Quotes & Sayings About Being Caught Up In The Past

Almost all the ex-boyfriends are like this - never really three-dimensional, but it soon becomes apparent that this is deliberate, that Tiny's showing how he never got to know all of their dimensions, that he was so caught up in being in love that he didn't really take the time to think about what he was in love with. — John Green

While we are being fascinated by the tales of famous serial killers and how they were brought to justice, the real serial killer goes about his business with hardly a thought to being caught. — Pat Brown

Perhaps that's what she caught, not Life Fatigue but just grief over a broken heart--and the bitterness that comes with being cheated too early of something true--like a young husband's love. — Joseph G. Peterson

It had worked in the past, being calm, acting as though everything were normal. She hoped it would work again. "Gavriel, we have to go. Stop being so scary."
At that, he looked over and smiled again, spinning Midnight in his arms as if they'd been dancing. Winter caught her and held her upright.
"I can wait a little longer," Gavriel said. "A very little longer."
"The car keys," Tana demanded, holding out a trembling hand. He fished in his pockets - an utterly normal gesture - then dropped them into her palm ceremoniously. She picked up the bag of cash and jewels from beside the hood of the car, shoving it into her purse.
"I won't always obey you," he said softly. "One night you will ask me for something I cannot give."
She'd started to relax, but his words sent a fresh spike of terror up her spine. — Holly Black

Some fish get caught for biting and some fish just get caught for being in the wrong part of the pond ... I'm no diviner, but having been in the wrong part of the pond most of my life, I can usually tell which fish bite and which fish don't. I suspect you may have found yourself in the wrong part of the pond a time or two. — Clare Vanderpool

It's not easy to diagnose because depending where the endometrial deposits are, the symptoms can be quite different. It's an unrecognized problem among teenage girls, and it's something that every young woman who has painful menstruation should be aware of ... it's a condition that is curable if it's caught early. If not, if it's allowed to run on, it can cause infertility, and it can really mess up your life.
[Author Hilary Mantel on being asked about being a writer with endometriosis, Nov 2012 NPR interview] — Hilary Mantel

But while the residents were shocked by the violence, they were also often surprised by the mundaneness of it all. Discovered the extent of perversity the heart is capable of as they sat at home with nothing to do, and found that it was possible, faced with the stench of unimaginable evil, for a human being to grow bored, yawn, be absorbed by the problem of a missing sock, by neighborly irritations, to feel hunger skipping like a little mouse inside a tummy and return, once again, to the pressing matter of what to eat ... There they were, the most commonplace of them, those quite mismatched with the larger-than-life questions, caught up in the mythic battles of past vs. present, justice vs. injustice
the most ordinary swept up in extraordinary hatred, because extraordinary hatred was, after all, a commonplace event, — Kiran Desai

There's a great scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974] that I'm obsessed with: Sally is being chased by Leatherface with a chainsaw. And she runs into thorn bushes. And she's getting tangled up in it because she's running fast. But Sally needs to move slowly in order to get through the bushes - she will get farther faster by going slowly because her hair and clothes won't get tangled and caught. There's something really beautiful about understanding that, while someone's chasing you with a chainsaw, you have to move more slowly in order to get away. — Christopher Bollen

It was like a dream in which one is being pursued, nearly caught and will be killed, and is rooted to the spot and cannot even move one's arms. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Despair is the state in which anxiety and restlessness are immanent to existence. Nobody in despair suffers from "problems", but from his own inner torment and fire. It's a pity that nothing can be solved in this world. Yet there never was and here never will be anyone who would commit suicide for this reason. So much for the power that intellectual anxiety has over the total anxiety of our being! That is why I prefer the dramatic life, consumed by inner fires and tortured by destiny, to the intellectual, caught up in abstractions which do not engage the essence of our subjectivity. I despise the absence of risks, madness and passion in abstract thinking. How fertile live, passionate thinking is! Lyricism feeds it like blood pumped into the heart! — Emil M. Cioran

As a free person I can always come and go, Not caught in ideas of is and is not. Not caught in ideas of being and non-being Let your steps be leisurely. — Thich Nhat Hanh

I don't believe in the white spectre-type of ghosts you get in stories, but what if ghosts are something else? Like memories somehow caught and trapped in time, released by being in certain places where things first happened. — Julia Green

To remember non-attachment is to remember what freedom is all about. If we get attached, even to a beautiful state of being, we are caught, and ultimately we will suffer. We work to observe anything that comes our way, experience it while it is here, and be able to let go of it. — Sharon Salzberg

They met in the library searching for old Sidney Sheldon books. Her silence and calmness drew her to him. His brooding nature drew him to her. Conversations flowed like the waters of a water-fall! And every time they met their conversations sparked flames like the forest caught in a wild fire!

There was something in her eyes! Her eyes were expressive and from the first day that they met, they spoke to him a million things! He could know which night she had cried, which night she had slept peacefully and which night of hers had been spent in complete sleeplessness. He began reading her eyes more deeply and passionately than the books in the library...

And being an obsessive man, he did things normal men did not! Like he knew the number of strands of hair that her eye-lashes had! — Avijeet Das

Wary of being caught unawares, we planned our parenthood, committed to trial marriages with pre-nuptials, and pre-arranged our parents' funerals - convinced we could pre-feel the feelings that we have heard attend new life, true love, and death. — Thomas Lynch

Get a person who is so close to you, be it your friend, co- worker or casual acquaintance and start up a conversation with the sole aim of talking about one of your small talk subjects. This is a good way to kick start the day with a good snippet of small talk. It's of use in the morning when people tend to be prone to being in the rush and do not really want to get caught up in any conversation. It's an ideal warm up to start a better day. — Jack Steel

Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises. Harry — J.K. Rowling

Failing all else, their last resort will be: 'This was good enough for our ancestors, and who are we to question their wisdom?' Then they'll settle back in their chairs, with an air of having said the lst word on the subject
as if it would be a major disaster for anyone to be caught being wiser than his ancestors! — Thomas More

I may enter a zone of transcendence, in which I marvel at all the accidents of fate, since the beginning of life on earth, that led to my genes being created and my standing in this particular garden in a contemplative and imagining mind. I've been reading recently how reflection evolved. what a fascinating solution to the rigors of survival ... how amazing that a few basic ingredients- the same ones that form the mountains, plants, and rivers- when arranged differently and stressed could result in us.
More and more of late, I find myself standing outside of life, with a sense of the human saga laid out before me. it is a private vision, balanced between youth and old age, a vision in which I understand how caught up in striving we humans get, and a little of why, and how difficult it is even to recognize, since it feels integral to our nature and is. but I find it interesting that, according to many religions, life and begins and ends in a garden. — Diane Ackerman

But in residency, something else was gradually unfolding. In the midst of this endless barrage of head injuries, I began to suspect that being so close to the fiery light of such moments only blinded me to their nature, like trying to learn astronomy by staring directly at the sun. I was not yet with patients in their pivotal moments, I was merely at those pivotal moments. I observed a lot of suffering; worse, I became inured to it. Drowning, even in blood, one adapts, learns to float, to swim, even to enjoy life, bonding with the nurses, doctors, and others who are clinging to the same raft, caught in the same tide. My — Paul Kalanithi

How unreliable is the woman caught being faithful! Today she is faithful to you, tomorrow to another. — Karl Kraus

It occurred to me to look up and around at the stars in the clear sky, at the trees in the dark, at the half moon. I was missing them because I was caught in my head. I wasn't living right now. I was thinking to the future, to the past. I wasn't present. This is one of my greatest weaknesses, and one I have a greater realization of, only because I allowed some of my past to die so that my present could rush in to fill it. — Jennifer DeLucy

Religion is a very dangerous thing. By that I mean being so caught up in rules and regulations and not focusing on the thing that matters most- a personal relationship with God. — Joyce Meyer

I look at Kitty, who's braiding Chris's hair in microbraids. She's being extra quiet so we forget she's here and don't kick her out. 'I think that as long as you're ready and it's what you want to do and you're protecting yourself, then it's okay and you should do what you want to do.'
Margot says, 'Society is far too caught up in shaming a woman for enjoying sex and applauding a man. I mean, all of the comments are about how Lara Jean is a slut, but nobody's saying anything about Peter, and he's right there with her. It's a ridiculous double standard. — Jenny Han

Sentience is not an end in itself. It is a means to the end of staying alive. Sentient beings use sensations of pain and suffering to escape situations that threaten their lives and sensations of pleasure to pursue situations that enhance their lives. Just as humans will often endure excruciating pain in order to remain alive, animals will often not only endure but inflict on themselves excruciating pain - as when gnawing off a paw caught in a trap - in order to live. Sentience is what evolution has produced in order to ensure the survival of certain complex organisms. To claim that a being who has evolved to develop a consciousness of pain and pleasure has no interest in remaining alive is to say that conscious beings have no interest in remaining conscious, a most peculiar position to take. — Gary L. Francione

For Brittanie

There will always be men
who have fishhooks for fingers.
There will always be women
with wet, sharp mouths.
It is okay to get caught up in them.

It is not okay to drown.

Don't you ever let another human
being tear you apart.
Remember that you have claws
and teeth, too.

Remember that you are better off
whole. — Trista Mateer

In the fifteenth century, Marsilio Ficino put it as simply as possible. The mind, he said, tends to go off on its own so that it seems to have no relevance to the physical world. At the same time, the materialistic life can be so absorbing that we get caught in it and forget about spirituality. What we need, he said, is soul, in the middle, holding together mind and body, ideas and life, spirituality and the world. — Thomas Moore

We all get caught up in the process, especially when you have a wave of success. But to me, being creative is not about rehashing everything you've done over and over. It's to continue to grow, continue to get better. — Vince Gill

Die in winter woods," roared Tarin, as if it were his most
fervent wish. He was losing it again. Since being caught, he
had seen a boy with no balls or toes, a finger had been in his
ass twice, he'd been cooked, made to wear clothes, walked on
winter-lake stuff, wasted his gift, was going to have his tooth
pulled out and - scat - and he was being laughed at. — Syd McGinley

I've always had this fantasy of being at the top of a Ferris wheel with a gorgeous guy and having him kiss me."
"Really? That's your fantasy?"
"One of them." She narrowed her eyes, but it didn't diminish their light.
"And I fit the bill?" he said, unable to stop himself from moving his stare to her mouth. Christ, he wasn't expecting her to say any of that, but now that she had, he had the urge to fulfill all her fantasies.
"You asked." She shrugged and started to turn away.
He caught her jaw and tilted it up to his. "Do you want me to kiss you?"
Long, dark eyelashes reached the arch of her brows. "We shouldn't"
"That's not what I asked."
She squirmed, her breath caught.
"Yes," she whispered. — Robin Bielman

I am thinking of one woman and the rest is blotto. I say I am thinking of her, but the truth is I am dying a stellar death. I am lying there like a sick star waiting for the light to go out. Years ago I lay on this same bed and I waited and waited to be born. Nothing happened. Except that my mother, in her Lutheran rage, threw a bucket of water over me. My mother, poor imbecile that she was, thought I was lazy. She didn't know that I had gotten caught in the stellar drift, that I was being pulverized to a black extinction out there in the farthest rim of the universe. — Henry Miller

You matter as much as the things that matter to you. And I got so backwards trying to matter to him. All this time, there were real things to care about: real, good people who care about me, and this place. It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do. — John Green

[Robert Downey was being singled out for] selective prosecution. He's a sweet guy who never did harm to anyone except himself. He's been doing drugs for 20 years and functioning for 20 years, and in those 20 years there've been hundreds of people who've been getting high constantly and behaved very destructively and have not been arrested. Robert's real problem is he gets caught. — James Toback

Nothing upsets the philosophical mind more than when he hears that from now on all philosophy is supposed to lie caught in the shackles of one system. Never has he felt greater than when he sees before him the infinitude of knowledge. The entire dignity of his science consists in the fact that it will never be completed. In that moment in which he would believe to have completed his system, he would become unbearable to himself. He would, in that moment, cease to be a creator, and would instead descend to being an instrument of his creation. — Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

Janey accuses me of chasing jailbait. She bursts into angry tears, asking if it's because she's getting older. It's true. She's aging more noticeably every day - while I am standing still. I prefer the stillness here. I am tired of Earth. These people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives. — Alan Moore

The idea of ever again being caught unarmed and vulnerable was her worst nightmare. — Nalini Singh