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Retro Quotes

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Retro Quotes

“It’s not a crime to wish for other worlds. You’ll get taxed for it but they can’t throw you in jail for creating your own private world…yet. Dramatics are fun, an indulgence. ‘You can’t go backward,’ ‘You can’t live in the past,’ they tell you. Why not? ‘You’ve got to put all that behind you and move on to other things,’ they say. Bullshit! These are all expressions of modern disposability. It’s a mediocritizing technique—trying to get rid of what I call ‘past orthodoxies.’ It’s our past that makes us unique, therefore it’s our past that economic interests want to rob from us, so they can sell us a new, improved future. Society now depends on a disposable world—out with the old, in with the new, including relationships. But how we weep and wish we could hold onto those cherished moments forever, to those long-whispered dreams, those tortured nights—how we want to grasp them and stop them from sifting through our fingers. I say, ‘Don’t let it happen. Keep things the way you want them and let the rest of the world be duped.”

PastForgottenNostalgiaMediocrityThe PastSatanismRetro
Book:The Secret Life of a Satanist: The Authorized Biography of Anton LaVey
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“America has no now. We're reluctant to acknowledge the present. It's too embarrassing. Instead, we reach into the past. Our culture is composed of sequels, reruns, remakes, revivals, reissues, re-releases, recreations, reenactments, adaptations, anniversaries, memorabilia, oldies radio, and nostalgia record collections. World War II has been refought so many times, the Germans and Japanese are now drawing residuals.”

AmericaPastFutureNostalgiaPresentNowRetroRepeat
Book:Brain Droppings
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“Catty and Vanessa were vamping it up on the corner of Fairfax and Beverly, in bell-bottoms with exaggerated lacy bells that they must have pulled from Catty's mother's closet. Vanessa gave them the peace sign. "Feeling' groovy." She winked. She had gorgeous skin, movie-star blue eyes, and flawless blond hair. She was wearing a headband and blue-tinted glasses. Catty was forever getting Vanessa into trouble, but they remained best friends. "Love and peace," Catty greeted them. Catty was stylish in an artsy sort of way. Right now, she wore a hand-knit cap with pom-pom ties that hung down to her waist, and her puddle-jumping Doc Martens were so wrong with the bell-bottoms that they looked totally right. Her curly brown hair poked from beneath the fuchsia cap and her brown eyes were framed by granny glasses, probably another steal from her mother. "You like our retro look?" Vanessa giggled at all the cars honking at them.”

StyleRetroVanessa ClevelandCatty TurnerLove And Peace
Book:Into the Cold Fire
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“The danger of restorative nostalgia lies in its belief that the mutilated 'wholeness' of the body politic can be repaired. But the reflective nostalgic understands deep down that loss is irrecoverable: Time wounds all wholes. To exist in Time is to suffer through an endless exile, a successive severing from those precious few moments of feeling at home in the world. In pop terms, Morrissey is the supreme poet of reflective nostalgia.”

LifePastTimeMusicNostalgiaPresentPop CultureRetroPopMorrisseySmiths
Book:Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past
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“Today, every principle of identity is affected by fashion, precisely because of its potential to revert all forms to non-origin and recurrence. Fashion is always retro, but always on the basis of the abolition of the passé (the past): the spectral death and resurrection of forms. Its proper actuality (its 'up-to-dateness', its 'relevance') is not a reference to the present, but an immediate and total recycling.”

TodayPastFormPrinciplesFashionIdentityBasesAffectedResurrectionRelevanceAbolitionRecyclingActualityRetroRecurrence
Book:Symbolic Exchange and Death
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“Makeup can be pure fantasy--it can transform you into any kind of magical creature, whether that's a superhero or a retro Hollywood icon or just a more fun, fresher version of yourself. Looking like a stress-free, well-rested working mom? That's some kind of magic to me.”

WellsKindFunFantasyMagicMomPureCreaturesHollywoodStressVersionsMakeupSuperheroIconsRetroStress FreeWorking MomMagical Creatures
Book:The Honest Life (Enhanced Edition): Living Naturally and True to You
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“There's this whole post-modern, nuevo beatnik, retro-bohemian thing going on, you know what I mean? You walk into some coffee shops, and it feels like you're an ex-patriot in Paris in the 20s. You're like, 'Hey, isn't that a young Ernest Hemingway over there? Yeah, I think it is! Hey, let's go have a look and see what he's writing... It's a Gap application.'”

ThinkingKnowsFeelsWritingLooksMeanWholeHumorFunnyYoungWalksModernLike YouYeahCoffeeHeyPostsParisShopsGapsApplicationPatriotExesBohemianCoffee ShopRetroBeatnik
Author:Marc Maron
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“I'm not inspired by space in that kind of futuristic sense, but I've never liked retro. Of course, we always get references from the past, but that doesn't mean that the clothes have to look like the past. We need to look forward, which is why I'm fascinated by new materials, technologies, techniques, and unusual ways to use colors or textures.”

WayNeedsLooksKindMeanUsePastCoursesSpaceTechnologyColorMaterialsClothesInspiredTechniqueUnusualFascinatedTextureFuturisticRetro
Author:Italo Zucchelli
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“It's a fusion of almost everything, in the way that I think society today tends to take cultural memory. Because there's an internet, it's on there forever. I think that's the way kids see the world today. They actually speak to each other using retro concepts now because the internet culture has kept that memory alive, constantly.”

ThinkingWorldWayKidsTodayCultureSpeakMemoriesForeverAliveInternetConceptsWorld TodayFusionRetroSociety TodayInternet Culture
Author:Joseph M. Kahn
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“So welcome 'Damsels in Distress,' an exhilarating gift of a comedy about college, the female intellect, the limitless male ego, inventing a new dance, and suicide prevention... This is the world as Stillman sees it, and to luxuriate for two hours in that retro bubble of sparkling wit is a pleasure not to be missed.”

WorldTwoHoursPleasureComedyCollegeEgoFemaleSuicideMalesIntellectWitWelcomeBubblesDistressLimitlessInventingExhilaratingPreventionSparklingRetroDamsel In DistressMale Ego
Author:Peter Travers
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“I'm sure in less than 10 years there will be several streaming services or whatever you want to call them that are dedicated to retro television, like rare retro television, and maybe we'll end up doing something with that. Maybe Gigi will find popularity there, because it was fun, it was kitschy and very stupid and very dirty. But it had heart. I hope people will watch it one day.”

PeopleWantYearsHeartEndsFunWatchesStupidTelevisionOne DayDirtyDedicatedPopularityStreamingRetroVery Stupid
Author:David Krumholtz
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“In their heyday, the Pet Shop Boys were the Interpol of the Eighties, dressing up to sing really weird pop songs about lust and loneliness in the big city. They're low-pro now, not retro-worshipped in the manner of Depeche Mode, New Order, or The Cure, but you can hear the reason why - these guys are too sad.”

ReasonBigsGuySongOrderCitiesBoysLonelinessLowsPopsLustCuresReason WhyShopsPetDressingsEightyDressing UpBig CitiesReally WeirdPop SongRetroHeydayDepeche Mode
Author:Rob Sheffield
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“I love and admire the American culture and the American dream. I learnt so many things about the American shoe industry and marketing strategies. I caught the secrets of American casual wear, that is elegant and wearable, retro and modern, and mixed it with an Italian touch, luxurious and handmade.”

DreamCultureSecretModernIndustryStrategyShoesMarketingCaughtAdmireItalianAmerican DreamElegantCasualAmerican CultureMarketing StrategyLuxuriousRetroHandmade
Author:Diego Della Valle
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