PAST QUOTES V

quotations about the past

Past quote

All the past is not worth one today.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"New Year"

Tags: Ella Wheeler Wilcox


The only past which endures lies wordlessly within you.

FRANK HERBERT

God Emperor of Dune

Tags: Frank Herbert


What is the past, what is it all for? A mental sandwich?

JOHN ASHBERY

"37 Haiku"

Tags: John Ashbery


The past is never where you think you left it.

KATHERINE ANNE PORTER

Ship of Fools

Tags: Katherine Anne Porter


My past is everything I failed to be.

FERNANDO PESSOA

The Book of Disquiet

Tags: Fernando Pessoa


What is it about the past? I can never understand it. Why is it so powerful? Why does it appeal to us as if it had some extraordinary pearl of meaning that we can't find in our present lives?

JOHN BANVILLE

"Oblique dreamer", The Guardian, September 17, 2000

Tags: John Banville


The day before is what we bring to the day we're actually living through, life is a matter of carrying along all those days-before just as someone might carry stones, and when we can no longer cope with the load, the work is done.

JOSÉ SARAMAGO

The Cave

Tags: José Saramago


It is not that I have no past. Rather, it continually fragments on the terrible and vivid ephemera of now.

SAMUEL R. DELANY

Dhalgren

Tags: Samuel R. Delany


Is not the pastness of the past the more profound, the more legendary, the more immediately it falls before the present?

THOMAS MANN

The Magic Mountain

Tags: Thomas Mann


I have put off the past like a worn-out cloak.

ROBERT E. HOWARD

The Hour of the Dragon

Tags: Robert E. Howard


The past is referred to as being dead; but it is terribly alive.

EDGAR WATSON HOWE

Country Town Sayings

Tags: Edgar Watson Howe


The past was another country and one which the movement of time's tectonic plates pulled further away every year.

MICHAEL MARSHALL

The Upright Man

Tags: Michael Marshall


The past was bitter and dry and ashes in his mouth, its bone arms clasped him like some old desiccated lover he could not be shut of.

WILLIAM GAY

Provinces of Night

Tags: William Gay


The past is as locked in stone as a Jurassic fossil, but by our daily actions, we continuously change the future.

DEAN KOONTZ

Odd Apocalypse

Tags: Dean Koontz


Learn to recognize the future the way a Steersman identifies guiding stars and corrects the course of his vessel. Learn from the past; never use it as an anchor.

BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON

Dune: House Harkonnen

Tags: Brian Herbert


Only by acceptance of the past will you alter its meaning.

T. S. ELIOT

The Cocktail Party

Tags: T. S. Eliot


Nothing's ever done.... No matter what you do, or what you pretend, the past is there. You can't ignore it.

JOHN SAUL

When the Wind Blows

Tags: John Saul


Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms,
Our echoes die in that corridor and now
I come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones
Retracing the path back, lifting the buttons.

SEAMUS HEANEY

The Underground

Tags: Seamus Heaney


You read the past in some old faces.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

The Virginians

Tags: William Makepeace Thackeray


past moments old dreams back again or fresh like those that pass or things things always and memories I say them as I hear them murmur them in the mud

SAMUEL BECKETT

How It Is

Tags: Samuel Beckett