Back To Those Days Quotes & Sayings

I envied his inspiration, his optimism in focusing back on the painful but glorious days. They were caring days, when we knew what we were living and fighting for and why we needed to suffer and sacrifice.
Those were the days when all of us were young, very pure and very sincere. — Bao Ninh

In 1989, I was on Tiananmen Square with the students, living in their makeshift tents and joining their jubilant singing of the Internationale. In the two decades since, each time that I have gone back, visions from those days seem to return with increasing persistence. — Ma Jian

Now back in those days, to become a rural mail carrier you had to be approved by congress. — Betty Hill

Football is only once a week. NASCAR is once a week. Those sports are insanely popular. Horse racing is oversaturated. Unless tracks cut back to three days a week of full fields, a lot of people will really hurt down the road. Horse racing, to survive, has to go to that. Let's face it: Churchill Downs only does well on Derby Week. — Rick Pitino

The days of my youth, as I look back on them; seem to fly away from me in a flurry of pale repetitive scraps like those morning snow storms of used tissue paper that a train passenger sees whirling in the wake of the observation can. — Vladimir Nabokov

She told me once she envied the women who lived back in the good old days who only had to worry about Indians and mountain lions killing their husbands. Something about those things being beyond a wife's control. — Tawni O'Dell

With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.
In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed. — Ernest Hemingway,

I'm still trying to figure out how to write about cancer and my family's experience with it. If I had been able to write 'The Pura Principle' back in those days, I'm positive it would have had no humor in it. Which means the story would have been false. — Junot Diaz

Kelly tried to soothe his racing heart as he took a seat and leaned back. This was going to be a long night, but he had learned long ago that dark times are best weathered with those you love. And when the dawn of a new day greeted them, he prayed that the skies would be clear, the rest of their days spent together basking in the light. — Jay Bell

Country music in the mid-'90s was a big influence on my career, and I played all the songs that are referenced in '94' back in my club days. Joe Diffie was rocking a sick mullet, and he was hotter than ever ... just putting out monster hit after monster hit. It totally takes me back to those days, and it makes me smile every time I hear it. — Jason Aldean

Even if I had convict ancestry, I wouldn't be ashamed of it. As far as I'm concerned, the real criminals back in those days weren't twelve-year-old boys nicking a loaf of bread or a pair of socks to ward off hunger and blisters. No, it was those who exploited them; keeping the battler in the gutter while they sat around in their manors, sipping tea and admiring portraits of their toffee-nosed great grandfathers. — Cameron Trost

It's a fine, warm day," Henry replied. "I thought a spot of fishing?"
"Just the thing!" said Felix. "Will you join us, Lucy?" Lucy felt Kitty and Sophia staring at her. Well-bred ladies, evidently, did not fish.
"Oh, no! I assure you, Mr. Crowley-Cumberbatch, I have given up those hoyden pursuits of my youth." She turned to Toby. "I haven't been fishing in ages. I can't remember the last time."
"Really, Luce?" Toby sounded incredulous. "Henry - is it true?"
Henry sawed away at a slice of ham. "If you count six days as ages, then I suppose it's true. But if you can't remember six days back, Lucy, and you've forgotten Felix's Christian name, I'm concerned for you. Perhaps you've been spending too much time with Aunt Matilda. — Tessa Dare

Back in the days, the groups and the bands that we listened to were like Earth, Wind and Fire, Santana and Grateful Dead. We don't have a lot of those bands anymore. — Sheila E.

He was done talking. Aiden came off the wall so fast the water reacted in a frenzy of bubbling. He - we - were in a frenzy. His arms crushed me to him, his mouth demanding, saying those three little words over and over again without speaking them. Aiden lifted me up, one hand burying deep in my hair, the other pressing into my lower back, fitting us together. He turned and my back was against the edge and he was everywhere all at once, stealing my breath, my heart, my soul. There was no coming up for air, no control or limits. There was no tottering on the edge. We both fell headfirst. In his arms, in the way the water bubbled and moved with our bodies, I may've lost track of time, but I gained a little part of me. I gained a part of him that U would hold close for the rest of my days, no matter how long or short that turned out to be. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Decisions were permanent, and although we could regret some of them, we couldn't call them back. I had made some poor ones. Neil had too. I guess the best we could hope for, was to love each other as honestly as possible on each day we had left together. And hope for many, many long years of those days in the future. — Raine Miller

I was involved with the Nation of Islam. I wasn't doing no marching. I've been involved with the Nation for 50 years. Back in those days, they tried to label us as black Muslims. There are Muslims all over the world. It doesn't have to be black; it doesn't matter what color he is. — The Mighty Hannibal

But I was never, you know, when I see some kids today who are close to their parents, close to their friends ... I think it's simply wonderful. I was not a happy kid. Back in those days, I remember the sick, gray days were better. Because when it was sunny I'd feel worse. — Mike Wallace

As for my faith: I've become my father's son-that is, I've become the kind of believer that Pastor Merrill used to be. Doubt one minute, faith the next-sometimes inspired, sometimes in despair. Canon Campbell taught me to ask myself a question when the latter state settles upon me. Whom do I know who's alive whom I love? Good question-one that can bring you back to life. These days, I love Dan Needham and the Rev. Katherine Keeling; I know I love them because I worry about them-Dan should lose some weight, Katherine should gain some! What I feel for Hester isn't exactly love; I admire her-she's certainly been a more heroic survivor than I've been, and her kind of survival is admirable. And then there are those distant, family ties that pass for love-I'm talking about Noah and Simon, about Aunt Martha and Uncle Alfred. I look forward to seeing them every Christmas. — John Irving

The profession is never going back to those days when a handful of wealthy people treated publishing like a hobby: one where the business can lose money because the family has lots of it to burn. Frankly, I don't think that model was ever sustainable, and it really only enriched a small number of writers. — Victor LaValle

There is this one photograph ... that is just beautiful. it would be impossible to describe how beautiful it is, but i'll try. if you listen to the song "asleep," and you think about those pretty weather days that make you remember things, and you think about the prettiest eyes you've known, and you cry and the person holds you back, then i think you will see the photograph. — Stephen Chbosky

There were some days that deserved to be drowned at birth and everyone sent back to bed with a hot brandy, a box of chocolates and a warm, energetic companion. Today was without question one of those days. — Diana Pharaoh Francis

People want to go back to those old days, but it's probably not going to happen. — Philip Yancey

As I look back at the span of the Cold War in those early days, in the '50s, for example, there was a great deal of Soviet propaganda here in the United States, but it was clumsy, and it was anchored to a lot of ideological support in certain circles in America itself. — Alexander Haig

Polenta is one of those ingredients that in many homes spends its days at the back of the kitchen cupboard, on the 'no one knows quite what to do with it' shelf. — Yotam Ottolenghi

Back in those early days when I began my apprenticeship as a poet, I also tried to voice our anger, spirit of defiance and resistance in a Jamaican poetic idiom. — Linton Kwesi Johnson

For everyone, there are those moments when you have great days with someone you wouldn't expect to. Then you have to go back to your real lives, but it makes an impression on you. — Sofia Coppola

I was ironing my own clothes when I was 11 years old. My mental strength goes back to those days. — Cristiano Ronaldo

Do an overwhelming number of respected scientists believe that human actions are changing the Earth's climate? Yes. OK, that being the case, let's undermine that by finding and funding those few contrarians who believe otherwise. Promote their message widely and it will accumulate in the mental environment, just as toxic mercury accumulates in a biological ecosystem. Once enough of the toxin has been dispersed, the balance of public understanding will shift. Fund a low level campaign to suggest any threat to the car is an attack on personal freedoms. Create a "grassroots" group to defend the right to drive. Portray anticar activists as prudes who long for the days of the horse and buggy. Then sit back, watch the infotoxins spread - and get ready to sell bigger, better cars for years to come. — Kalle Lasn

I had no money. I had no savings account.So I would bring down my color TV set, a Sears TV with a cable snaked into it - they had no video-in back in those days - and hooked it up to the circuit of very few chips and then a little keyboard you could type on. And I was trying to impress people with how did he do it with fewer chips than anyone could ever imagine? — Steve Wozniak

I waited, hesitant to go out into the cold again. It was one of those days that have no mercy on your toes, that are oblivious to the suffering of your ears, that are mean and determined to take a chunk of your nose. It was a day to remind you that you can shiver all you want, sniff all you want, the universe is still oblivious. And if you ask why the inhumane temperature, the universe will answer you with tight lips and a cold tone and tell you to go back where you came from if you do not like it here. — Rawi Hage

There are no days more full than those we go back to. — Colum McCann

I love children because that's a part of my life that was so happy, and I like to remember back to those days where everything is a discovery, and the world is so fresh. — Jan Brett

Why do you think there aren't rules to how sex will work? You didn't want to talk to me about what you wanted. You pushed me into the room so I wouldn't turn on the light because you knew damn well I would push back on that, didn't you?"
She stayed where she was. "Yes. I don't want you to see me. I don't look like one of those girls in a magazine."
He groaned, the sound coming from deep in his chest. "Those girls in the magazines are airbrushed and way too thin. The camera adds pounds so those girls are so skinny I wouldn't be able to fuck them for fear I would break them. I want a woman, Avery, not some tiny freaking thing whose waistline only proves she doesn't eat. I want a woman who can take me. I want a woman I can hold on to. So bend over because I want to see your ass. I want to look at it because I've been dreaming about it for days. It's hot and round and so fucking juicy I can't stand it. Get me hot, Avery. Show me your ass. — Lexi Blake

I embraced Hinduism because it was the only religion in the world that is compatible with National Socialism. And the dream of my life is to integrate Hitlerism into the old Aryan Tradition, to show that it is really a resurgence of the original Tradition. It's not Indian, not European, but Indo-European. It comes from back to those days when the Aryans were one people near the North Pole. The Hyperborean Tradition. — Savitri Devi

I spent the first few years of my life in a smallish community in Queens. Back in those early days, kids could roam the streets with relatively little supervision and one place I visited frequently was the local library. This particular branch was little more than a storefront but to me it was an alternative universe where I could explore my interests and receive kind, informative answers to my questions from the wonderful librarians. — Jonathan Kellerman

For Dad. I miss you. Feel no guilt in laughter, he'd know how much you care. Feel no sorrow in a smile that he is not here to share. You cannot grieve forever; he would not want you to. He'd hope that you could carry on the way you always do. So, talk about the good times and the way you showed you cared, The days you spent together, all the happiness you shared. Let memories surround you, a word someone may say Will suddenly recapture a time, an hour, a day, That brings him back as clearly as though he were still here, And fills you with the feeling that he is always near. For if you keep those moments, you will never be apart And he will live forever locked safely within your heart. --Unknown — Heather McCoubrey

I often think with regret of that fresh, beautiful feeling of boundless, disinterested love which came to an end without having ever found self-expression or return. It is strange how, when a child, I always longed to be like grown-up people, and yet how I have often longed, since childhood's days, for those days to come back to me! — Leo Tolstoy

They are always so quiet," he said, turning to Papa. "So quiet."
"They are not like those loud children people are raising these days, with no home training and no fear of God," Papa said, and I was certain that it was pride that stretched Papa's lips and lightened his eyes.
"Imagine what the Standard would be if we were all quiet." It was a joke. Ade Coker was laughing; so was his wife, Yewanda. But Papa did not laugh. Jaja and I turned and went back upstairs, silently. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nostalgia
How often we use this word reminiscing about the past - our childhood, school days, college days..
We feel nostalgic, we dwell in the memories of the past, we talk about how great those days were and how we would do anything to just go back in time and live those days again..
Perhaps we fail to realize the fact that tomorrow we will say the same things about today, about the days we are living in now, about the emotions we are feeling now, about the time we are spending now..
I love this day. I love this weird feeling I feel today. I belong here. — Sanhita Baruah

I have no use for those- regardless of their political party- who hold some foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when unorganized labor was a huddled, almost helpless mass. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

When I was growing up, Nashville was the place to go if you had songs to sell and thought you had talent and wanted to tour and be on Grand Ole Opry [radio show]. It was the big deal back in those days to play the Grand Ole Opry. And you could travel around the world saying, "Hi, I'm Willie from the Grand Ole Opry". — Willie Nelson

In contrast, Western historians, and those in South Korea, say the North attacked the South on June 25, 1950. Both sides agree that after the war began, the North Korean Army captured Seoul in three days and pushed as far south as Pusan before American troops arrived to drive back the North Koreans nearly as far north as the border to China. — Sheryl WuDunn

And it means snapshots, because that's what all stories I write come down to; each is a snapshot of who I was during however many days and weeks it was written. A fictional reflection of my mind fossilized, set in paper and ink, instead of stone. Memorialized, for better or worse. This is who I was, and this, and this, and this, and that, and most times I look back and wince. I'm rarely kind to who I was. But other times, looking back is bittersweet. Sometimes, I'm even grateful to the me of then who left a snapshot for the me of now. Maybe I should let go and join those who pretend the past is past, but it's a falsehood I've never learned to spin. — Caitlin R. Kiernan

It is tempting to look back at Bear's people from the perspective of this modern world and see them as changeless and pure, authentic people in ways impossible for anybody to be anymore. We need Noble Savages for our own purposes. Our happy imaginings about them and the pure world they occupied do us good when incoherent change overwhelms us. But even in those early days when I was first getting to know Bear and his people, I could see that change and brutal loss had been all they had experienced for two centuries. — Charles Frazier

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before
and thus was the Empire forged.
... In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of it. — Douglas Adams

And this, she saw, her dream had done. She had built against that fear a vision of power not wholly selfish - power to protect not only herself, but others. And that vision - however partial it had been in those days - was worth following. For it led not away from the fear, as a dream of rule might do, but back into it. The pattern of her life - as she saw it then, clear and far away and painted in bright colors - the pattern of her life was like an intricate song, or the way the Kuakgan talked of the grove's interlacing trees. There below were the dream's roots, tangled in fear and despair, nourished in the death of friends, the bones of the strong, the blood of the living, and there high above were the dream's images, bright in the sun like banners or the flowering trees of spring. And to be that banner, or that flowering branch, meant being nourished by the same fears: meant encompassing them, not rejecting them. — Elizabeth Moon

Dan reached out, his hand rested on the other's abs, under the blankets. Felt heat creep from the skin, feeding it back again. "How long did they have you? You look like a fair few beatings at least."
Vadim looked down at his body, tensed the muscle to keep that weight there, nice and snug. "Two days. Like weekend with in-laws, eh?" Tried a smile. "Bad food, and they hate you."
Nodding, Dan's eyes narrowed, could just about imagine what it had been like. "I don't take kindly to those who try to take away from me what is mine. — Marquesate

Todd's wife was one of those women with a forced smile perpetually cemented on her face. Even after being chased by a mob of homicidal maniacs and attempting to barricade doors with barstools she kept up appearances, practicing for the days when her husband would be running for public office. When she saw her son poking at their former mail carrier's dead body a look of utter horror came across her face for the slightest instant. She caught herself and put that smile back on so quickly Will wondered if she might have pulled a few cheek muscles.
"Trevor!" she hissed through clenched teeth. "Trevor, you get away from that this instant! You don't know what kind of diseases that man had. Children shouldn't play with dead things."
Will looked at Todd and smirked. "Cute kid. How many of those things do you think are out there? — Ian McClellan

So I say this. Speak of them. Speak of those that died. Speak of all those who ever died
in all the world's history, in its wars, and long-lost days. Speak of those who met their deaths in Glencoe, in snow
not of their deaths, but of their lives before them. Not of how they died, but of how they bent to pat a dog's head, or what ballads they could sing, or what their skin was like by their eyes when they smiled, or which weather was their weather
for it keeps them living. It stops them being dead.
To do this
to speak or write of them
puts breath back in their mouths. It lifts them up from their earthy beds ... brings them forth, and they stand by the side of the one who speaks of them; they walk out of the pages of those who write them down. From the realm, they smile upon us. All the dead people
only, they are not dead. — Susan Fletcher

Food during my early years was a very difficult issue for me. I grew up in an addictive family. My mother had serious problems with alcohol and prescription drugs. I was an overweight kid. I can remember back in those days there weren't the strategies that there are today to deal with those issues. — Tom Vilsack

Once, back home, I decided to count how many days out of my twenty months in Afghanistan I'd been on combat missions. 217 days. And I'm still paying the price for every one of those days. — Vladislav Tamarov

Looking back on those days and little leaguer, the Hall of Fame is not even a blinking star, but through baseball travels and moving up the ladder, that star begins to flicker. — Wade Boggs

It occurred to me, as it sometimes does, that this day is over and will never be lived again, that we are only the sum of days, and when those are spent, we will not come back to this place, to this time, to these people and these colors, and I wonder whether to be sad about this or to be happy, to trust that these moments were meant for some kind of enjoyment, as a kind of blessing. And if feels, tonight, as if there is much to think about, there is much we have been given and much we have left behind. The smell of freedom is as brisk as the air through the windows. And there is a feeling that time itself has been curtained by darkness. — Donald Miller

replied. "Back to that first moment I knew I loved you, the first time you beat me during our sword fighting lessons." "It was raining," she remembered. "You stood there, hair wet, water dripping everywhere, staring at me, confused and triumphant... You were an avalanche." After five years they had grown used to kissing with the cloth mask in the way. He smelled the sweat of her busy afternoon on it. "I remember those old days..." His fingers were in her hair now. "I, bored and frustrated in the countryside, and you, proud and eager, but rough around the edges..." "I — Shira Glassman

Today in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no use for those - regardless of their political party - who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Why were we so full of hope in those days? Looking back, I see so clearly that violence was worsening. Living through that time, we didn't see that. We believed in our capacity to grow a great country. A just society. — Kaimana Wolff

9/11 was my first day teaching at Harvard University. My classes were all canceled and I got back to town two days later. I'm one of those people who doesn't think the world has changed any at all since 9/11. It just seemed to be almost inevitable, something like that. That's one of the reasons why the backstory of Fay Grim goes all the way back into the '80s. I was trying to sketch out the continuity of all this hanky-panky between the security agencies of the world. — Hal Hartley

I thought all I had to do to get you back was kill off your so-called mother and that little girl. No, I also pondered eating you alive. I imagined drinking all your blood and swallowing you whole many times. A thousand times ... no, a million times over the past few days! I couldn't even tell apart my dreams from reality. Why are you so obsessed with your piece of shit family? They abandoned you! Why must you only desire the things I can't give you, huh?! If you have any love left to go around, then don't give it to those worthless people. Give it to me! Give me everything. I want it all, even the last speck of dust lying at the bottom of your heart! Give me everything before I lose my mind! Before I really do drink your blood and eat your flesh! Before I swallow you whole! — Hajin Yoo

These days, however, I am much calmer - since I realised that it's technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism. Without feminism, you wouldn't be allowed to have a debate on women's place in society. You'd be too busy giving birth on the kitchen floor - biting down on a wooden spoon, so as not to disturb the men's card game - before going back to quick-liming the dunny. This is why those female columnists in the Daily Mail - giving daily wail against feminism - amuse me. They paid you £1,600 for that, dear, I think. And I bet it's going in your bank account, and not your husband's. The more women argue loudly, against feminism, the more they both prove it exists and that they enjoy its hard-won privileges. — Caitlin Moran

I remember what it was like in the 1960's in rural Louisiana. Women did not have many options. My own best friend in high school had a baby at 16. I don't want us to go back to those days. — Kim Gandy

In the mid-1980s, on a spring Sunday morning, a Volvo stationwagon parked in Brunswick Street. A young couple got out. She was trim, blonded, tanned. He was already broadening in the midsection, sockless, short and hairy legs ending in boatshoes. From a restraining chair in the back seat, he unloaded a child, complaining, flailing. They took it into a cafe.

They were going to have brunch.

The old Brunswick Street was dead, Brunchwick Street born. There was no turning back. — Peter Temple

There was a report that used to come out back in those days, I don't know if it was the Gavin Report or something like that. And they said, no matter what McGuire comes out with next, we're not gonna play it. — Barry McGuire

Whenever I heard that languid, beautiful melody, those days came back to me. It wasn't what I'd characterize as a happy part of my life, living as I was, a balled-up mass of unfulfilled desires. I was much younger, much hungrier, much more alone. But I was myself, pared down to the essentials. I could feel each single note of music, each line I read, seep down deep inside me. My nerves were sharp as a blade, my eyes shining with a piercing light. And every time I heard that music, I recalled my eyes then, glaring back at me from a mirror. — Haruki Murakami

Is there an idea more radical in the history of the human race than turning your children over to total strangers whom you know nothing about, and having those strangers work on your child's mind, out of your sight, for a period of twelve years? Could there be a more radical idea than that? Back in Colonial days in America, if you proposed that kind of idea, they'd burn you at the stake, you mad person! It's a mad idea! — John Taylor Gatto

Life is a collection of a million tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous pearls. Strung together, lined up through the days and the years, they make a life. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies. The Heisman Trophy winner knows this. He knows that his big moment was not when they gave him the trophy. It was the thousand times he went to practice instead of going back to bed. It was the miles run on rainy days, the healthy meals when a burger sounded like heaven. That big moment represented and rested on a foundation of moments that had come before it. — Shauna Niequist

I think that if I have a chance to go back, why not just go back all the way in history to the times of the pyramids or the Roman days? I think there are so many great historic times until now that I would like to get a little peek of those periods, rather than just 1984. Why limit yourself? — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Back in those days there was still an unbroken stretch of heath that lay on the route of our excursions, all that was left of a heath that once had extended almost up to the town on the one side and almost to the little village on the other. Here the honeybees and white-gray bumblebees hummed over the fragrant blossoms of heather, and the beautiful gold-green beetles ran among the plants; here in the sweet clouds of the erica and the resinous bushes hovered butterflies that could be found nowhere else on this earth. — Theodor Storm

As they stood there together, Ekwefi's mind went back to the days when they were young. She had married Anene because OKonkwo was too poor then to marry. Two years after her marriage to Anene she could bear it no longer and she ran away to Okonkwo. It had been early in the morning. The moon was shining. She was going to the stream to fetch water. Okonkwo's house was on the way to the stream. She went in and knocked at his door and he came out. Even in those days he was not a man of many words. He just carried her into his bed and in the darkness began to feel around her waist for the loose end of her cloth. — Chinua Achebe

Not every woman has a Boaz in her life. Sometimes the male voices we hear are cautioning us to hold back instead of urging us to serve God wholeheartedly with them. Sometimes the cautioning voices we hear belong to other women. Sometimes those who have the power to facilitate our callings and clear a path for us set up roadblocks instead. Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz remind us powerfully that even in a dark era like the days of the judges, God always has his people and the Blessed Alliance is still alive and well. He is working in our hearts, summoning us to be strong and courageous like Ruth - to embrace and embody his gospel on our 'bit of earth. — Carolyn Custis James

When Donald Trump says, "Let's make America great again," that is code for let's take America backward. Back to a time when opportunity and dignity were reserved for some, not all. Back to the days when abortion was illegal, women had far fewer options, and life for too many women and girls was limited. Well, Donald, those days are over. — Hillary Clinton

And even if these scenes from our youth were given back to us we would hardly know what to do. The tender, secret influence that passed from them into us could not rise again. We might be amongst them and move in them; we might remember and love them and be stirred by the sight of them. But it would be like gazing at the photograph of a dead comrade; those are his features, it is his face, and the days we spent together take on a mournful life in the memory; but the man himself it is not. — Erich Maria Remarque

No wonder Mama went away in her head when Clover passed on. And then Papa. I am going to visit my Mama tomorrow and tell her I am sorry for everything I ever did that caused her sorrow or worry, and for ever wishing, during those days, that she would come back. She probably wanted to stay there. It's a wonder she came back at all. If I knew how to make myself go away in my head, I declare I would. — Nancy E. Turner

He finally pulled it all back into his heart, sucking in the painful tide of his misery. In the Glade, Chuck had become a symbol for him - a beacon that somehow they could make everything right again in the world. Sleep in beds. Get kissed goodnight. Have bacon and eggs for breakfast, go to a real school. Be happy.
But now Chuck was gone. And his limp body, to which Thomas still clung, seemed a cold talisman - that not only would those dreams of a hopeful future never come to pass, but that life had never been that way in the first place. That even in escape, dreary days lay ahead. A life of sorrow.
His returning memories were sketchy at best. But not much good floated in the muck.
Thomas reeled in the pain, locked it somewhere deep inside him. He did it for Teresa. For Newt and Minho. Whatever darkness awaited them, they'd be together, and that was all that mattered right then. — James Dashner

How women dressed every single day back in those days is seen as kind of incredible - it must have taken so much time. But there's something so romantic about that because it's so different to how we dress. That aesthetic is so appealing, it's not what we're used to nowadays. — Lily Collins

The magic in these Masonic rituals is very, very old. And way back in those days, it worked. As time went on, and it started being used for spectacle, to consolidate what were only secular appearances of power, it began to lose its zip. But the words, moves, and machinery have been more or less faithfully carried down over the millennia, through the grim rationalizing of the World, and so the magic is still there, though latent, needing only to touch the right sensitive head to reassert itself. — Thomas Pynchon

I was in college, but I got kicked out. It was a very free school, but I created a "bad impression." Like I was a bit more fiery in those days. At the time I got kicked out, I knew exactly what I was going to do and didn't even bother to go back for a leaving certificate. Then I was singing in folk clubs around Birmingham and playing jazz in clubs on Sundays. — Steve Winwood

He believed that life gives us all a few moments of happiness. For some they last hours or days, for a few lucky ones they last for years. The memories from those moments stays with us forever and turns into a country of memory to which we try to go back for the rest of our lives without ever being able to — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

He had cast out of heaven his dim star; it had fallen, and its track was lost in the darkness of night. It would never return to the sky again, because life was given only once and never came a second time. If he could have turned back the days and years of the past, he would have replaced the falsity with truth, the idleness with work, the boredom with happiness; he would have given back purity to those whom he had robbed of it. He would have found God and goodness, but that was as impossible as to put back the fallen star into the sky, and because it was impossible he was in despair. — Anton Chekhov

The clothes back in those days were made so much better than clothes are today. They actually took time to make clothes to fit a woman's body. Today they make clothes that fit sizes, so it stretches to fit this and that. — Debbie Allen

Back in those days I was stoned almost twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The difference today is that there is nothing you or anyone else could say to persuade me to inhale enough even to fill a flea's lung with cannabis. It's actually impossible to measure how fantastic I feel. — Chris Sullivan

My friends and I had taken dancing lessons, although none of us would ever admit it. In those depression days, a friend of my mother was trying to make a living by teaching dancing in the evening, in an upstairs dance studio. There was a back door to the place, and she arranged it so the young men could come up through the back way without being seen. — Richard P. Feynman

And that's how it is in this world, boy. Start a tale, just a little tale that should fade and die - take your eye off it for just a moment and when you turn back it's grown big enough to grab you up in its teeth and shake you. That's how it is. All our lives are tales. Some spread, and grow in the telling. Others are just told between us and the gods, muttered back and forth behind our days, but those tales grow too and shake us just as fierce. — Mark Lawrence

We had our own sort of divorce back a while," I said.
"Yes."
"I was pretty crazy, I think."
"Yes," Susan said.
"You were pretty crazy," I said.
"Yes," she said. "I was."
"And we leapt tall buildings at a single bound."
"We were probably leaping the wrong ones," Susan said, "in those days."
"Maybe," I said. "But maybe those days helped us to leap the right ones now, and more gracefully. — Robert B. Parker

We Americans often say that marriage is hard work. I'm not sure that the Hmong would understand this notion. Life is hard work, of course, and work is very hard work
I'm quite certain they would agree with those statements - but how does marriage become hard work? Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life's expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work. A recent survey of young American women found that what women are seeking these days in a husband - more than anything else - is a man who will "inspire" them, which is, by any measure, a tall order. As a point of comparison, young women of the same age, surveyed back in the 1920s, were more likely to choose a partner based on qualities such as "decency" or "honesty," or his ability to provide for a family. But that's not enough anymore. Now we want to be INSPIRED by our spouses! Daily! Step to it, honey! — Elizabeth Gilbert

Now here it was after all, preserved by some considerate hand with varnisch and wax. Preserved along with it, like stale air in an unopened room, was the well known fear which had surrounded and filled those days, so much of it that I hadn't even known it was there. Because, unfamiliar with the abscence of fear and what that was like, I had not been able to identify it's presence.
Looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escape from it.
I felt fear's echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy which had been its accompanient and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky — John Knowles

Thinking back to those earlier days, I felt I was weak when I wasn't making movies, and then when I was, I thought I was weak as a family member. — Ang Lee

These days, I find I'm applying a little more patience to my process. If I look back on my work, I can see those songs I bailed on could have been better, that had those great two verses and then I kind of coasted from there. These days, if a song is giving me trouble, I put it aside and pick it up later, and keep doing that, for a year if I have to, until it takes shape. — Ani DiFranco

Jenna reached over and held one of my hands, Kara held the other, and I felt like the universe was holding us all.
For that night, maybe just for that magic moment, it all seemed to make so much sense, like the thousand puzzle pieces of my life were all in place and I knew the How and Why of all things. It was one of those moments that I was sure would stay impressed on me forever because it was real and true. It was as tangible as the blanket beneath me. I felt lik I had touched something, something as big as the universe, and it had touched me back.
I didn't know that even a big moment like that could be snuffed out in a matter of days by packing to go home, by the wrong teacher on the wrong school schedule, or by my uncle getting his brains blown out at a traffic stop.
But all that just made Kara and Jenna brighter stars in my sky. I had no way of knowing that, in a matter of weeks, even those stars would be snuffed out. — Mary E. Pearson

You remember the dialogue you had with yourself, you can quote the emotion word for word, as if you're still there, as if it matters that you can map in detail the geographies of regret.

It starts with a hope and ends with a turn of the stomach: a cringe at the excuses you make for your heart, a momentary forever you remember on alternate days over coffee and novels that hit too close to home.

You cry because you know the point at which you could have turned back but didn't, could have taken time by the throat and resisted, could have ignored the phone, answered that message, said no, said yes, said nothing, smiled - whatever it is that you didn't do. But by the time that moment ends, it is over and you are in too deep, wondering why there exists no rewind button for the soul, no second chance for the petty player, no backup plan for those who risk everything on nothing, all at once. — Tania De Rozario

Do you remember those days? Back porch, sunshine, mason jars" - she paused at remembered sweetness - "we were so foolish then ... thinking there was a big ol' world out there to conquer. — Melissa Marr

It was one of those days when every time I went to go out the door, something grabbed me in the back of the brain and said, lie down and masturbate one more time. — Jonathan Ames

Whatever I do, however I find a way to live, I will tell these stories. I have spoken to every person I have encountered these last difficult days ... I speak to these people, and I speak to you because I cannot help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength, to know that you are there. I covet your eyes, your ears, the collapsible space between us. How blessed are we to have each other? I am alive and you are alive and so we must fill the air with our words. I will fill today, tomorrow, every day until I am taken back to God. I will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don't want to listen, to people who seek me out and to those who run. All the while I will know that you are there. How can I pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as you pretending that I do not exist. — Dave Eggers

It was late morning when he woke and found the telephone beside his bed in the hotel tolling frantically, and remembered that he had left word to be called at eleven. Sloane was snoring heavily, his clothes in a pile by his bed. They dressed and ate breakfast in silence, and then sauntered out to get some air. Amory's mind was working slowly, trying to assimilate what had happened and separate from the chaotic imagery that stacked his memory the bare shreds of truth. If the morning had been cold and gray he could have grasped the reins of the past in an instant, but it was one of those days that New York gets sometimes in May, when the air of Fifth Avenue is a soft, light wine. How much or how little Sloane remembered Amory did not care to know; he apparently had none of the nervous tension that was gripping Amory and forcing his mind back and forth like a shrieking saw. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Aamir, recalling back to the idyllic days of his college youth, pictured himself once again sitting quietly on a familiar neighbourhood rooftop. He often enjoyed relaxing there, alone or with friends, while watching the colourful fluttering prayer flags on rooftop poles, especially in the warmth of an early evening breeze, as wispy clouds drifted against the jagged Himalayan backdrop. He has oft times wondered, ever since his childhood, if the prayers to the spirits of the dead, flying out from those slowly tattering rags, will ever really be answered. Perhaps it will be in another place, in another time, when we're living another life that we shall finally know. Aamir had calmly thought at the time. He was that sort of philosophical guy. — Andrew James Pritchard

He shifted his arm so he could brush her hair back. His fingers lingered along her jaw. "You make me want to live, too, Aelin Galathynius," he said. "Not exist - but live." He cupped her cheek, and took a steadying breath - as if he'd thought about every word these past three days, over and over again. "I spent centuries wandering the world, from empires to kingdoms to wastelands, never settling, never stopping - not for one moment. I was always looking toward the horizon, always wondering what waited across the next ocean, over the next mountain. But I think ... I think that whole time, all those centuries, I was just looking for you. — Sarah J. Maas

I've always been a step ahead. A lot of people haven't experienced the things I've experienced, and made me a stronger person. The life I've been exposed to has let me know what step to take and how not to go back a step. I take life one day at a time, and I prepare myself for each one of those days. — Chamique Holdsclaw

While most of humanity was scrabbling for a piece of bread,a roof over their head and a job that would allow them to live with dignity,Ralf Hart had all of that,and it only made him feel more wretched.If he looked back on what his life had been lately,he had perhaps managed two or three days when he had woken up,looked at the sun-or the rain-and felt glad to see the morning,just happy,without wanting anything,planning anything or asking anything in exchange.Apart from those days,the rest of his existence had been wasted on dreams,both frustrated and realized-a desire to go beyond himself,to go beyond his limitations;he had spent his life trying to prove something,but he didn't know what or to whom. — Paulo Coelho

In the near future we will not be looking back at the early church with envy because of the great exploits of those days, but all will be saying that He certainly did save His best wine for last. The most glorious times in all of history have not come upon us. You, who have dreamed of one day being able to talk with Peter, John and Paul, are going to be surprised to find that they have all been waiting to talk to you. — Rick Joyner

When I first started comedy, before I kind of gained any national prominence, I - in a weird way - went back to that. Marc Maron had me on WTF making fun of me about that when I first opened for him. I had this very kind of hip-hop bravado to me, and I realized that now I've let some of that go in my stage presence, that maybe that was because I had dropped that completely from my life, and when I got onstage I sort of rekindled it. And I think now that it was perhaps a defense mechanism that was left over from those days, which I think is kind of interesting. — Moshe Kasher

Much more frequent in Hollywood than the emergence of Cinderella is her sudden vanishing. At our party, even in those glowing days, the clock was always striking twelve for someone at the height of greatness; and there was never a prince to fetch her back to the happy scene. — Ben Hecht