Look Past Quotes & Sayings

I had thought to seize the image in my head and preserve it in wax, so that I might always be able to look upon it as one of those rare moments in which one senses the plates of the world shift beneath one and life is forever altered: on one side of the buckling earth is the past, and on the other side the present, and there is no soldering the two together ever again. — Hanya Yanagihara

The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated. — Arthur Koestler

I had drunk our great cultural Kool-Aid about regret, which is that lamenting things that occurred in the past is an absolute waste of time, that we should always look forward and not backward, and that one of the noblest and best things we can do is strive to live a life free of regrets. — Kathryn Schulz

Everything that's happening in our world is a function of what is going on inside of people. We are violent in our minds. We are violent with one another. We walk past one another in the street and don't even look nor make eye contact - don't speak. We can be outraged about the missiles and the planes. I'm more outraged that somebody will walk past me in the street and not look me in the face and say good morning. — Iyanla Vanzant

Maybe Rachel was right all along. Maybe the past is past, history is history, and you just push it aside and look for the future. — Barry Lyga

That time when past begins to look longer than the future — Whipplesnaith

If we could all take a sober look at our history, then we would no longer see this nostalgic attitude to the Soviet past that predominates among the less affected part of our society. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Sometimes it's like that in life too. We look into a past that no longer exists, looking as if it's real. We hold onto things in our life that there's no reason to hold onto anymore because, unlike the stars, they don't bring us beauty, they bring us pain. — Charlene Carr

When we recognize that we have a habit of replaying old events and reacting to new events as if they were the old ones, we can begin to notice when that habit energy comes up. We can then gently remind ourselves that we have another choice. We can look at the moment as it is, a fresh moment, and leave the past for a time when we can look at it compassionately. — Thich Nhat Hanh

I think shoppers are looking for newness and creativity. Look at C. Wonder, for instance. They're dancing in our stores. We don't believe in retail like retail was done in the past. We believe in disrupting the whole environment, offering them amazing value in an amazing package of fun, excitement and whimsy. — J. Christopher Burch

It would almost be easier to never see her again tan to look into her eyes and know she'd left her love for him somewhere in the past. — Karen Kingsbury

To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice. — Lord Acton

Perhaps because of all the money poured into this, the things behind the spanking displays look old and crummy, like articles from a time that has been left behind. I slap down the stairs in my sandals. I am annoyed that this past can look so tawdry and so safe, as if destined from the outset to end up behind glass, securely roped off and under pressure-button control. And I am annoyed at myself: what's the problem? Isn't a museum the place for things that are over? — Anna Funder

I wish I had a talking book that told me how to act and look, a talking book that contained keys to past and present memories — Lou Reed

Bruce is still my friend. We don't talk much. We don't have to. He is great and in his own league. I'm not him and he is not me. But we are on similar paths, writing and singing out own kind of songs around the world, along with Bob and a few other singer/songwriters. It is a a silent fraternity of sorts, occupying this space in people's souls with our music. Last year, I lost my right-hand man, the pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith. This year Bruce lost his right-hand man, the saxophonist Clarence Clemons. It's time for another talk; friends can help each other just by being there. Now both of us will look to our right and see a giant hole, a memory, the past and the future. I won't play with another steel player trying to recreate Ben's parts, and I know Bruce won't play with another sax man trying to play Clarence's. Those parts are not going to happen again. They already did. That takes a lot out of our repertoires. — Neil Young

In a different connection, we have already spoken of the tendency there was to look into the past, to help make the present, with all its horrors, less real. But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist. — Viktor E. Frankl

The New Coach. Did she look at us that first week and see past the glossed hair and shiny legs, our glittered brow bones and girl bravado? See past all that to everything beneath, all our miseries, the way we all hated ourselves but much more everyone else? — Megan Abbott

The stories of past courage can define that ingredient- they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot provide courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul. — John F. Kennedy

The mirror sighed and spoke in a tone tinged with melancholy. Its language was old and not of any of the worlds known or unknown.

What you dream, what you darkly desire,

Find it by trial or by fire.

Seek it high and seek it low,

Search the skies or the realms below.

Look everywhere but beware,

The deepest magic, the strongest spell

Will not change what the stars foretell. — Sukanya Venkatraghavan

Uh, Miss Carlson," I said, standing at her desk after everybody else had gone on to their next class, "somebody told me you went to that guy's funeral the one the highway patrol shot."
"Yes," SHe said. "I did."
She didn't look like she was mad at me about it. She had real long eyelashes. I bet she was good-looking when she was young.
"Was he a relative or something?" That was what I was afraid of.
"No. Not even a friend really." She paused, like she was hunting for the right words. Finally she said, "I read a book once that ended with the words 'the incommunicable past' You can only share the past with someone who's shared it with you. So I can't explain to you what Mark was to me, exactly. I knew him a long time ago. — S.E. Hinton

When anger rears up in me I have a trick I do where I picture it as a freshly uncoiled snake dropping down from the jungle canopy and heading for my neck. If I look at it directly it'll disappear, but I have to do it while the snake's still dropping or it will strike. This sounds like something they'd teach you in therapy at the hospital or something, but it's not. It's just a trick I found somewhere by myself. Once you've looked at a deadly thing and seen it disappear, what more is there to do? Walk on through the empty jungle toward the city past the clearing. — John Darnielle

I don't want to talk about those things. I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I've built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, Henry ... to have you here gives me a second breath. I can't keep doing this on my own with these ... people.
[laughs] — Paul Thomas Anderson

We must look at the past with our eyes in the future. — Daniel Marques

Think there is nothing we can do to change the past, so we have to look at the present to make sure that the past will never repeat itself again. — Heinz Fischer

Perhaps you need to look back before you can move ahead. — Alan Brennert

The rule is: we cannot really forgive ourselves unless we look at the failure in our past and call it by its right name. — Lewis B. Smedes

If you wanted to see into the future, you just had to look to the past. Reaching — Matthew Mather

The light was grainy, dusty; it looked like the Milky Way had spread from the top of the sky all down the west, and the tented shapes of the mountains were huge and satin black against it, and the ridgeline trees made a filigree of onyx. The wind had increased but not cooled; the promise of full summer was in it. And when Dr. Barcroft turned from the west to look again at the house, he was hardly surprised to see that it had begun to turn like a wheel upon a vertical axle as the silhouettes of the dancers raced past window after window. It was as if their dancing, the female slide and shuffle, the masculine drum and thunder, propelled the house behind them; it had become a merry-go-round, turning steadily and stately as the music went just a little bit faster, just a little more, and he could tell there were furies in it, whirlwinds and cyclones and hurricanes that Quigley's fiddle barely held in check, that his calling could barely control. — Fred Chappell

I'm not sure this will make sense to you but I felt as though I'd turned around to look in a different direction so that I no longer faced backward toward the past but forward toward the future. And now the question confronting me was this: What would the future be — Arthur Golden

If you want something new in your life, you have to make space for it. I mean that psychologically as well as physically. Take a look at your closet. If you have the kind of closet where you can't fit another thing in there, that might be the reason you don't have more new clothes. If you want a new man in your life, you've got to let go of the one who stopped dating you five years ago. In other words, you need to complete the past in order for the present to show up more fully. — Jack Canfield

Thundering, roaring, are the storms of life. Momentary hardships that, unveiled, reveal a purpose beyond carnal reasoning. The pain can get intense, the hurt can be severe, but one must look beyond themselves for conclusive answers. One must not examine their situations using finite logic to try to discover the deeper meaning behind the circumstance or its outcome. One must look beyond the surface of their own intellect, and see through the walls of their own understanding. The blueprint of life has been masterfully designed in such a way, that all things - no matter how they may seem - have a purpose; and that purpose will ultimately bring
about a greater good overall. The spiritual realm is truly realities base; and it is from there that truth derives. The mystery of the storm is revealed - cause and effect - the past, the present, and the future. — Calvin W. Allison

Dasha introduced Alexander to Marina. They shook hands and both stared at each other for longer than was appropriate. Marina, embarrassed, stepped away, averting her gaze. Alexander smiled, putting his arm around Dasha. "Dasha," he said, "so this is your cousin Marina." Tatiana wanted to shake her head at him, while a perplexed Marina remained speechless. Later on in the kitchen, Marina said to Tatiana, "Tania, why did Dasha's Alexander look at me as if he knew me?" "I have no idea." "He is adorable." "You think so?" said Dasha, who was heading past the girls to the bathroom, leaving Alexander in the corridor. "Well, keep your hands off him," she added cheerfully. "He's mine." "Don't you think?" Marina whispered to Tatiana. "He's all right," said Tatiana. "Help me wash this frying pan, will you?" Adorable Alexander stood in the doorway, smoking and grinning at Tatiana. — Paullina Simons

Mom and Dad exchange a nervous glance and have a telepathic conversation about it. I hear every word.
Do we let her out? It's past curfew.
True, but look at that - at least she asked!
I know! I can hardly believe it!
She could have sneaked out, but she asked!
I know! We're good parents!
"What time will you be back?" Dad asks. — Courtney Summers

Jesus brings a kingdom ruled by the crucified one and populated by the unclean and always found in the unexpected. I'd expected to look at the past and see only mistakes that I'd moved on from, to see only damage and addiction and tragic self-delusion. But by thinking that way, I'd assumed that God was nowhere to be found back then. But that's kind of an insult to God. It's like saying, 'You only exist when I recognize you.' The kingdom of heaven, which Jesus talked about all the time, is, as he said, here. At hand. It's now. Wherever you are. In ways you'd never expect. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

If we look at the past two centuries of economic history in Europe and the United States, we see an astounding pattern. Capital will accumulate in a tiny portion of the population, no matter what we do. — Annalee Newitz

The first step towards reimagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination- an imagination that is outside of capitalism as well as communism. An imagination which has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfilment. To gain this philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past but who may really be the guides to our future. To do this we have to ask our rulers: Can you leave the water in the rivers, the trees in the forest? Can you leave the bauxite in the mountain? — Arundhati Roy

O my brothers, your nobility should not look backward but ahead! Exiles shall you be from all father- and forefather-lands! Your children's land shall you love: this love shall be your new nobility - the undiscovered land in the most distant sea. For that I bid your sails search and search. In your children you shall make up for being the children of your fathers: thus shall you redeem all that is past. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Conservation destroys the present. If we are only busy preserving the past, we are not living in the present and unable to look forward. I am against conservation. We should let young people move forward, whether we agree with them or not. We should let new things happen. — Peter Eisenman

I'll never forget the stillness, the hesitation, and a trace of something I'd never before seen on Ghosh's face: cunning. Then it gave in to resignation and a faraway look. For a moment I saw the world through his eyes, his intellect, his sweeping vision ... a vision that recapitulated our birth and looked to the future, looked past his life to the end of mine and beyond. And then and only then did it settle, gather, and focus, on the now, on a moment when the love was so palpable between father and son that the thought that it might end, and this memory be its only legacy, was unacceptable. — Abraham Verghese

Melville has his tics, but he always put his words in the right order. Once you fall under the spell of the writer, you look past those ticks because you are more interested in what the writer says than judging how well he grasped the editorial conventions of his time. — Mary Norris

Look heah, now, I've got the wuhks of all the old mastahs - the gweat ahchaeologists of the past. I wigh them against each othah - balance the disagweements - analyze the conflicting statements - decide which is pwobably cowwect - and come to a conclusion. That is the scientific method. At least" - patronizingly - "as I see it. — Isaac Asimov

In the past 20 years alone, it adds up to more death than were caused by all the civil and international wars adn government repression of the entire twentieth century, the century of Hitler and Stalin. How much would we give to prevent those horrors? Yet how little are we doing to prevent today's even larger toll and all the misery that it involves? I believe that if you read this book to the end, and look honestly and carefully at our situation, assessing both the facts and the ethical arguments, you will agree that we must act. — Peter Singer

Embrace Change Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. JOHN F. KENNEDY Thirty-fifth president of the United States — Jack Canfield

VIEW FROM A HILL
I am not yet quite over it.
I am lying down on top of it.
Surveying behind me a wasteland
Of dried-up promise.
While the lights below twinkle
With dull mocking uncertainty.
There isn't much left to look forward to,
And the looking forward of the past has been belied. — John Tottenham

In Paris the past is always with you: you look at it, walk over it, sit on it. — Elizabeth Bard

But this we affirm, this we maintain, this we every way pronounce to be right, that no man ought to inflict on himself voluntary death, for this is to escape the ills of time by plunging into those of eternity; that no man ought to do so on account of another man's sins, for this were to escape a guilt which could not pollute him, by incurring great guilt of his own; that no man ought to do so on account of his own past sins, for he has all the more need of this life that these sins may be healed by repentance; that no man should put an end to this life to obtain that better life we look for after death, for those who die by their own hand have no better life after death. — Augustine Of Hippo

Why would you care what happened to me? That's all in the past." Jagger bent down and touched his forehead to hers. "Because you're mine. And 'mine' means you have my protection. 'Mine' means I'll look after you. It means nothing happens you don't want to happen and no one touches you without your consent. It means your life is in my hands and I will do everything in my power to ensure you are safe and secure and your needs are met. It means something happened to you that twisted your perception so bad, you look at us and you see only them. I'll make that right. I'll give you justice. I'll give you back whatever was taken from you. — Anonymous

Look, this island is an attempt to re-create a natural environment from the past. To make an isolated world where extinct creatures roam freely. Correct?" "Yes." "But from my point of view, such an undertaking is impossible. The mathematics are so self-evident that they don't need to be calculated. It's rather like my asking you whether, on a billion dollars in income, you had to pay tax. You wouldn't need to pull out your calculator to check. You'd know tax was owed. And, similarly, I know overwhelmingly that one cannot successfully duplicate nature in this way, or hope to isolate it. — Michael Crichton

Hi Ayden!"
Oh, come on! I skidded a sharp right and hunkered down, peeking through shelves.
Ayden strode past the front desk. "Ladies. Don't you all look especially radiant today."
They giggled like toddlers. Pushovers.
"Ayden, could you help us put some of the books away on the taller shelves?"
"Can't. Sorry." He faced them but walked backwards, arms spread wide. "I'm on a mission. Maybe you can help. Did you happen to see a stunning redhead? Tall, leggy. I call her my goddess of a girlfriend."
More giggles. From me. Pull it together, Aurora.
A&E Kirk, Drop Dead Demons — A&E Kirk

Look, when you get your memory back and can divulge all your secrets from the past, we'll have a sleepover and I'll tell you everything; but, as far as I'm concerned, until that day arrives, we both have amnesia. — Tarryn Fisher

There is nothing that anyone can get past a forty-five-year-old woman." We laugh hard, the first honest sound I make that afternoon, or in many days, each of us feeling the ravages of experience, our debt to enduring. We are not to be fucked with. We rule. Even as we age and help our children push past us, as we worry about the estimate for the roof, forget things we meant to do, regard our widening bodies, we rule. We've returned again and again to our original selves for another look; we have refined our purpose. Changes we thought we'd been resisting have anyway been wrought, and they have made us unbreakable. — Susanna Sonnenberg

I try not to look backwards, Elise. Makes is hard to see where you're going. — Kelly Bowen

Come to thee again! ENTWIFE. When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last; When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past; I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again: Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain! BOTH. Together we will take the road that leads into the West, And far away will find a land where both our hearts — J.R.R. Tolkien

Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then. — Diana Ross

As long as I'm between home and the clinic I do all right. But out in the real world, I feel like prey. I slink around and can feel people looking at me. I feel their eyes boring into me. I feel what they're thinking: Watch her, she could go off anytime. But within the walls of my farmhouse, I climb out of the protective shell, my arms slowly rise like a phoenix, and I dance, wail, fly around the room and then collapse, crying, in front of my mirrors. I start to see in the mirror what it is I really look like, instead of what I was trained from the womb to see. I do not write about it. I do not talk about it. I do not know what I am doing. But just like a baby bird, I am blinking once-sealed eyes and unfolding damp wings. I cannot articulate the past. A part of me knows it's there, lurking, just behind what I can acknowledge, but it is not within sight. And I am keeping it that way. — Julie Gregory

Think about it. People in the sixteenth century - not to mention in Jesus's time - didn't look like this: perfect skin, perfect hairdos, spotless clothes. These are people who went to the bathroom in the street, for God's sake. There's no way they looked like this. But that's how we're going to remember them. Our alabaster past. When nothing else is left, art will become the truth of the time. Then people will get to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and wonder what happened - how we all became so imperfect. — Julia David Levithan

When I look back on that time, it's with the strangest stew of emotions: love, longing, terror, horror, regret, and the deep sweetness only those who've been near death can know. I think it's how Adam and Eve must have felt. Surely they looked back at Eden, don't you think, as they started barefoot down the path to where we are now, in our glum political world of bullets and bombs and satellite TV? Looked past the angel guarding the shut gate with his fiery sword? Sure. I think they must have wanted one more look at the green world they had lost, with its sweet water and kind-hearted animals. And its snake, of course. — Stephen King

Look, you think I like history because I'm fascinated with the possibilities, with how it could have happened, but you're wrong. I like it because it's the one thing we actually know in life. The past is the only thing we can count on. The present? The future? They're anyone's guess. — Rebecca Serle

One of the things that I love to do is travel around the world and look at archaeological sites. Because archaeology gives us an opportunity to study past civilizations, and see where they succeeded and where they failed. Use science to, you know, work backwards and say, 'Well, really, what were they thinking?' — Nathan Myhrvold

In the past, I've had my share of good reviews, but it's always the crazy, scary, weirdo guy. I don't even know how it happened. Look at me. I mean, when I'm naked, I look like a bald chicken. How did I get to be a scary bad guy? — Gary Oldman

The past looks worse the closer you look at it. — Hanif Kureishi

We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers. — Agnes Repplier

I'm going to Bristol," Matthew said desperately. "I'll reschedule the meetings. I won't do anything without your leave. But at least I can gather information - interview the local transport firm, have a look at their horses - "
"Swift," the earl interrupted. Something in his quiet tone, a note of ... kindness? ... sympathy? ... caused Matthew to stiffen defensively. "I understand the reason for your urgency - "
"No, you don't."
"I understand more than you might think. And in my experience, these problems can't be solved by avoidance. You can never run far or fast enough."
Matthew froze, staring at Westcliff. The earl could have been referring either to Daisy, or to Matthew's tarnished past. In either case he was probably right.
Not that it changed anything.
"Sometimes running is the only choice," Matthew replied gruffly, and left the room without looking back. — Lisa Kleypas

Documenting life as it happened seemed like a way of not experiencing it. As if posing for photographs, or focusing on what to save and call a souvenir, made the present instantly the past. You had to choose one or the other was Everly's feeling. Try to shape a moment into a memory you could save and look at later, or have the moment as it was happening, but you couldn't have both. — Rachel Kushner

When you like people you forgive their faults and look past their mistakes. — J.A. Huss

When I look back, no matter how hard I try I can see clear break between one phase and another. It is a seamless flow - although flow is too strong a word. More a sort of busy stasis, a sort of running on the spot. Even that was too fast for me, however, I was always a little way behind, trotting in the rear of my own life. In Dublin I was still the boy growing up at Coolgrange, in America I was the callow young man of Dublin days, on the islands I became a kind of American. And nothing was enough. Everything was coming, was on the way, was about to be. Stuck in the past, I was always peering beyond the present towards a limitless future. Now, I suppose, the future may be said to have arrived. — John Banville

I'm too old for change," she explained. "I'm too old to pursue good health and new relationships. The past breathes for me. It is my life. You are young, Dr. Scarpetta. Someday you will see what it is like to look back. You will find it inescapable. You will find your personal history drawing you back into familiar rooms where, ironically, events occurred that set into motion your eventual estrangement from life. You will find the hard furniture of heartbreak more comfortable and the people who failed you friendlier with time. You will find yourself running back into the arms of the pain you once ran away from. It is easier. That's all I can say. It is easier." "Do — Patricia Cornwell

today is a new day. Don't look back. The past has passed. Today is all you have, so live it in the best way possible. If you are still allowing your past to shape your future, then you must stop that immediately. Failing in the past doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to fail in the future...whatever your life looked like in the past, it doesn't mean that that is how your future must be. — Mohamed Tohami

I remember seeing one elderly man look at us, and he held his hand out, and most frightening were his eyes, dark as a soulless abyss, so black that it looked as if it had been blasted from a cyclone. I felt he was looking right at me. For a moment, I thought I was looking through his sockets, past his brain and behind him; as the tears started rolling down my cheeks a godless universe was expanding within me. Then I became hysterical. — Alfred Nestor

In the past few months I've become religious. I've started to believe in god, creationism and intelligent design, and the reason that I now believe in god and creationism and intelligent design is because of Professor Richard Dawkins. Because when I look at something as complex and intricate and beautiful as Professor Richard Dawkins, I don't think that just could've evolved by chance. Professor Richard Dawkins was put there by god to test us, like fossils. And facts. — Stewart Lee

None of us really cheer for glory, prizes, tourneys. None of us, maybe, know why we do it at all, except it is like a rampart against the routine and groaning afflictions of the school day. You wear that jacket, like so much armor, game days, the flipping skirts. Who could touch you? Nobody could. My question is this: The New Coach. Did she look at us that first week and see past the glossed hair and shiny legs, our glittered brow bones and girl bravado? See past all that to everything beneath, all our miseries, the way we all hated ourselves but much more everyone else? Could she see past all of that to something else, something quivering and real, something poised to be transformed, turned out, made? See that she could make us, stick her hands in our glitter-gritted insides and build us into magnificent teen gladiators? — Megan Abbott

I can't talk about every single film I made. It's not my way to go back into the past and to look at my old pictures and to discuss them. — Otto Preminger

It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time - for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. Do — C.S. Lewis

I pushed his hair away from his eyes and took a closer look at his cheek. Maybe there really had been a boy in the street, but I also wouldn't put it past Cole to make one appear,if he had that power.
Jack's eyes opened fully,and he looked at me with half a grin. "You remember the first time I told you I loved you?" His words slurred together.
"Shhhhh.Don't talk.The paramedics are on their way."
"Do you?"
I touched his cheek and he winced. I could almost taste his pain,as if it were a tangible element in the air.I could feel my body hungering for the hurt.It was the first time since I'd Returned that I craved someone else's energy.Even at my lowest point,those last moments in the Everneath,I'd never felt a need for it.Until now.Until I was faced with emotions this strong.
He tilted his head toward me,and I jerked back. The taste in the air became bitter and sweet,a mixture of pain and longing.
"Tell me you remember," he said. "Please. — Brodi Ashton

Dullness it is that perverts and corrups the spirit but it is always possible to look past the dullness, and see the bright, shining heart of things — Jude Morgan

With one eye on the past,
some see which they cannot see,
whilst others in the future see
that which cannot be seen.

Why go so far, look closer!
What is freedom? The day is here!
This is the hour, the moment;
and this moment is who we are and that is that.

Forever flowing, the eternal hour
reveals our insignificance.
In a single gasp we live and die, so size the day,
for the day is simply who you are. — Ricardo Reis

What can you say about hospitals? No matter how upscale they are, the air is always saturated with disinfectant and an underlying stench of chemicals. Most of the patients' doors are closed, but a few of them are open. The beds are mostly occupied by elderly men and women with brown splotchy age marks all over. They're hooked up to tubes and wires and things ... They appear to be sleeping - or lost. It's hard for me to look at them. It's as though all the emptiness inside of all of us - regret about our past and fear about our future - has been physically manifested in these withering bodies. — Nic Sheff

The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty. — Seneca.

I look forward, not to what lies ahead of me in this life and will surely pass away, but to my eternal goal. I am intent upon this one purpose, not distracted by other aims, and with this goal in view I press on, eager for the prize, God's heavenly summons. Then I shall listen to the sound of Your praises and gaze at Your beauty ever present, never future, never past. But now my years are but sighs. You, O Lord, are my only solace. You, my Father, are eternal. But I am divided between time gone by and time to come, and its course is a mystery to me. My thoughts, the intimate life of my soul, are torn this way and that in the havoc of change. And so it will be until I am purified and melted by the fire of Your love and fused into one with You. — Augustine Of Hippo

You pompous little bitch!" the infuriated Were shouted, red-faced and with his thugs backing him. "What are you doing here?"
Mrs. Sarong pushed past the men who had put themselves in front of her. "Arranging your removal," she said, her voice sharp and her eyes glaring. Removal? As if he were an overgrown tree clogging the sewer line?
The short businessman seemed to choke on his own breath, becoming choleric. Mouth gaping to look like one of his prize fish, he struggled to respond. "Like hell you are!" he finally managed. "That's what I wanted to talk to her about!"
From my shoulder came a small, "Holy crap, Rache. How did you become Cincy's assassin of choice? — Kim Harrison

Sometimes you can't prevent things from happening, and once they're done, you can't change the past. There is a way to deal with the pain, though, because you always control your response. You cry, if you need to. You hurt for a while. But then you look for a way to make a difference. — Carlene O'Neil

Delarosa was trying to save the human race," said Mkele. "Her only crime was that she was willing to go too far in order to do it. We decided, briefly, that we didn't want to go along with her, but look at us: We're hiding in a basement, letting Delarosa fight our battles, seriously considering lettering her deploy a nuclear bomb. We are long past the point where we can pick and choose our morality. We either save our species or we don't."
"Yes," said Tovar, "but I'd prefer it if we were still worth saving by the end of it. — Dan Wells

Often we want people to pray for us and help us, but we always defeat our object when we look too much to them and lean upon them. The true secret of union is for both to look upon God, and in the act of looking past themselves to Him they are unconsciously united. — A.B. Simpson

I spent most of my time there wondering this: is a man who he is, should he be judged by his actions of the past and maybe even the present, or should he be judged by who he wants to become, what he is trying to be? Should a man be judged at all? And who is he judged by? Look out there." Skad motioned out the window, at the high school kids practicing football. I turned my head to watch them. — Andersen Prunty

The more I reflect and look back on the past, the more vividly do I feel my limitations. — Mahatma Gandhi

You are my life. It doesn't matter what I am, or what I've done, as long as you're mine. Nothing in the past matters. There is you, and nothing else." He didn't look at me but kept his eyes on his work. A cluster of taller buildings appeared ahead, and he headed for them. "My one job," he said, holding up a finger, "is to make sure you know how to protect yourself when they finally kill me. — C.D. Reiss

If we want to create a different future, we must have the courage to look at the past. — Dan B. Allender

When trees shall fall and starless night devour the sunless day; When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain I'll look for thee, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again! ENTWIFE. When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last; When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past; I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again: Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain! BOTH. Together we will take the road that leads — J.R.R. Tolkien

I spent the past two years fearing the worst, that I chose safe arms to hold me when his arms weren't the arms I longed to be in, nor were they really safe. I thought it's what I deserved. I thought I couldn't belong in the arms I wanted to really hold me. — Andrea Michelle

We've got to get past this idea that God is most glorified when we're rich, healthy and wealthy and we go, "Isn't God grand? Look at all He gave me." Because if anybody joins us in that and says, "Oh, if you love Jesus, you get a house and health and cars? Then I love Jesus too." Because then all of a sudden you've got a different religion. You have the religion of cars and houses, not God. — Matt Chandler

Well I knew when I first laid eyes on her
I could never be free
One look at her and I knew right away
She should always be with me
Well the dream dried up a long time ago
Don't know where it is anymore
True to life, true to me
Was the girl from the red river shore
Well I'm wearing the cloak of misery
And I've tasted jilted love
And the frozen smile upon my face
Fits me like a glove
Well I can't escape from the memory
Of the one I'll always adore
All those nights when I lay in the arms
Of the girl from the red river shore
Well we're living in the shadows of a fading past
Trapped in the fires of time
I've tried not to ever hurt anybody
And to stay out of the life of crime
And when it's all been said and done
I never did know the score
One more day is another day away
From the girl from the red river shore. — Bob Dylan

The evil, Sir, is enormous; the inevitable suffering incalculable. Do not stain the fair fame of the country ... Nations of dependent Indians, against their will, under color of law, are driven from their homes into the wilderness. You cannot explain it; you cannot reason it away ... Our friends will view this measure with sorrow, and our enemies alone with joy. And we ourselves, Sir, when the interests and passions of the day are past, shall look back upon it, I fear, with self-reproach, and a regret as bitter as unavailing. — Edward Everett

[ ... ] you're willing to look past things and to give people second chances. But the thing is, Rose, some people don't deserve them. — Rebecca Serle

The past is a rich resource on which we can draw in order to make decisions for the future, but it does not dictate our choices. We should look back at the past and select what is good, and leave behind what is bad. — Nelson Mandela

There must be what Mr. Gladstone many years ago called a blessed act of oblivion. We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past. — Winston Churchill

Photographs are very interesting, and you can look into them a million times and still find a new meaning in them, something in the past that was caught in the film itself ... — Rebecca McNutt

Stained is about a lonely bookshop keeper, and her past comes back to haunt her. I play a femme fatale, schizophrenic serial killer. They offered me the part and I was like, "I'm just curious why you thought I would be perfect for this role," and the director (Karen Lam) said, "You have this look that, when you're smiling, you're really sweet, but when you're not smiling, you look like you could kill somebody." — Tinsel Korey

I set my face toward the sun again, and I think about my old life - the one I feel as though I've abandoned somehow. It hurts to think of it that way. And even though I know it wasn't perfect, I look back now, and all I see is perfection. Every soft whisper, every spoken word, every gentle touch - it's all perfect. Time won't let me see it otherwise. They're all just perfect memories - perfect, untouchable moments that came and went so softly that they almost feel as if they were always just a dream. — Laura Miller

Look forward to your future and don't forget your past but, stop to enjoy the present moment called now. — M. Barbaro

[We] have a tendency during meetings to let our minds run wild and cycle through a plethora of thoughts about the past and the future, destroying any aspirations for Zen-like calm and preventing us from being in the here and now: Did I turn off the stove? What will I do for lunch? When do I need to leave here in order to get to where I need to be next?
What if you could rely on others in your life to handle these things and you could narrow your attentional filter to that which is right before you, happening right now? ... A professional musician friend ... describes this state as "happily lost." He doesn't need to look at his calendar more than a day in advance, allowing each day to be filled with wonder and possibility. — Daniel J. Levitin