "For your convenience, I'm already unwrapped. Batteries not required.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Entwined with You

Christmas

“The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant.”

Kate Chopin (1850–1904) American author

Past, Future

“Let the future sleep for now, as it deserves. If you wake it too early, you get a groggy present.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Sleep, Future

“She seems to have had the ability to stand firmly on the rock of her past while living completely and unregretfully in the present.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Past

“The present tense made him nervous.”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

Source: Sprawl trilogy, Neuromancer (1984), Chapter 3 (Case)

“The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between. But there is still time to seize that one last fragile moment.”

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

Time, Past, Future

“Be present in all things and thankful for all things.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“Shall we never never get rid of this Past?… It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The House of the Seven Gables

Source: The House of the Seven Gables

Past, Dead

“Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.”

Kristin Hannah book The Nightingale

Source: The Nightingale

Past

“I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2009, Farewell speech to the nation (January 2009)
Context: As we address these challenges – and others we cannot foresee tonight – America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.

People, Truth, World, Peace

“Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. IV, Ch. 8 (1839).

Fear, Past, Future, Heart

“When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable”

Martin Amis book Other People

Source: Other People

Past

“If I gave my mother a knitted scarf she'd be worried I was wasting my time doing stupid stuff like knitting instead of school work. Presenting a homemade knitted object to my parents was actually like handing them a detailed backlog of my idleness.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Stupidity, School, Parent, Time

“The images of his infinite pasts and infinite futures washed over him as he waited, paralyzed, in the present.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Waiting, Past, Future

“There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do. They can't sit over their wine; they can't play at wist; and they can't pay a lady a compliment.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

Men, Wine

“Do you find coming to terms with the mindless tedium of it all presents an interesting challenge?”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Men

“Facts may be colored by the personalities of the people who present them.”

Reginald Rose Twelve Angry Men

Source: Twelve Angry Men

People, Color, Personality

“In all the institutions I try to be present and accountable for all I do and leave undone. I know that eventually I shall have to be present and accountable n the presence of God. I do not wish to be found wanting.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

Source: Letter to My Daughter

God

“It may be that DMT makes us able to perceive what the physicist call "dark matter" - the 95 per cent of the universe's mass that is known to exist but that at present remains invisible to our senses and instruments.”

Graham Hancock (1950) British writer and journalist

Sense, Universe

“Memories did one no good, not when one knew the truth in the present. Will was beautiful, but he was not hers; he was anybody's. Something in him was broken, and trough that break spilled a blind cruelty, a need to hurt and to push away.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Truth, Beauty, Memory, Hurt

“Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1770s
Source: Letter to Abigail Adams (27 April 1777), published as Letter CXI in Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife (1841) edited by Charles Francis Adams, p. 218

Pain, Hope, Freedom