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The Past Quotes

Browse 255 quotes about The Past.

The Past Quotes

“I'm looking at all this and I'm thinking that one day I won't be here to see it and I know I'll miss it, even if I won't have a heartbeat to miss anything. I miss it now for the-days-when, the way I miss places I've never traveled to or things I've never done." "What things have you never done?" "You're young and you're very handsome—how could you possibly understand?" He removed his arm. He lived in a future that wouldn't be his to live in and longed for a past that hadn't been his either. There was no turning back and no going forward. I felt for him.”

MissingRegretSadThe PastAndre AcimanThe FutureEnigma VariationsMissed Opportunities
Book:Enigma Variations
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“Grandfather died a few days after his hundredth birthday. Both Father and I were there at the end, in the room where I'd been born, forty-four years ago. It was not unlike that day, with sunlight streaming through the windows, and hummingbirds hovering outside, iridescent sun-glittering flashes of jewels. A dove was calling, back in the cool shade. Grandfather's hand was cool, as cool as the river. He tried to sit up to look out at the sunlight. "Sycamores grow by running water," he sang, "cottonwoods by still water," and then he died, and I felt a century slip away.”

DeathFamilyThe PastPassage Of TimeGrandparentsFamily BondsBygone Times
Book:The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness: Three Lyrical Short Stories of Texas, Appalachia, and the Untamed American West
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“After a significant loss, it's tempting to live life in the past - wishing it had been different, screaming that it was unfair; deconstructing every decision to figure out where things went wrong or what you could have done differently, imagining what life would be like now had the past turned out the way you wish it had. But as the existential psychologist Irving Yalom said, sooner or later we all have to 'give up the hope for a better past.' You cannot change the facts of your history; you cannot change your loss. But you can integrate that loss into who you are now and decide what that will mean for you as you move forward. It is easy to conceptualize life as a series of events that happen to you, and your story as a reporting of those events. But it is not that simple. It is not just what has happened to you that shapes you. The way that you make sense of what happened to you also shapes you. There is the story you have lived up until this moment and then there is the story you are still living, telling, and creating. You are not just the storyteller; you are the story writer. How you understand the story of your past and your present is shaping a future that is still unfolding.”

StoriesLossGriefReflectionNarrativeGrievingBereavementThe Past
Book:What's Your Grief?: Lists to Help You Through Any Loss
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“I miss that feeling of connection. Knowing he was out there somewhere thinking about me at the same time I was thinking about him.”

FeelingsBeautifulQuotesLostMemoriesLossLove QuotesGriefSadnessSadHeartbreakConnectionsQuoteMemoryLove Quotes And SayingsGrievingBreakupConnectionBroken HeartGrief And LossLove QuoteLost LoveUnrequited LoveLove QuotationsHeartbrokenRemindersDeep ThoughtsSad QuotesWithout YouFeelings And EmotionsGrief QuotesMissing SomeoneDeep LoveThe PastBreakup QuotesUnrequitedHeartbreak QuotesConnectednessLoss Of LoveMemories QuotesMemory QuoteBreak UpsLoss QuotesFeelings Of LoveBeautiful QuoteI Miss YouLost Love QuotesReminiscingSad QuoteMissing You QuotesReminiscenceHeartbroken QuotesThe One That Got AwayBreakup QuoteRanata SuzukiRanata Suzuki QuoteBreak Up QuoteLoss QuoteDeep Love QuotesConnection With PeopleReminisceAlways Yours
Author:Ranata Suzuki
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“I had always wanted to hear those words. I had always wanted to be your girl.”

LoveFeelingsBeautifulQuotesMemoriesLove QuotesQuoteDistanceMemoryLove Quotes And SayingsDevotionLove QuoteLove QuotationsRemindersDeep ThoughtsFeelings And EmotionsDeep LoveThe PastSecret LoveDistance RelationshipMemories QuotesMemory QuoteFeelings Of LoveBeautiful QuoteReminiscingReminiscenceRanata SuzukiRanata Suzuki QuoteDeep Love QuotesThe Only OneReminisceAlways YoursFrom A DistanceDevot
Author:Ranata Suzuki
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“When one embraces a moment of rapture from the past, either by trying to reclaim it or by refusing to let it go, how can its brightness not tarnish, turn grey with longing and sorrow, until the wild spell of the remembered interlude is lost altogether and the memory of sadness claims its rightful place in the mind? And what is it we expect from the sun-drenched past? There is no formula for re-entry, nothing we can do to enable reconstruction.”

Letting GoMemoryThe Past
Book:The Stone Carvers
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“Every person with ADHD already knows that destination addiction is part of their disorder. However, if it doesn’t have a positive outlet, it can destroy your life. It is not another person that will make your life better; it is the qualities in them that you admire. Incorporate those attributes into your own life and you won’t miss a thing.”

TruthRelationshipsWifePositive ThinkingGratitudeHusbandLetting GoAdversityWellnessCommandmentsPastorSpouseSermonsListenSeeThe PastRight PathGod S PlanAdventuresAdhdStayingpositiveu ComMarriage TipsTemptationsDisordersDestinationsHonor Your WifeStimulus SeekingRed PathConvenantBeing HonorableGuardian Angel ForeverPositive ActivitiesPositive StimulusStay PostiveVibrant Marriage
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“A deceitful man will go as far as to trample all over a woman’s reputation and spirit, in order to prove to his ex-love that he was faithful. The irony, is he is still in love with his ex and the new woman in his life doesn’t even realize it.”

ChildrenMemoriesPlayerAngerCompetitionBetrayalStupidityDesperateFraudThe PastCheaterUnfinished BusinessCheatersLack Of TrustWeak WomenBlindsightedBattles WithinStimulus SeekingGullible WomenTempation
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“Some people masturbate to temporarily replace their partners when they are absent, whereas some people do that to temporarily live in the present.”

LongHumorPastQuotesSexRelationshipsMarriageRelationshipMissingHumourLoversFutureQuoteLongingProfoundPartnersGirlfriendThoughtfulSatireThought ProvokingTemporaryDeepInsightfulAphorismPresentLoverQuotationsMaximsSayingsAbsentAdagesBoyfriendProverbsAphorismsMake You ThinkThe PastAxiomsPartnerMasturbationAdageProverbSatiricalSayingEpigramsQuotationGnomeMaximThe FutureEpigramGnomesProvoke ThoughtMade Me ThinkMissAxiomDictumDictumsGirlfriendsBoyfriendsThe PresentSexual IntercourseThe Power Of NowMasturbateReplaceMasturbatingThe NowLong ForTemporarily
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“But another part of me wanted him to sense that there was no point trying to catch up now—we'd traveled and been through too much without each other for there to be any common ground between us. Perhaps I wanted him to feel the sting of loss, and grieve. But in the end, and by way of compromise, perhaps, I decided that the easiest way was to show I'd forgotten none of it. I made a motion to take him to the empty lot that remained as scorched and fallow as when I'd shown it to him two decades before. I had barely finished my offer—'Been there, done that,' he replied. It was his way of telling me he hadn't forgotten either. 'Maybe you'd prefer to make a quick stop at the bank.' He burst out laughing. 'I'll bet you they never closed my account.' 'If we have time, and if you care to, I'll take you to the belfry. I know you've never been up there.' 'To-die-for?' I smiled back. He remembered our name for it.”

MemoriesSeparationRemembranceThe PastCall Me By Your NameAndre AcimanOliver And ElioShared Past
Book:Call Me by Your Name
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“His undergraduate years, each time he spoke of them, acquired a limelit, incandescent magic, as if they belonged to another life, a life to which I had no access since it already belonged to the past. Proof of its existence trickled, as it did now, in his ability to mix drinks, or to tell arcane grappas apart, or to speak to all women, or in the mysterious square envelopes addressed to him that arrived at our house from all over the world. I had never envied him the past, nor felt threatened by it. All these facets of his life had the mysterious character of incidents that had occurred in my father's life long before my birth but which continued to resonate into the present. I didn't envy life before me, nor did I ache to travel back to the time when he had been my age.”

PastThe PastCall Me By Your NameDescriptiveAndre Aciman
Book:Call Me by Your Name
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“Nostalgia has a way of blocking the reality of the past.”

DeathMemoriesSilenceFamilyMarriageFantasyDreamsPridePersonalityDramaEgoLiesCompetitionDivorceBetrayalNostalgiaReal LifeObsessionDenialJealousyGirlfriendBoredomInsecurityCheatingAttachmentDesiresSentimentalBoyfriendThe PastFailuresTreacheryFlirtationMemory LossFightsBickeringFalse MemoriesFuneralsDisappointmentsPicturesVacationsBad RelationshipsDay DreamsStimulus SeekingHow It WasAnnoying HabitsDrama SeekingIncompatabilityMarriage Difficulties
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“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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“The early days of springtime in New York were reliably fickle with heat rising and cool wind blowing, with shadows and rain and shimmering sunlight falling on blooms, the city one step ahead and setting the rhythm for residents trying to keep its pace. In a topsy-turvy continuous motion, it reminded them they’d somersault and skid and finally turn in the direction they ought to go.”

NostalgiaNew York CityThe Past1920s
Book:Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale
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“At first glance her beauty was striking—fresh-faced and delicate with large eyes, her little black dress cinched at the waist, her hair pinned in a chignon. At second glance, her deep, intelligent eyes were entrancing, still vivid on newspapers yellowed from light and air and lined with age that Fate didn’t offer to her.”

TruthTimeNostalgiaThe Past
Book:Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale
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“It was like going back to a childhood home after decades away. You knew it intimately and saw past the changes time had wrought, the nostalgia seeping into you as forgotten memories sprang up, but it wasn’t quite right. It didn’t belong to you anymore, and you were left torn by the desire that things be as they once were, and the realization that the present was as it should be.”

ChildhoodNostalgiaThe Past
Book:The Book of Eden: The Keepers Series, Book Two
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“In short, the man displayed a constant and insurmountable impulse to wrap himself in a covering, to make himself, so to speak, a case which would isolate him and protect him from external influences. Reality irritated him, frightened him, kept him in continual agitation, and, perhaps to justify his timidity, his aversion for the actual, he always praised the past and what had never existed; and even the classical languages which he taught were in reality for him goloshes and umbrellas in which he sheltered himself from real life.”

RealityAnxietyNostalgiaSeparationReal LifeConfusionBiasDiscontentThe PastAversion
Book:Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
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“I understand, Bill. Because I tell myself a lot of stories to help me sleep at night. Stories about how Babe was my dearest friend, and I never betrayed her. Stories about how you and I had a great love, not just an occasional roll in the hay whenever she was out of town. Stories about how wonderful life was back then, when none of us told each other the truth, but so what? It was all so beautiful, wasn’t it? It was all so lovely and gracious. Not like it is now.”

TruthNew YorkNostalgia1960sThe Past
Book:The Swans of Fifth Avenue
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“The birds that came to it through the air At broken windows flew out and in, Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh From too much dwelling on what has been. Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf, And the aged elm, though touched with fire; And the dry pump fung up an awkward arm; And the fence post carried a strand of wire. For them there was really nothing sad. But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept, One had to be versed in country things Not to believe the phoebes wept.”

NatureRegretRuinsBirdsThe PastRural LifeAbandoned Building
Book:New Hampshire
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