Face The Past Quotes & Sayings

Every human being has both sets of forces within him. One set clings to safety and defensiveness out of fear, tending to regress backward, hanging on to the past, afraid to grow away from the primitive communication with the mother's uterus and breast, afraid to take chances, afraid to jeopardize what he already has, afraid of independence, freedom and separateness. The other set of forces impels him forward toward wholeness of Self and uniqueness of Self, toward full functioning of all his capacities, toward confidence in the face of the external world at the same time that he can accept his deepest, real, unconscious Self. — Abraham H. Maslow

Approaching the state of Delaware, the dreamer is a small dog, dreaming impatiently of a past life, long forgotten, when he sailed tall ships across uncharted. The salt spray of the ocean stings my face. — Neil Gaiman

Facing future I see hope, hope that we will survive, hope that we will
prosper, hope that once again we will reap the blessings of this
magical land, for without hope I cannot live, remember the past but
do not dwell there, face the future where all our hopes stand. — Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

He raises his hand to my face again and I allow the touch. His fingers slide along my jawline and the warmth of his caresses radiates past my skin and into my bloodstream. Pleasing goose bumps rise on my neck.
"Do you think you'll come back sometime?" he asks. "And let me help you with your car?"
My ears ring with the staccato thrum, thrum, thrum of my heart. Holy crap, I can't believe this is happening to me.
"I'll make it work. I swear." The words tumble out of my mouth without thought. That's not true. Actually, they tumble out with a lot of thought of how my parents won't approve, of how my brothers will kill Isaiah, then possibly kill me. But in this moment, I don't care what any of them think. — Katie McGarry

The damned could be saved ... anytime. But they refused to give up their sins. Though they suffered endlessly, they would not give them up, even for salvation, perfect divine love.
I hadn't understood at the time. If sinners were unhappy, why would they prefer their suffering? But now I knew why. Without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my past was my life. — Janet Fitch

How about I call? We'll do lunch." he blew a kiss toward Miss Lynn's increasingly purple face and jumped off onto the next row.
Miss lynn shoved past me, running to block the exit. "Guard the gym door!" she shouted,eyes blazing as she took up her position and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
But jack was long gone,having eluded both Miss lynn and any repercussions for his idiotic actions. — Kiersten White

It is past eight. The hills before me are bathed in a gentle light that falls like sleep on weary eyes. Everything is soft and undefined. This is the hour Kham is most appealing to my sentimental self. There is no aggression in the air, just a drowsy stillness. This is the time of the day when people are immersed in the mundane actions of preparing for the night: gathering the yaks, feeding the dogs, rounding their cattle so the goats and the dris face each other and are in the right position to be milked in the morning. A time when the decisions made are whether people should take their clothes off or lie in them. A time when night is already evident in the way people light candles. — Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

I can't breathe," she said. "I feel like I'm drowning in a gray sea, like they're flooding the whole city, washing away our past and people, dashing everything from the face of the earth." Jammed — Diane Ackerman

Almighty God, I rely on You to lead me through every challenge and battle in my life. Help me to never operate out of fear in the face of what seems like impossible circumstances. Just as You have helped me in the past, I know You will continue to help me in the future. I praise You for the great things You will do, and thank You that Your presence is always with me. — Stormie O'martian

The mistake that many policymakers make is to believe that in education the best way to face the future is by improving what they did in the past. There are three major processes in education: the curriculum, which is what the school system expects students to learn; pedagogy, the process by which the system helps students to do it; and assessment, the process of judging how well they are doing. — Ken Robinson

He felt a strange urge, right then, just to put his head down and walk past, off into the night and never look back. Then he wouldn't have to be the Bloody-Nine again... He could've gone far away, and started new, and been whoever he wanted. But he'd tried that once already, and it had done him no good. The past was always right behind him, breathing on his neck. It was time to turn around and face it. — Joe Abercrombie

The busy chatter of the heat Shrilled like a parakeet; And shuddering at the noonday light The dust lay dead and white As powder on a mummy's face, Or fawned with simian grace Round booths with many a hard bright toy And wooden brittle joy: The cap and bells of Time the Clown That, jangling, whistled down Young cherubs hidden in the guise Of every bird that flies; And star-bright masks for youth to wear, Lest any dream that fare Bright pilgrim past our ken, should see Hints of Reality. — Edith Sitwell

Time held no meaning as my mind darted in and out of memories. Past and present collided to create a full-sensory collage out of my life: playing hide-n-seek with my best friends Luke - who always cheated by walking through walls when he was about to be caught - and Lucy; Mr. Caldrin critiquing my sketches and offering ideas to make them more realistic; targets changing faces, blending into the same person, their thoughts rippling through my mind like waves. Through it all, a demon stalked me from the shadows of my memories, never quite showing its face, but crouching, waiting.
And then I dreamed ... — Kimberly Kinrade

I can hear the sizzle of newborn stars, and know anything of meaning, of the fierce magic emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity, the evolving past, and I know we will live forever, as dust or breath in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of winds. — Joy Harjo

In China, women who are single past the age of twenty-seven are stigmatized as sheng nu, or "leftover women." They face severe pressure from their families to marry, stemming from the widespread belief that regardless of education and professional achievement, a woman is "absolutely nothing until she is married." One thirty-six-year-old economics professor was rejected by fifteen men because she had an advanced degree; her father then forbade her younger sister from going to graduate school. — Sheryl Sandberg

You are constantly told in depression that your judgment is compromised, but a part of depression is that it touches cognition. That you are having a breakdown does not mean that your life isn't a mess. If there are issues you have successfully skirted or avoided for years, they come cropping back up and stare you full in the face, and one aspect of depression is a deep knowledge that the comforting doctors who assure you that your judgment is bad are wrong. You are in touch with the real terribleness of your life. You can accept rationally that later, after the medication sets in, you will be better able to deal with the terribleness, but you will not be free of it. When you are depressed, the past and future are absorbed entirely by the present moment, as in the world of a three-year-old. You cannot remember a time when you felt better, at least not clearly; and you certainly cannot imagine a future time when you will feel better. — Andrew Solomon

The smoke burns slightly down my throat and to my lungs. I focus on this, and empty my head, empty the images of Skye's beautiful face all bruised up.
In the end, I can't even give her what she's rightfully asking. A kiss. Just a fucking kiss on her lips. Even that I'm unable to do. It'd be pathetic if our situation and our past weren't so tragic.
I take another drag of my cigarette and watch the smoke swirling in the room only lit by the moonlight. - Duke — Stephanie Witter

I tore the dreams from my head and tossed them in the flames. And the smoke smelled like my past, and it stung my eyes but I was too stubborn to blink. — Radical Face

By keeping the mind in the present, unless you deliberately want to contemplate the past or future, it's possible to firmly face life without fear. Then, no thoughts of past failures or future problems will exist in the mind, and a truly positive mental state will result - fudoshin, the immovable mind. — H.E. Davey

Bryn looked from Halt to Horace and back again. He saw no pity in either face.
"I don't want to," he said in a very small voice. Horace found it hard to reconcile this cringing figure with the sneering bully who had been making his life hell for the past few months. Halt appeared to consider Bryn's statement.
"We'll note your protest," he said cheerfully. "Now continue, please. — John Flanagan

Why slum it where people were burdened by yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that? By history? Here, on the Island, they had learnt how to deal with history, how to sling it carelessly on your back and stride out across the download with the breeze in your face. — Julian Barnes

Time (again, Time) like the soul, wears many faces, many bodies and climates and attitudes. The past is one face, the present a second and the future yet another. — Aberjhani

My heart shattered. 'The boy that you keep painting - the one at the warehouse and at the art gallery? That boy is you, isn't it?'
Rider didn't say anything.
'It's not you from the past,' I whispered. His handsome face blurred. 'That's still who you are.'
He closed his eyes. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

The face of the angel of history is turned toward the past. Where we perceived a chain of events, he sees a single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistably propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress. — Walter Benjamin

Helen

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees, unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses. — H.D.

For his lunch break, Alex decided to sit outside for a smoke. There was no break room to speak of, just a backdoor that led to a neglected parking lot and an old payphone. There was an upturned crate by the door used to hold the door open or to sit on if one so desired. But Alex couldn't sit down, even though he had been standing for the past four hours, his anxious mind kept his feet moving.
He paced back and forth, smoking his cigarette with the speed of an anxious drug addict. The cool but faint breeze pushed the smoke away from him and dissipated it into nothing. He still felt angry about the run-in with Gonzalez. It had consistently poked at him like a curious sadist with a pointed stick ever since he walked away from the door slammed in his face. — J.C. Joranco

I'm not sure how to pin this feeling down. It's as elusive as the numbness that swirls inside my body. Every day, as the hours creep past, I find myself getting jittery, waiting for the sight of Oskar's tall figure striding into the cavern. And when he does, I can't stop the smile from spreading across my face - especially because his eyes search for me, and when they find me, he smiles right back. That in and of itself is magical ... — Sarah Fine

Do you have any idea what the typical response is whenever I do give someone a glimpse of my life?"
Gideon paused, as if he waited for her to answer.
And Monroe hesitated. Yes. She did know. She knew because it was the same response she would get it she chose to let down her own guard. Hell, it was practically the same response Miles had given the night she had told him the unadulterated truth of her past. She shook her head again.
"Standard response," he said. "I swear to God. First thing out of their mouth's is: 'Wow. It's shocking you're so normal.' What the fuck? Do I have to be damaged for my past to make sense? And what the hell is normal anyway? And does white bread America have dibs on it?"
Gideon stopped talking, crossed his arms, and the look on his face said he regretted saying as much as he had. — Taylor Stevens

Routine comes down like twilight on a harsh landscape, softening it until it is tolerable. The complexity is too subtle, too varied; the values are changing utterly with each lesion of vitality; it has begun to appear that we can learn nothing from the past with which to face the future - so we cease to be impulsive, convincible men, interested in what is ethically true by fine margins, we substitute rules of conduct for ideas of integrity, we value safety above romance, we become, quite unconsciously, pragmatic. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Reading private correspondence is in poor taste, Lord Ackerly."
"Unless it is terribly interesting," Eleanor says, "which Jessamin's letters are not. Mine, however, are lurid tales of my near-death experience and subsequent sequestering against my will in the home of the mysterious and brooding Lord Ackerly. I fear I may have given you a tragic past and a deadly secret or two."
"Are we staying in a decaying Gothic abbey?" I ask.
"Naturally. When I'm finished, there won't be a person in all the city who isn't writhing with jealousy over the heart-pounding drama of my life." She pauses, tapping her pen thoughtfully against her chin. "I don't suppose you have a cousin? I could very much use a romantic foil."
Finn shakes his head. "Sorry to disappoint."
"Alas. As long as I'm not the friend who meets a tragic end that brings you two together forever through shared grief." Her line meets dead silence, and a sly grin splits her face. "Oh wait, I nearly was. — Kiersten White

Warmly and impulsively he put his arms round her and covered her knees and hands with kisses. Then when she muttered something and shuddered with the thought of the past, he stroked her hair, and looking into her face, realised that this unhappy, sinful woman was the one creature near and dear to him, whom no one could replace. When he went out of the house and got into the carriage he wanted to return home alive. — Anton Chekhov

Finn said, "You feel the wind is a bully, beating you. But that is your seeing. That is your story, not the wind's. To a bird who rides it, that wind is only a kind hand. Because the bird rides the wind's power. Do you understand?" Clare, bitter, cold, and wind-battered, frowned stubbornly. "But a bird can fly. I can't fly." He turned to look at her, and his face was troubled. "If you cling to the safety of the rock, indeed you can't. To fly, you open your arms and fall, heart first, trusting the wind to bear you up. That's what the birds do. — Katherine Catmull

Jared stalked to the door and swung it wide open. Ash stood in the doorway, face red and shoulders hunched. Jared didn't speak to him; he shoved past him and walked off down the corridor.

Kami expected certain terrible behaviors from Jared, and right now she felt let down.

If you wanted something done, she supposed, you just had to do it yourself, so she walked over to the doorway and punched Ash hard in the arm. — Sarah Rees Brennan

When I was a young girl salmon fishing with my father in the Straits of Juan de Fuca in Washington State I used to lean out over the water and try to look past my own face, past the reflection of the boat, past the sun and darkness, down to where the fish were surely swimming. I made up charm songs and word-hopes to tempt the fish, to cause them to mean biting my hook. I believed they would do it if I asked them well and patiently and with the right hope. I am writing my poems like this. I have used the fabric and the people of my life as the bait. — Tess Gallagher

Time had past indeed: it had overtaken him and gone ahead. It had left him hopelessly behind with a few poor gifts: the iron grey hair, the heavy fatigue of the tanned face, two scars, a pair of tarnished shoulderstraps; one of those steady, reliable men who are the raw material of great reputations, one of those unaccounted lives that are buried without drums and trumpets under the foundations of monumental success. — Joseph Conrad

I truly meant to only find you and bring you back to the landing, sweet, but when I saw you here alone, I could not help myself. It has been so many years I have longed for the forbidden fruit, Mary, and I am not really a very patient man. You were angered with me today for kissing Maud, but years of smiling and laughing with you and breathing in your sweet scent and seeing that luscious face and body near me and then bidding you a curt goodnight as you go to Will's or Henry's bed is pure hell." He reached over to smooth her hair. "I tell you, Mary, whomever I have slept with these past five years, I have dreamed it was you or, if not, your face came back to tease me-to haunt me-soon after. Do you understand? — Karen Harper

One of the truths about suicide is that it's hardly ever about the future. It's the past the suicide can't face, and although disgrace appears to be the exception, the one instance where suicide seems to be about the future, even in Oedipus, it's her past Jocasta can't accept, once it's come to light. — Charles D'Ambrosio

We have to learn to face our fears and push ourselves. If you're living on earth and you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room. When you push past the fear and realize that what you feared was not a big deal, you gain more confidence. — Farrah Gray

Usually, during the past fifteen-odd years, I'd hated to see the morning come. That's a psychotic symptom, you know, not wanting to awaken
hating to face things that are bound to be more than you can handle. — Jim Thompson

Writing ... is 90 percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you write, it pours out of you ... You don't only listen to the person speaking to you across the table, but simultaneously listen to the air, the chair, and the door. And go beyond the door. Take in the sound of the season, the sound of the color coming in through the windows. Listen to the past, future, and present right where you are. Listen with your whole body, not only with your ears, but with your hands, your face, and the back of your neck. — Natalie Goldberg

The contemplation of beauty, whether it be a uniquely tinted sunset, a radiant face, or a work of art, makes us glance back unwittingly at our personal past and juxtapose ourselves and our inner being with the utterly unattainable beauty revealed to us. — Vladimir Nabokov

At some point on your road you have to turn and start walking back towards yourself. Or the past will pursue you, and bite the nape of your neck, leave you bleeding in the ditch. Better to turn and face it with such weapons as you possess. — Hilary Mantel

Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. This must be the central fact in all our considerations of international affairs; otherwise we face certain disaster. Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars ... The stakes are immense, the task colossal the time is short. But we may hope- we must hope- that man's own creation, man's own genius, will not destroy him. — Albert Einstein

How lucky have we been that the face of baseball for the past two decades, through ups and downs, has been Derek Jeter. — Bud Selig

As Jogiches walked in with her past the potted plants in the entrance, to face the smiles and all the food laid out on little tables, he whispered: 'As soon as this dinner is over, I shall kill you... — John Peter Nettl

My other chore is to buy a tree- a thankless task. The only truly well-proportioned Christmas trees are the ones they use in advertisements. If you try and find one in real life you face inevitable disapointment. Your tree will lean to the left or the right. It will be too bushy at the base, or straggly at the top. Even if you do, by some miracle, find a perfect tree, if won't fit in the car and by the time you strap it to the rooftop and drive it home the branches are broken and twisted out of shape. You
wrestle it through the door, gagling on pine needles and sweating profusely, only to hear the maddening question from countless Christmases past: 'Is that really the best one you could find? — Michael Robotham

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past, — Walter Cronkite

Because - truth? - on the scale of significance, that stuff doesn't even register.
What has me pushed past the boiling point ... what has me really, really upset is learning the woman I thought was so incredibly strong I married her on the spot ... is actually
a quitter who runs from challenge,
a coward too afraid to even try,
a liar who makes promises she won't keep and
a cynic too bitter to believe what's right in front of her face. Is that real enough for you? — Mira Lyn Kelly

Past middle age, some friends suggested that I should have my eyebags removed, the deepening creases on my face stretched. I often examined my face in the mirror, imagining how I'd look if I followed the suggestion. I decided to retain the old mug. I was too familiar and comfortable with it. And the final hindrance: the cost. — F. Sionil Jose

Hanging back to get her reaction under control, she wiped her knife on the edge of her petticoat, then angled her body away so she could raise her skirts enough to slip the knife into its sheath, taking care not to drop the pilfered food cradled in her other arm. When she straightened, she expected Darius and Jacob to be well ahead but instead found her companions only a few yards away, their far-too-curious eyes riveted on her. "So that's where you keep it." Darius's attention dropped to a spot halfway down her skirt. "I had wondered." Nicole lifted her chin. "Yes, well, I tried carrying it around in one of those lacy little reticules, but it kept getting tangled in the ribbons. Not very practical." Keeping her eyes averted from Darius's face, she marched past the gawkers and headed for the house. — Karen Witemeyer

It was a hot summer night, and I had the soundtrack to Disney's The Lion King blasting on my stereo. Tears actually began streaming down my face as I drove past the building. Here I was, the grown-up version of that wide-eyed eight-year-old at Disneyland. I had finally arrived. I was an Imagineer. — Randy Pausch

Accepting our greatness means no longer playing small. It often starts with baby steps. But eventually it means making major changes - in our lives, jobs, relationships, and dreams.

If I had believed in my own self-worth, I would never have been willing to make the financial moves I made in the past.

If I'd known my value, I couldn't have spent so many years ignoring the whispering - and sometimes screaming - voice that told me to leave my marriage. For a long time, that truth was just too scary and painful for me to face. Talk about keeping my head in the sand!

But how many years did I waste, postponing what has proven to be a much better life - simply because I went into hiding and didn't see that I was worthy of something better? — Nancy Levin

I find no reason to think that aging is genetically determined. Genes do not provide information for the development of the individual beyond growth and the reproductive process in which the genes are transmitted to the next generation. Once past the reproductive stage, the individual has served the purposes of preservation of the species, and then he is on his own. The wrinkled human face is the victim of gravity and of cumulative errors in the reproduction of cells. Since aging is not programed, but is a badly improvised interference with youthful beauty, we have improvised an operation to counteract its effects. Aging is a form of misinformation. If we get the facts right, you will be able to read it in our faces. ("Motherhood") — William S. Wilson

I-I have to go," she began, then bit her lip as she realized she was stuttering again-a habit she seemed to have developed in the past twenty-four hours.Forgetting her sketch pad, she stepped off the rock and prepared to make an undignified dash for her car. In the next instant she was whirled around.
His face was set, his breathing unsteady. "I was wrong." His voice filled her head, emptying it of everything else. "I have a great deal of trouble resisting you. — Nora Roberts

As soon as the doors were closed, Amelia went to her sister with her hands raised. At first Cam thought she intended to shake her, but instead Amelia pulled Beatrix close, her shoulders trembling. She could barely breathe for laughing.
"Bea ... you did it on purpose, didn't you? ... I couldn't believe my eyes ... that blasted lizard running along the table ... "
"I had to do something," the girl explained in a muffled voice. "Leo was behaving badly - I didn't understand what he was saying, but I saw Lord Westcliff's face - "
"Oh ... oh ... " Amelia choked with giggles. "Poor Westcliff ... one moment he's def-fending the local population from Leo's tyranny, and then Spot comes s-slithering past the bread plates ... "
"Where is Spot?" Twisting away from her sister, Beatrix approached Cam, who deposited the lizard in her outstretched palms. "Thank you, Mr. Rohan. You have very quick hands."
"So I've been told." He smiled at her. — Lisa Kleypas

No, Zahra, dear, no! Gentleness isn't weakness.' Her hand, suspended in midair, trembled with emptiness and fell to her side. 'How easy it is to be bitter or angry; that's when you're at your weakest! But when you choose to be kind, to forget your hurt, that's when you find within the greatest strength of all.' She smiled, oh, a smile of such ancient wisdom, her face shone with love. She waited, but when I wouldn't smile back, she walked past me. — Judy Croome

His was not an easy face to read, and no one could have told that in the past half hour he had suffered the worst knock of his life. Except that he no longer whistled into the wind or talked to his irritable mare, there was nothing to show. — Winston Graham

For the first few hundred years of American history, food preparation was generally approached in a no-nonsense manner. Even as late as twenty-five years ago, the general attitude was that "feeding your face" was all right, but to make too much fuss about it was somehow decadent. In the past two decades, of course, the trend has reversed itself so sharply that earlier misgivings about gastronomic excesses seem almost to have been justified. Now we have "foodies" and wine freaks who take the pleasures of the palate as seriously as if they were rites in a brand-new religion. Gourmet — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I saw on his face a glimpse of his past. The damage, the unhappiness and the pain, and I wondered what kind of skeletons he has been hiding and for how long. It's one of those mutual attraction moments that are unexplainable, but as real as anything you've ever seen. Almost like my soul knows his soul. — Cyma Rizwaan Khan

You forgive me?" he asked, trailing hot kisses down my neck.
"Yes. But don't do it again. And don't stop kissing me."
"Got it. Let me apologize to you properly. Let me kiss you between the legs." Strong hands cupped my ass, pressing me against his erection. "I wanna lick you, Lena."
"You like doing that, don't you?" I asked, a little amazed. Past boyfriends had not rated the experience highly.
"Fuck yes. I love having you squirming against my face, rubbing your pussy on me. — Kylie Scott

I've said more nonsex words to Harlow in the past five minutes than I did the entire time she was in Canada, but I'm surprised to find that not only is she easy to talk to, she's fun. "And, my impression of you is ever evolving, now that you aren't just a pretty face in my lap."
"You're one classy motherfucker, Finn."
"This speaking thing does wonders for expanding our horizons. — Christina Lauren

In the past, people couldn't place me. They thought that I was Danish or English or French. They never got that I am Italian. I'm not typical, maybe because my visual education was very mixed. There was a lot of London in my aesthetic: The Face, i-D, British music, and a lot of British fashion ... But I really enjoy this contrast. — Italo Zucchelli

He shoved her feet down to the floor, slid down the sofa, and cupped her face in his hands.
She barely had time to moisten her lips and shut her eyes before his mouth closed in to claim hers in a fiery hot kiss. She felt as if her whole body was floating off the sofa toward the ceiling. His hands on her cheeks were the only thing that kept her grounded. Her arms went around his neck. Both hands twisted into his hair for better leverage as his tongue found its way past her lips to do a beautiful two-step with hers.
Sweet Jesus! A kiss had never done that to her before. She wanted more ... — Carolyn Brown

I've spent a great deal of time over the past decade as a caregiver for various family members. It gives me a perspective on the struggles that many New Yorkers face with illness, disability, health care, insurance difficulties, and trying to work with and also take care of family members. — Wendy E. Long

The only way you can ever accuse a Conservative of hypocrisy is if they walk past a homeless person without kicking him in the face. — Jeremy Hardy

I knew a sudden shyness. There was a look on his face, a stillness to his body that had never been there before. Though I couldn't give the emotion a name, I felt it, too. We had something special. Something hard to define. Something past friendship.

"I must go now," I said and rose up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, marveling at its velvet skin. "Thank you for the book."

He drew me into his embrace and sighed. "Thank you for the stars. — Elizabeth Langston

Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,
Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,
With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch'd, and the white now gray
and ashy,
One wither'd rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;
But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?
Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?
No, while memories subtly play - the past vivid as ever;
For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee,
Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:
So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach,
It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid. — Walt Whitman

Remember: we all get what we tolerate. So stop tolerating excuses within yourself, limiting beliefs of the past, or half-assed or fearful states. Use your body as a tool to snap yourself into a place of sheer will, determination, and commitment. Face your challenges head on with the core belief that problems are just speed bumps on the road to your dreams. And from that place, when you take massive action - with an effective and proven strategy - you will rewrite your history. — Anthony Robbins

i am confident i am over you. so much that some mornings i wake up with a smile on my face and my hands pressed together thanking the universe for pulling you out of me. thank god i cry. thank god you left. i would not be the empire i am today if you had stayed.

but then.

there are some nights i imagine what i might do if you showed up. how if you walked into the room this very second every awful thing you've ever done would be tossed out the closet window and all the love would rise up again. it would pour through my eyes as if it never really left in the first place. as if it's been practicing how to stay silent so long only so it could be this loud on your arrival. can someone explain that. how even when the love leaves. it doesn't leave. how even when i am so past you. i am so helplessly brought back to you. — Rupi Kaur

Someone told me at the beginning of that summer that I would come face-to-face with death because of a Romeo and Juliet romance, I would never have believed it. But it wasn't like that summer went at all like I had planned in the first place. The Columbia recruiter sat across from me, her dark bushy eyebrows rising as high as they could go while she stared down at my application. "So, Alex, I see that you don't have any extracurricular activities." I shrugged. I was sitting in one of those uncomfortable orange plastic chairs in the guidance counselor's office, wishing I could just disappear. I was the first student in all of Winnebago High School's history to have a recruiter from an Ivy League school visit. By the way she looked at our tiny school with its ancient, chipped walls and rusted lockers, I could see why nobody had wanted to visit in the past. — Magan Vernon

Compassion does not have to be a face-to-face relationship. Forgiveness does not imply friendship. Understanding why someone has inflicted pain on us is how we set ourselves free of the past, not how we excuse someone's behaviour so they can continue to abuse us. — Vironika Tugaleva

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. — Frank Herbert

Teddy risked a look backward and nodded as he handed Henry his hat. The two men shook hands and then walked past each other Teddy moving in the direction of Henry's room and Henry the hat pulled down over his face toward the Cutting carriage that was waiting by the curb. — Anna Godbersen

All we have to face in the future is what has happened in the past. It is unbearable. — Maeve Brennan

To save face, it's better not to ask sex from the ex, but to give everything the axe. — Anthony Liccione

I touched the moon last night;
a golden glow beyond my grasp.
Eons before me it rested there.
It will remain when I am dust.
My hand now glows from the embrace.
Voices echo through nights past,
and with the glow, caress my face.
My finger faints from what will last.
Alone I am; alone secure;
the moon will last when I am gone.
A Master set it in its' place,
to move the tide, refresh the dawn.
Unnumbered eyes have felt its rest;
have looked upon reflected light.
My heart is moved away from pain;
I touched the moon last night. — Craig Froman

You need to come face-to-face with the past, not as some naive, easily wounded boy, but as a grown-up, independent professional. Not to see what you want to see, but what you must see. Otherwise you'll carry around that baggage for the rest of your life. — Haruki Murakami

One of the questions I face when working on a book about a historical event is whether I should visit the actual place that I'm writing about. No matter how scrupulously maintained a historic house or battlefield may be, it is nothing like it was in the long-ago past. — Nathaniel Philbrick

So Captain Jack's come a-courtin'." Her hands stilled on the basket. "Who?" "The tall Shawnee who come by your cabin." The tall one. Lael felt a small surge of triumph at learning his name. Captain Jack. Oddly, she felt no embarrassment. Lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug, she continued pulling the vines into a tight circle. "He come by, but I don't know why." "Best take a long look in the mirror, then." Lael's eyes roamed the dark walls. Ma Horn didn't own one. "Beads and a blanket, was it?" She nodded and looked back down. "I still can't figure out why some Shawnee would pay any mind to a white girl like me." Ma Horn chuckled, her face alight in the dimness. "Why, Captain Jack's as white as you are." "What?" she blurted, eyes wide as a child's. Ma Horn's smile turned sober. "He's no Indian, Shawnee or otherwise, so your pa says. He was took as a child from some-wheres in North Carolina. All he can remember of his past life is his white name - Jack. — Laura Frantz

Modern men are afraid of the past. It is a record of human achievement, but its other face is human defeat. — Walter Lippmann

We are runaway slaves from our own past, and only by turning to face the hounds can we find our freedom beyond them. — Timothy B. Tyson

Considering the great heritage in music that we have - the work of the giants of the past, the present, and the promise of those who are to come - I feel that we have every reason to face the future optimistically. — John Coltrane

We all go through periods of anguish, times when we think we can't face what lies ahead. But the only way to get past it is to go through it, straight through it. No detours, no camouflage, no running. You have to meet problems head-on, despite the pain. — Diana Palmer

I miss your smile. I mean, it's really annoying to hear your sarcastic toneless laugh, but I miss that crooked smile on your face when you do that."
"That's the nicest thing anyone ever said to me this past few months."
"I'm touched."
"Thank God for me."
"Yeah, I didn't tell you where I was touched. — Rea Lidde

Then the Announcer would transform: into a screen through which to glimpse the past-or into a portal through which to step.
This Announcer was sticky,but she soon pulled it apart,guided it into shape. She reached inside and opened the portal.
She couldn't stay here any longer. She had a mission now: to find herself alive in another time and learn what price the Outcasts had referred to, and eventually,to trace the origin of the curse between Daniel and her.
Then to break it.
The others gasped as she manipulated the Announcer.
"When did you learn how to do that?" Daniil whispered.
Luce shook her head. Her explanation would only baffle Daniil.
"Lucinda!" The last thing she heard was his voice calling out her true name.
Strange,she'd been looking right at his stricken face but hadn't seen her lips move. Her mind was playing tricks.
"Lucinda!" he shouted once more, his voice rising in panic,just before Luce dove headfirst into the beckoning darkness. — Lauren Kate

Perhaps I shouldn't call it shit. That's a bit crude. I don't really despise Christianity or even the Roman Church, and certainly not the incontrovertible glory of the Middle Ages. What I do despise is the contemporary inclination to flop to the knees and crawl back into the past, to shy from what seem like impossible problems in order to bury the head, asshole aloft and twitching, in the Sands of Time. Cowardice, I calls it. Illusion-seeking. Womb-crawling. And treason. Desertion in the face of the enemy.
Strong words indeed. But I've always been rather a blunt, tough, plain-spoken type ... — Edward Abbey

Guess what?" she said to us. "Someone chopped down a tree in Mrs. Spencer's garden last night."

I stared at her incredulously for a moment. Not a much-loved family member, then, not a nuclear power plant. My eyes went to Florence's face, which was wet with tears. Was she really crying over Mr. Snuggles?

Unobtrusively, I slipped past Lottie and over to the coffee machine, put the biggest cup I could find under it, and pressed the cappuccino button. Twice.

"A tree? But why?" asked Mia with a perfectly judged mixture of curiosity and mild surprise.

"No one knows," said Lottie. "But Mrs. Spencer has already called in Scotland Yard. It was a very valuable tree."

I almost laughed out loud. Yes, sure. I bet they had a special gardening squad to investigate such cases. Scotland Front Yard. Good day, my name is Inspector Griffin and I'm looking into the murder of Mr. Snuggles. — Kerstin Gier

Myrnin froze, staring at her. He really was amazing, she thought; when he had that light in his eyes, it was possible to see past the crazy behavior and clothing chaos and recognize him as just ... beautiful. The longing in his face was breathtaking. — Rachel Caine

Archaeology, I found, comprehended all manner of excitement and achievement. Adventure is coupled with bookish toil. Romantic excursions go hand in hand with scholarly self-discipline and moderation. Explorations among the ruins of the remote past have carried curious men all over the face of the earth ... Yet in truth, no science is more adventurous than archaeology, if adventure is thought of as a mixture of spirit and deed. — C. W. Ceram

The archive of supposed photocopies (I.E. memory) actually offers up strange creatures; the green paradise of childhood loves that Baudelaire recalled is for many a future in reverse, an obverse of hope in the face of the gray purgatory of adult loves. — Julio Cortazar

I think when two people get together, their past is their past. Their reputations are reputations. You can only take someone the way you find them ... on face value. — Shane Warne

The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify by their own lonesome familiarities to this feeling. Ecstasy, even , I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass. — Jack Kerouac

The script's always important, but there are some things that have come out in the past year that, when we read them, everyone was like, "Oh my god, this is going to be the next best thing!" Then the movie falls completely flat on its face. — Douglas Booth

Travel is the art form available to Everyman. You sit in the coffee shop in a strange city and nobody knows who you are, or cares, and so you shed your checkered past and your motley credentials and you face the day unarmed ... And onward we go and some day in the distant future, we will stop and turn around in astonishment to see all the places we've been and the heroes we were. — Garrison Keillor

There is something that can happen to every athlete and every human being; the instinct to slack off, to give in to pain, to give less than your best; the instinct to hope you can win through luck or through your opponent not doing his best, instead of going to the limit and past your limit where victory is always found. Defeating those negative instincts that are out to defeat us, is the difference between winning and losing - and we all face that battle every day. — Jesse Owens

The neurotic youth of to-day renews no ante-existent type. You will look in vain for a face like Amos's amongst the busts of the recovered past. The same weakness of outline you may point to - the sheep-like features falling to a blunt prow; the lax jaw and pinched temples - but not to that which expresses a consciousness that combative effort in a world of fruitless results is a lost desire.
("The Accursed Cordonnier") — Bernard Capes

I present Mr. and Mrs. Cole Bridge. You may kiss the bride." Father Callahan gave Cole a nod of approval.
Cole faced Kyle and wrapped her in his arms. He pulled her off her feet and closer to his face. Livia and Blake were the only ones close enough to hear Cole's private vows.
He kissed her once, gently and almost chastely. "For our past."
Cole kissed her again, just a breath of a kiss, lightly touching her lips. "For today."
The last kiss was deeper, but still maintained church decorum. It was the intimacy in his gaze that made the guests feel voyeuristic. "For the rest of our lives," he said softly as he set her back on her feet. — Debra Anastasia

Sometimes a cloudless swatch of sky would blow past the moon, and Pella could see the outline of Mike's face in a slightly sharper relief. It was strange the way he loved her: a sidelong and almost casual love, as if loving her were simply a matter of course, too natural to mention. Like their first meeting on the steps of the gym, when he'd hardly so much as glanced at her. With David and every guy before David, what passed for love had always been eye to eye, nose to nose; she felt watched, observed, like the prize at the zoo, and she wound up pacing, preening, watching back, to fit the part. Whereas Mike was always beside her. She would stand at the kitchen window and look out at the quad, at the Melville statue and beyond that the beach and the rolling lake, and realize that Make, for however long, had been standing beside her, staring at the same thing. — Chad Harbach

No thanks. I'm not an artist." "You don't have to be. That's the beauty of creating art. It's cathartic. Think of your past, your present, your future. Draw what troubles you. It can be a face, a place, a story inside of one single image. — Keri Lake

I suppose that someday, suddenly, I will be transferred to another age, for example the chivalric or the bronze. The hope is, of course, that I arrive in period dress but not resemble a contemporary luminary, for I wish to simply onlook. But, more probably, thanks to chronologically garbled garb, or my mistakable face - which will lead to expectations of competence - I will have to explain my occurrence. That explained, I will have to explain my age, The Present, also known as "The Future" in the past. This is why I am studying our great inventions and advances: to be ready for questions. — Amy Leach