20 Years Ago Quotes & Sayings

I had three children while doing a show, as demanding as 'Good Morning America,' so this is - you know, it's almost like I'm less daunted about motherhood, and parenting at this point in time. And I think I'm just much more fit and healthy than I was 20-years-ago. — Joan Lunden

Once upon a time, about 20 years ago, runners believed they didn't have to do anything but run — Amby Burfoot

People refer to 'the good ol' days', but I don't know what they're talking about. As someone who's battled cancer, if I lived more than 20 years ago, I'd be a dead man — Lance Armstrong

I wanted to get back to my style of 20 years ago after a long period of exploring horror and fantasy themes. — Dario Argento

I saw a ghost once, about 20 years ago. It took the form of someone coming out of a sleeping body and sitting at the foot of the bed. — Peter Ackroyd

I think the 24-hour news cycle has helped exaggerate the differences between the parties. You can always find someone on TV somewhere carping about something. That didn't happen 20 years ago. — George H. W. Bush

A hundred years ago-even 20 or 30 years ago-it was possible, if not always easy, to close major business by calling on and satisfying a key decision-maker. Today, every piece of business entails multiple decisions, and those decisions are virtually never made by the same person. Not only do you have to contend with multiple decisions, but the people who make those decisions may not even work in the same place. — Brian Tracy

Only astrophysicists new about the Internet 20 years ago. Today my cat has a website. — William J. Clinton

I was with my dad 20 years ago as he was dying. I was there at the moment of his death, and I kept wondering the whole while what it must feel like from his point of view to still be there thinking, hearing all that was going on as people came and went, and life continued all around him. — Jill McCorkle

The 4D style, or cosmic comics and relativistic humor, is based on Einstein's theory of relativity which I came up with 20 years ago. 4D works use the idea of the fourth dimension, time, playing on such surrealistic and amazing subjects as motion relativity, space curvature and time dilation. — Javad Alizadeh

Swipe fees have increased steadily since the introduction of debit cards 20 years ago, when there were no swipe fees at all. Merchants can't negotiate or control them. They've tried, but they have no leverage against the big banks and issuers. So they get ignored. — Peter Welch

When I met my wife 20 plus years ago, she was a vegetarian, so I was the closest thing to the devil that she had ever met. — Michael Symon

There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it. — Sam Mendes

Hostility towards China distorted Australia's international affairs for 20 years until 1972, but reconciliation with China 30 years ago had produced a quarter century of constructive bipartisan relations with our region and the world, unmatched in Australian history. — Gough Whitlam

One of my favourite items is a very old jacket - it was my mum's uniform from when she was working 15 or 20 years ago. — Astrid Berges-Frisbey

I wouldn't be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago — Barack Obama

I'm hoping that these next 20 years will show what we did 20 years ago in sequencing the first human genome, was the beginning of the health revolution that will have more positive impact in people's lives than any other health event in history. — Craig Venter

wonderful bit of Chinese wisdom that asks, "When is the best time to plant a tree?" The answer is "20 years ago, but the next best time is right now. — Paul S. Boynton

You have to realize that, about 20,000 years ago, there was a cataclysmic event when an entire rock face collapsed and sealed off the cave. It's a completely preserved time capsule. You've got tracks of cave bears that look like they were left yesterday, and you've got the footprint of a boy who was probably eight years old next to the footprint of a wolf. — Werner Herzog

Sometimes I ask myself, "Should I be out in a club?" But it's about realising I don't need to be always chasing after being who I was 20 or 30 years ago. — Marc Almond

I still have the same outlook on things that I did 10, 20 years ago. As an animator, there's no career path that you can follow; there's very few people doing this that you can look to and pinpoint the mistakes. It hasn't changed since I was little. You have interests and follow them and strange things happen, organically or not. — Don Hertzfeldt

Had you told me 20 years ago this would be my life, I'd have gone "What?" and then stuck out my tongue to all the girls that were mean to me. — Katee Sackhoff

I'm one of the few people that I know that sings better than they did 20 years ago. — Steve Earle

It doesn't matter to me. I'm just worried. It's the first time I've see Teach like that. He said he had two regrets ... Once, 20 years ago. And once when you hurt your wrist. He said he didn't ever want to regret again. I wonder what that means. — Kim Su-mi

We not only heard it before 20 years ago, before George Bush in 2001 passed his tax relief, before in 2003 the tax relief were past, we were told they were dead. Before we provided prescription drugs for Medicare, we were told it wasn't going to happen. — Ken Mehlman

My ultimate crush may be Judith McNaught - I met her once more than 20 years ago, and she was incredibly kind and encouraging to me. I adore that woman. But I also fangirl over aspiring or beginning authors, because every time I talk with them, I'm so energized and inspired. — Lisa Kleypas

After granting amnesty to illegals 20 years ago, we have gone from 3 million illegals to 11 million illegals. Our government has been fooled once by this amnesty argument, let us not be fooled again. — Ric Keller

We live in a multi-cultural society far more open to international ideas. If you'd told me 20 years ago I'd drive through Bury and see someone sitting outside a cafe drinking a latte, I'd have laughed. In fact, I wouldn't have even known what a latte was. — Gary Neville

20-some years ago, I'd have a big old radio with a tape deck, and I'd hit record and try to get something down on the tape, but nowadays, I can use my handy little smart-phone; I sing into the app for voice memo. — Mary Chapin Carpenter

And here's Moses Kiptanui - the 19 year old Kenyan, who turned 20 a few weeks ago. — David Coleman

All the events you have experienced in your lifetime up to this moment have been created by your thoughts and beliefs you have held in the past. They were created by the thoughts and words you used yesterday, last week, last month, last year, 10, 20, 30, 40, or more years ago, depending on how old you are. — Louise L. Hay

The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books - mine included - because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened. — James Lovelock

The key to happiness is loving yourself. For years I have struggled to reach this point and even now at the age of 20 I will be honest in saying I am not 100% there yet. However, I will say I am much closer to that 100 than I was 5 years ago. — Gabriela M. Sanchez

But at the same time you can't assume that making a difference 20 years ago is going to allow you to sort of live on the laurels of those victories for the rest of your life. — Angela Davis

What was called extreme 20 years ago definitely isn't extreme anymore. When I started, I remember people saying, 'Oh my God, I can't walk in that!' It was like, three inches - they look like kitten heels now. — Christian Louboutin

People in England were coming up to me, saying, My mother and father turned me on to your music. This happened to me 20 years ago. When I was 40 they were saying that. — Roy Ayers

I think it can be hard for any man to sometimes be upstaged by his wife. So when I'm home, I work very hard to be Todd's wife and Jade's mother. I have no problem going back to those traditional roles. I try to be Giada, the young girl that he met 20 years ago and fell in love with. — Giada De Laurentiis

It makes me forget that I'm not going to be a major star and lead female in films whether it was 20 years ago, 10 years ago, five or in the future. — Pam Grier

Does a human life, a "personality," exist as a single thread that can be followed through time? Is the "me" of 20 years ago the same "me" that exists now? Will I still be me in 20 years? — Dan Chaon

I think we've got to look at corporate law. Back in the day when I studied it, there were different constituencies that were to be served, and I think there was a real wrong turn about 20 to 25 years ago when the theory began to be promoted that your highest duty - in fact, some would argue, your only duty - is to maximize shareholder return. I just don't buy it. And it wasn't the original underpinnings of the legal theory of corporate law. — Hillary Clinton

If I stayed a football player, my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is, my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports, but I found I could have a more profound impact on people. — William Petersen

One thing I do personally started 20 years ago. I started meditating, and I know twice a day I can kind of let everything drop. It's just about being quiet, like drawing back the day, and it allows me to have energy. — Hugh Jackman

I'm pretty much the same person I was 20 years ago. My politics haven't changed. I have the same feeling of idealism. But I am a little bit wiser and more experienced. — Lucinda Williams

I only really started to go to plays and to be interested in drama 20 years ago when as an artist I was already well-rounded. I think I'm more disciplined today. — Pete Townshend

15 or 20 years ago it would not have been possible for me to come out. Back then, people still had such narrow views, but today many of them are more liberal. Being gay is no longer a taboo in many parts of society. That has affected sports, even boxing. — Orlando Cruz

I am extremely lucky; I've never been ill - although about 20 years ago I broke my right arm hang gliding. — Micky Dolenz

It would be sad if my best work had been 20 years ago and now I only had memories. — Demian Bichir

In France today, people no longer eat as much heavy food and fat as they did 15 or 20 years ago. These days, French cooking, through the influence of 'grande cuisine,' has become a bit lighter. And we are beginning to discover the original flavors of our produce. — Joel Robuchon

Instinct taught me 20 years ago to pace a song or a concert performance. That translates into pacing a story, pleasing a reading audience. — Jimmy Buffett

Imagine, a First World country founded on egalitarian principles in which the top 20 per cent of households have 84 per cent of the wealth, while the bottom 40 per cent have 0.3 per cent; and one family, the Waltons, owns more than the bottom 40 per cent of US families combined; and the ratio of CEO salary to unskilled worker is 354 to 1 (fifty years ago it was 20 to 1). A minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which is 34 per cent less than workers on the minimum were getting in 1968. More than 20 per cent of children in the United States live in poverty, more than twice the rate of any European country. With a quarter of totalitarian China's population, democratic America has about the same number of people in jail. — Don Watson

I don't like to dwell on the past. I'm interested in Fischerandom now, I am working on a new clock, I'm trying to make chess a more exciting game today. I am not interested in sitting in my rocking chair thinking what I did 10, 20 or 30 years ago. — Bobby Fischer

After living and working in Milan and Paris, I arrived in New York City 20 years ago, and I saw both the joys and the hardships of daily life. On July 28, 2006, I was very proud to become a citizen of the United States - the greatest privilege on planet Earth. — Melania Trump

I have everything I had 20 years ago, only it's all a little lower. — Gypsy Rose Lee

All we're really doing is repeating technologies that were tried 10, 20, 30 years ago ... it's just that it was too expensive, too unusable, and we didn't have the enabling technologies to make it possible. — Aaron Levie

We didn't know much about each other twenty years ago. We were guided by our intuition; you swept me off my feet. It was snowing when we got married at the Ahwahnee. Years passed, kids came, good times, hard times, but never bad times. Our love and respect has endured and grown. We've been through so much together and here we are right back where we started 20 years ago - older, wiser - with wrinkles on our faces and hearts. We now know many of life's joys, sufferings, secrets and wonders and we're still here together. My feet have never returned to the ground. — Walter Isaacson

I was doing a play out in L.A. 20-some-odd years ago called 'Goose and Tomtom' by David Rabe, and somebody saw it and the next thing I know I'm doing the table read of the film version of 'Glengarry Glen Ross' with Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon - one of the great films of our generation. — Richard Schiff

My last fight was more than 20 years ago. I'm not a fighter, I'm a lover. If somebody's going to speak bad about me, I will walk away. But if a guy like Steven Seagal slaps me once, I will slap him twice as hard. Life is full of violence. — Jean-Claude Van Damme

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner. — Walt Disney

I've got everything I had 20 years ago, except now it's all lower. — Gypsy Rose Lee

Winters with strong frost and lots of snow like we had 20 years ago will cease to exist at our latitudes. — Mojib Latif

A long time ago, I learned not to go up to the boss and ask what's happening to my character. I haven't done that for 20 years, since I was on 'Days of Our Lives.' — Michael Easton

Americans now know that housing prices can go down and they can go down by 10, 20, 30, and in some cases, 40 or 50 percent. We know they can go down. But five years ago, we thought they could only go up. — Bill Gross

I photographed rocks and trees and tide pools and nudes and all that stuff for years and years. Until 20 years ago when I found that I could do it in the studio and never have to travel. — Kim Weston

The stuff that made me mad 20 years ago doesn't really make me mad any more. — Jeff Foxworthy

A lot of people like to live on laurels that happened 20 or 30 years ago, but it's nice to get awards. It's nice to be labeled and things like that, but I'm not sure everybody qualifies. — Tim Conway

Everybody seems to have given up hope of trying. I haven't. It isn't easy and it isn't supposed to be, but I'm accomplishing something. How many people give up a lot to do something good. I'm sure we would have found a cure for cancer 20 years ago if we had really tried — Terry Fox

It's weird when you see pieces of choreography that were done for you 15 or 20 years ago and now they are being done by another dance company. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

When I watch myself on camera, in any capacity - being interviewed, performing, 20 years ago or yesterday - there's a part of me that really doesn't grasp that it's me. — Kathleen Hanna

Moments ago, the U.S. Senate decided to do the unthinkable about gun violence
nothing at all. Over two years ago, when I was shot point-blank in the head, the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing. Four months ago, 20 first-graders lost their lives in a brutal attack on their school, and the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing. It's clear to me that if members of the U.S. Senate refuse to change the laws to reduce gun violence, then we need to change the members of the U.S. Senate. — Gabrielle Giffords

I did pose for 'Black and White' magazine, a prestigious, artistic publication, several years ago ... I did this as a piece of art and make no apologies for the creative decisions I've made as an artist in my 20-year career. — Andrea Thompson

For example, it's only about 20 years ago the people in that community would have got telephone lines, and it would be only about in the 1950s that electricity came to that part of the world. Television wouldn't have come till 1970. — John McGahern

Back 20 years ago, I was recording with Bruce Springsteen, and his producer called me and said I had to be in the studio the next day to finish the sessions, and I couldn't. I had to be in court, in California. All this took like 10 years out of my life. — Ronnie Spector

I grew up in San Francisco and moved to L.A. about 20 years ago, and now my main home is in Hollywood. — Roman Coppola

People like Arvo Part would not have been taken seriously 20 years ago. — Gavin Bryars

I came to Ireland 20 years ago as a student, hitch-hiking round for a week and staying in Dublin. — Greta Scacchi

The history of science fiction started in the caves 20,000 years ago. The ideas on the walls of the cave were problems to be solved. It's problem solving. Primitive scientific knowledge, primitive dreams, primitive blueprinting: to solve problems. — Ray Bradbury

I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, but I made a rap song 20 years ago with Afrika Bambaataa. — John Lydon

I like to use things that didn't exist 50 years ago, or 20 years ago even. — Kesh

I found the second story that I'd ever written, 20 years ago in Wellington. It was written in the third person, the person most girls use when they want to talk about themselves but don't think anyone will listen. — Chris Kraus

More and more people are able to access information - thank goodness we have the Internet and if you are interested you can find things. Which is different than even 20 years ago. — Edwidge Danticat

We don't have to reinvent the wheel, just go back to what it was in terms of how corporations acted in terms of their collective responsibility just 20 years ago. — Joe Biden

I started my cooking 'career' aged 15, almost 20 years ago. At the time it was quite a shock suddenly working 75 to 80 hours a week, without time to play football or other sports. — Rene Redzepi

As animals have no idea of the holy or the devil, they have no idea of the beautiful. The opinion held by some scientists that apes could paint, based on the 'paintings' apes had done, proved to be quite wrong. It has been confirmed that apes only imitate man. So- called 'ape art' surely does not exist. On the contrary, the cave men from Cromagnon onward knew how to paint and care. Their drawings have been found in caves of the Sahara, in Spain at Altamira, in Franc at Lascaux, and recently in Poland at Mashicka. Many of these pictures are thought to be more than 30,000 years old. Some time ago, a group of Soviet archeologists discovered a set of musical instruments, made 20,000 years ago, near the town of Chernigov in the Ukraine. — Alija Izetbegovic

I would like to take the stigma away. 'Mastectomy' the word seemed so scary to me at first. After doing research and seeing the advancements, the surgery has come a long way from 20 years ago. The results can be incredible. — Giuliana Rancic

Just because you are embarrassed to admit that you're still living the consequences of bad decisions made 5, 10, 20 years ago shouldn't stop you from making good decisions now. If you let pride stop you, you will hate life 5, 10, and 20 years from now for the same reasons. — Tim Ferriss

I think people at least now, as opposed to ten-15-20 years ago, kind of get it, what is the bad food. I think, before, there was a time when they didn't even get it that processed food was hurting them. Now, I think they get that, but the big enemies to switching over to good food are convenience. — Mark Bittman

It is way less certain to be a wonderful business in the future. The threat is alternative mediums of information. Every newspaper is scrambling to parlay their existing advantage into dominance on the Internet. But it is way less sure [that this will occur] than the certainty 20 years ago that the basic business would grow steadily, so there's more downside risk. The perfectly fabulous economics of this business could become grievously impaired. — Charlie Munger

The cost of campaigning has skyrocketed in recent years because of the falloff in TV viewership. With only one-third as many people watching TV as did 20 years ago, politicians have responded by buying three times as many ads, driving the cost of campaigning to levels which only favored candidates can afford. — Dick Morris

Nobody, 20 years ago, forecast the Internet. — Bryan Appleyard

Thirty years ago, about 80% of a company's assets resided in its plant and equipment, with 20% in the knowledge of its people. Today, the reverse is true. The knowledge of our staff is our principal asset — Susan Rice

In the depth of the near depression, that he faced when he came in, Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress provided 'recovery funds' that literally kept our classrooms open. Two years ago, these funds saved nearly 20,000 teacher and education jobs - just here in North Carolina. — Jim Hunt

One thing that took a while to really adjust to was, you do it for the the art, for the money, for being together and having a good time, but you do it for all those people out there who really care about the show. We are now talking about a show we did over 20 years ago. — Steve Kanaly

I'd like to describe a sort of life 20 years ago as being a fried egg. There was a yolk and a white and the white was maybe work, and the yolk was life. Today, it's more of an omelet. It's more mixed and it's more interspersed and I think that that's a more interesting state of being and for some people, they'll say well I want the crisp, fried egg approach to life. — Nicholas Negroponte

I've been a Mac guy for almost my entire adult life. I wrote my first college papers on a typewriter, but by the end of my freshman year - almost 20 years ago - I was on an IBM PC. Then, in 1984, I found the Mac, and I never looked back. — John Battelle

The funny thing in France is that writers are not allowed to retire, because the French government say you are still earning money from books you wrote 20 years ago. — Peter Mayle

But in the financial markets, without proper institutional rules, there's the law of the jungle - because there's greed! There's nothing wrong with greed, per se. It's not that people are more greedy now than they were 20 years ago. But greed has to be tempered, first, by fear of losses. So if you bail people out, there's less fear. And second, b prudential regulation and supervision to avoid certain excesses. — Nouriel Roubini

In Turkey it was always 1952, in Malaysia 1937; Afghanistan was 1910 and Bolivia 1949. It is 20 years ago in the Soviet Union, 10 in Norway, five in France. It is always last year in Australia and next week in Japan. — Paul Theroux

A few years ago, before I stopped drinking, I was feeling very sorry for myself and very drunk, and I Googled 'Moby Sucks'. In less than one second something like 20 million responses came up ... yeah, there has been a lot of loathing directed towards me, and it used to drive me crazy. — Moby

My work life makes much less sense now than 20 years ago. It's Humpty-Dumpty-like in a way; I can't put the pieces back together. — Kiki Smith

We believe that the developing crisis in the capitalist system, by which we mean both economic stagnation, and the social and political conflicts to which it gives rise, makes it possible to think in terms of developing a sizeable and serious revolutionary socialist party in a way that was not possible 20 or even 10 years ago. — Anthony Crosland