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Retrospect Quotes

Browse 213 quotes about Retrospect.

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Retrospect Quotes

“Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer's own life. This has been the case with me. Connections slowly emerge. Like distant landmarks you are approaching, cause and effect begin to align themselves, draw closer together. Experiences too indefinite of outline in themselves to be recognized for themselves connect and are identified as a larger shape. And suddenly a light is thrown back, as when your train makes a curve, showing that there has been a mountain of meaning rising behind you on the way you've come, is rising there still, proven now through retrospect. Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists. The strands are all there: to the memory nothing is ever lost.”

WritingLostFictionMountainRespectExperienceTrainMemoryConnectionSequenceNothingCause And EffectRetrospectConnectIdentified
Book:On Writing
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“...But on social media, everyone is an 'expert' judge: for sure anyone can get it right through deep analyses and in retrospect, sitting comfortably at home, typing on their soapbox after the fact; but at the same time, most people will get it wrong when forced to act or speak on impulse, in a panicked, heat-of-the-moment situation with no time to think. In its self-righteousness, or in any way whatsoever, the creation can never fool the Creator.”

Social MediaExpertsArroganceRetrospectSelf RighteousnessSoapboxPanickingRantingJudgmentalismActing On Impulse
Author:Criss Jami
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“Too often we only identify the crucial points in our lives in retrospect. At the time we are too absorbed in the fetid detail of the moment to spot where it is leading us. But not this time. I was experiencing one of my dad’s deafening moments. If my life could be understood as a meal of many courses (and let’s be honest, much of it actually was), then I had finished the starters and I was limbering up for the main event. So far, of course, I had made a stinking mess of it. I had spilled the wine. I had dropped my cutlery on the floor and sprayed the fine white linen with sauce. I had even spat out some of my food because I didn’t like the taste of it. “But it doesn’t matter because, look, here come the waiters. They are scraping away the debris with their little horn and steel blades, pulled with studied grace from the hidden pockets of their white aprons. They are laying new tablecloths, arranging new cutlery, placing before me great domed wine glasses, newly polished to a sparkle. There are more dishes to come, more flavors to try, and this time I will not spill or spit or drop or splash. I will not push the plate away from me, the food only half eaten. I am ready for everything they are preparing to serve me. Be in no doubt; it will all be fine.” (pp.115-6)”

TimeCoursesGraceFoodTasteWineMessPocketsMomentSauceLivesRetrospectWine GlassStartersDebrisLinenMealIdentifyFloorWaitersApronCutlerySplashAbsorbedPlateCrucial PointsTableclothDeafening MomentsMain Event
Book:Eating Crow: A Novel of Apology
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“In retrospect, it's ridiculous that anyone saw me as a fashion icon, since all I was trying to do was to dumb down my middle-class look by messing with my hair. Throughout the eighties I was invariably half-sure and half-confident about whatever it was I wore…Still, I've always believed—still do—that the radical is far more interesting when it looks benign and ordinary on the outside.”

TryingLooksStillsInterestingHalfClassSawsMiddleFashionHairOrdinaryRidiculousRadicalDumbMiddle ClassEightyAlways BelieveIconsRetrospectBenignFashion Icon
Book:Girl in a Band
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“In retrospect, the past seems not one existence with a continuous flow of years and events that follow each other in logical sequence, but a life periodically dividing into entirely separate compartments. Change of surroundings, interests, pursuits, has made it seem actually more like different incarnations.”

YearsMadeDifferentSeemsPastInterestExistenceEventsReflectionFlowPursuitMade ItLogicalSurroundingsSequenceIncarnationRetrospectDividing
Book:The Fabric of Memory
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“When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive, seems now most futile and absurd. For instance, success in all of its various guises; being known and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it like Satan, exploring and experiencing whatever Vanity Fair has to offer. In retrospect all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called “licking the earth.”

WorldLooksSelfSometimesSeemsEarthPleasureKnownFantasyExerciseOffersPureFairsVariousStrikesSignificantAbsurdInstanceVanitySatanExploringUp And DownGratificationSeductiveSeducingRetrospectGuiseLickingPascalVanity FairSelf Gratification
Author:Malcolm Muggeridge
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“When you have committed an action that you cannot bear to think about, that causes you to writhe in retrospect, do not seek to evade the memory: make yourself relive it, confront it repeatedly over and over, till finally, you will discover, through sheer repetition it loses its power to pain you. It works, I guarantee you, this sure-fire guilt-eradicator, like a homeopathic medicine - like in small doses applied to like. It works, but I am not sure that it is a good thing.”

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Author:Mary McCarthy
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“The reader can test his own psychology by asking himself whether he would consider, in retrospect, the selling at 156 in 1925 and buying back at 109 in 1931 was a satisfactory operation. Some may think that an intelligent investor should have been able to sell out much closer to the high of 381 and to buy back nearer the low of 41. If that is your own view you are probably a speculator at heart and will have trouble keeping to true investment precepts while the market rushes up and down.”

IfsThinkingShouldHeartMayHas BeensAbleViewsPsychologyTroubleReaderLowsShould HaveTestsIntelligentAskingSellsInvestmentSellingOperationsBuyingInvestorsUp And DownShould Have BeenRetrospectSpeculators
Author:Benjamin Graham
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“Every age fraught with discord and danger seems to spawn a leader meant only for that age, a political giant whose absence, in retrospect, seems inconceivable when the history of that age is written.”

SeemsAgePoliticalLeadershipLeaderWrittenDangerAbsenceGiantsRetrospectDiscordSpawn
Book:The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion
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“The first time I ever performed spoken word poetry in front of a big crowd, it totally failed. It ended, people barely clapped...in retrospect the poem was terrible. And for a while I thought this was something I would never do again. And then I realized that, in my 17-year-old head, that was the worst it could have been. And it wasn't that bad - [because] from there, it could only get better. And I think that failure kind of freed me up to explore and not be afraid of failing again.”

PeopleThinkingYearsFirstsKindHas BeensBigsFailingWorstFrontsTerribleFirst TimeCrowdsI RealizedGet BetterCould Have BeenRetrospectSpoken Word
Author:Phil Kay
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“The widespread inability to understand technological artifacts as fabricated entities, as social and cultural phenomena, derives from the fact that in retrospect only those technologies that prove functional for a culture and can be integrated into everyday life are 'left over.' However, the perception of what is functional, successful and useful is itself the product of social and cultural--and last but not least--political and economic processes. Selection processes and abandoned products and product forms are usually not discussed.”

FactsLastsFormPoliticalCultureLeftSocialProcessTechnologySuccessfulEconomicProductsProvePerceptionEverydayAbandonedEntityTechnologicalEveryday LifeSelectionInabilityIntegratedRetrospectArtifacts
Author:Johannes Grenzfurthner
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“It is often interesting, in retrospect, to consider the trifling causes that lead to great events. A chance encounter, a thoughtless remark - and the tortuous chain reaction of coincidence is set in motion, leading with devious inevitability to some resounding climax.”

CausesChanceInterestingEventsReactionsChainsEncountersCoincidenceRemarksInevitabilityRetrospectClimaxTriflingDeviousGreat EventsChain ReactionsChance Encounters
Book:Down Among the Dead Men
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