Quotes & Sayings About Looking Forward Not Back

I'm really looking forward to getting back and winning some matches but I'm not thinking about the U.S. Open yet, just getting through my first match. — Greg Rusedski

Fashion's not about looking back. It's always about looking forward. — Anna Wintour

Exile is a dream of glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution: Elba, not St Helena. It is an endless paradox: looking forward by always looking back. The exile is a ball hurled high into the air. He hangs there, frozen in time, translated into a photograph; denied motion, suspended impossibly above his native earth, he awaits the inevitable moment at which the photograph must begin to move, and the earth reclaim its own. — Salman Rushdie

I'm not big on looking back beyond the moment in which decisions and events occur. I'm always pushing forward. — David Stern

During Basic, sometimes you're so tired you can't even get up to piss. You're pushed beyond whatever limits you had set for yourself. You realize that your body can do things that you never imagined. But there are times when you don't think you can go on, and that's when your brother is there to lift you up and push you forward. He yells encouragement when the drill sergeant's yelling obscenities. You know that if you're ever caught by the enemy, your brothers will never stop looking for you. If you're hurt they'll help heal you. The Corps is a unit of many, not one, but dozens, thousands even, who have your back. You can smite one Marine, but a thousand will rose up to avenge him. — Jen Frederick

The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. — Jeffrey R. Holland

Hattie wanted to give her babies names that weren't already chiseled on a headstone in the family plots in Georgia, so she gave them names of promise and of hope, reaching-forward names, not looking-back ones. — Ayana Mathis

Her ears, lightly fringed with white that looked silver, lifted and moved, back, forward, listening and sensing. Her face turned, slightly, after each new sensation, alert. Her tail moved, in another dimension, as if its tip was catching messages her other organs could not. She sat poised, air-light, looking, hearing, feeling, smelling, breathing, with all of her, fur, whiskers, ears
everything, in delicate vibration. — Doris Lessing

I am looking forward very much to getting back to Cambridge, and being able to say what I think and not to mean what I say: two things which at home are impossible. Cambridge is one of the few places where one can talk unlimited nonsense and generalities without anyone pulling one up or confronting one with them when one says just the opposite the next day. — Bertrand Russell

I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, 'OK, I'm looking back on my life. I want to minimise the number of regrets I have.' And I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed, I wouldn't regret that. But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day. — Jeff Bezos

I am a forward-looking girl and don't stay where I am. "Left right, Be bright," as I said in my poem. That's on days when I am one big bounce, and have to go careful then not to be a nuisance. But later I get back to my own philosophical outlook that keeps us all kissable. — Stevie Smith

I'm going to be looking forward, asked to be judged on my record, not taken back as has been the - in a sense, the tendency throughout politics in Northern Ireland, is to always look back, always look at what was said a long time ago, instead of looking forward. — Peter Hain

More than anything, I'd like to go to a park today. I want to sit in a swing, drink chocolate milk, and not think about anything in the world except the pleasure of that moment. I want to know what a normal life feels like because I can't remember anymore. I want to drag my feet on the ground as I swing back and forth. I want to feel the fresh, spring chi on my skin. I'm very tempted to get out my Halloween decorations today because looking at them always gives me a little burst of excitement. I can't, though, because I have a rule: No Halloween decorations before June 21. That's the summer solstice, so after that we're officially in the second half of the year.
Another rule I abide by is no peppermint until November 1. I only eat peppermint between November 1 and January 6, because that keeps it special. If you don't do things like that in here, then there's nothing to look forward to. — Damien Echols

That's the thing about stage: It's something you can't find anywhere else. It's a two-and-a-half, three-hour experience, and it's a real relationship. You're sending out energy from the stage, but the audience is giving you back so much also, so that's also lifting you and pushing you forward as you're performing and giving you so much energy. You can't find it anywhere else, and that's why people get addicted to being on stage, and when they're not on stage are kind of looking for that and constantly searching for it. — Aaron Tveit

I try not to look back. I'm looking forward. I'm worried more about what I'm going to do next week than I am what I did last week. There are too many things to do. Looking back is for everybody else. — Neil Young

I want you back, Annabelle." This time my laughter is full of nothing but genuine humor. It's that 'oh my god, I can't believe that' kind of humor. I lean forward and put my face in my palms, still laughing. "Holy crap," I say in-between laughs, "that's hilarious." I peek up at him to see his disgruntled expression and then bust up laughing again. "I'm serious," he grunts out, looking cute in his exasperation, damn him. Not done, I hold up a hand. "Oh, oh, wait. Just let me go get my gun so you can shoot me again. Of course I want to get back together with you, Gabriel." Putting on a serious face, I say earnestly, "He shoots me because he loves me. — April Brookshire

When our daughter, Alexandra, was about three years old, she used to wake up at night and come down the stairs into our room. Of course, we would have to take her back to bed. For a few months she was waking up two or three times a night and coming down. This was not long after I took over for my father and started pastoring. I was learning to minister, and there was a lot of stress and change just with that, so I wasn't sleeping much. One time I was telling Victoria, "We've just got to do something about Alexandra. She's coming down so much. You know, I'm just so tired. I'm not getting enough sleep." On and on. Victoria said something I'll never forget. She said, "Joel, just remember, twenty years from now, you'll give anything to hear those little footsteps coming down the stairs. You'll give anything to have her wanting to come into your room." That changed my whole perspective. I began looking forward — Joel Osteen

All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. 14 Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. 15 If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. 16 But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. — Anonymous

It's not about being upset about the things you might have said or done yesterday, which is quite appropriate at the moment. It's about looking forward rather than looking back. I hate people who look back on the past or talk about what might have been. — Noel Gallagher

I think you're in love,' she said. And with a sort of shock, Nickie realized it was true. She had definitely fallen in love with Otis. This was being in love, wasn't it? Looking forward to seeing him every day, feeling like a hole was ripped in her heart when he was gone, jumping for joy when he came back, not minding if he smelled bad, wanting to take care of him? Surely it was being in love. It was true that she hadn't fallen in love with...the obvious candidate. She'd fallen in love with a dog instead of a person. But that didn't matter. It was still love. She'd apply it to a person later on. — Jean Duprat

There's a time in your life when you have to stop looking back and start looking forward because otherwise you're going to walk down the road one day and bump into a lamppost. But it's not easy. — Anna Maxted

It is not possible to go forward while looking back. — Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

A smile is hidden beneath the mustache, it crinkles the corners of his hooded eyes. "I didn't. I have other business in town and I told my friend I would attend to the matter of his son, as he could not do so himself."
"Very kind of you."
"Yes. I have been looking forward to it for quite some time."
Daddy's lemonade is almost gone, he sips it carefully, turning his eyes back to the water. "Looking forward to seeing the lad or to conducting your business?" Daddy is toying with him.
"Both. You see, I had never actually met his son." The glass rests against Daddy's lips, unmoving. Mr. Geyer watches him closely. "But now I have, so I can get on with my," he fixes his own gaze on the water, as though trying to see whatever it is that has transfixed my father, "business. — Gwenn Wright

Exile is a dream of a glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution: Elba, not St Helena. It is an endless paradox: looking forward by always looking back. The exile is a ball hurled high into the air. — Salman Rushdie

I almost let it go. I think it was the yellow dress. It made me want to give her the benefit of the doubt. What can you say about a woman who wears a yellow dress to break into an office at night? How bad can her intentions be?
Still, I was reasonably certain she wasn't telling the truth. Not that it bothered me. Not really. I watched her sitting there, bent slightly forward, the palm of her right hand open in her lap, her left hand rubbing her shoulder. Lips curled in a smile. Innocent eyes looking back at me. It was like being lied to by a basket of kittens.(p134) — Harry Dolan

The one thing our Founding Fathers could not foresee - they were farmers, professional men, businessmen giving of their time and effort to an idea that became a country - was a nation governed by professional politicians who had an interest in getting re-elected. They probably envisioned a fellow serving a couple of hitches and then eagerly looking forward to getting back to the farm. — Ronald Reagan

I raised my hand to wave in case he looked back; but he did not. He rode straight backed, looking forward. He rode like a Howard. We never look back. We have no time for regrets or second thoughts. If a plan goes awry we make another, if one weapon breaks in our hands, we find a second. If the steps fall down before us we overleap them and go up. It is always onwards and upwards for the Howards; and my father was on his way back to court and to the company of the King without a backwards glance for me. — Philippa Gregory

I don't like looking back. I'm always constantly looking forward. I'm not the one to sort of sit and cry over spilt milk. I'm too busy looking for the next cow. — Gordon Ramsay

You know, I try not to look back, because looking forward is so much better than looking backward. — Jim Bakker

But it was difficult, this living in real time only, and not diluting it by looking back or skipping forward. No wonder it's never really caught on with most people, I thought. It's just too hard. — Alice Steinbach

She glanced pointedly at the flopping tadpole.
"What?"
"Take it back."
"You're kidding, right?" he said disbelievingly.
"Do we have time?"
He considered that. "Yes, but
"
"Then, no I'm not."
"That lake was three hops ago," he said impatiently.
"If you don't take it back it's going to die, and while you may think it's just a pathetic little thing with an abbreviated little life that hardly even signifies in the fairy scheme of things, I'll bet in the tadpole scheme of things it's really looking forward to becoming a frog. Now take it back. A life is a life. I don't care how tiny an almighty fairy thinks it is."
One dark brow arched and he inclined his head. "Yes, Gabrielle." Scooping up the tadpole in one big hand, gently enough that it gave her pause, he popped out.
-Gabrielle and Adam Black — Karen Marie Moning

I don't know why it's not universally acknowledged that looking back is a terrible idea. It only makes going forward that much harder. — Amanda Bouchet

The tiny Miss Bentford turned her head quickly, looking at Corbin out of the corner of her eye. The two of them played a game each Sunday. Corbin could not recall how it had begun, but he looked forward to it every week. Little Miss Bentford looked at him again, not quite as quickly. Corbin smiled at her, and she turned her head forward once more. Three more times she looked back, and each time, Corbin managed to look surprised to find her looking at him. The third time, the little girl began to giggle. Corbin laid his finger against his lips, reminding her to be quiet in church. She bit her lip and nodded, but her eyes danced with mirth. Corbin smiled, thoroughly pleased. — Sarah M. Eden

Your file was empty. Nothing. Not even an immunization record." He didn't even pretend to look surprised. He eased back in his seat, eyes gleaming obsidian.
"And you're telling me this because you're afraid I might cause an outbreak? Measles or mumps?"
"I'm telling you this because I want you to know that I know something about you isn't right. You haven't fooled everybody. I'm going to find out what you're up to. I'm going to expose you."
"Looking forward to it."
I flushed, catching the innuendo too late. — Becca Fitzpatrick

We dream. We aspire. We hope. Sure, we can get down too. But it's not about that. It's not those moments that define us. It's those times when we're looking forward, seeing that brighter future, and acting on it. — Zechariah Barrett

And Pasquale forced himself to look away from her then. It was like prying a magnet off steel, but he did it: he turned forward in the boat, closed his eyes, still seeing her standing there in his memory. He shook with the strain of not looking back until they rounded the breakwater into the open sea and Pasquale exhaled, his head falling to his chest.
"You are a strange young man," Tomasso the Communist said. — Jess Walter

But she was gone, and Hattie wanted to give her babies names that weren't already chiseled on a headstone in the family plots in Georgia, so she gave them names of promise and of hope, reaching forward names, not looking back ones. The — Ayana Mathis

If you think of memory not just as looking back but as being aware of time and how it passes and what the passage of it feels like, then there is something about being in motion that does cause it. Through some sleight of mind, physical forward motion makes time seem visible. Which causes me to think that maybe the unnatural speed of cars and jets actually creates nostalgia. Because the simplest way to block out the strangeness of time passing before your eyes is to fix it in place, to edit it down to monuments or potted plants. Like, — Adam Haslett

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

Someone once told me that digging up the past has two sides: The pro is that you remember things you had forgotten about. Unfortunately, the con is the exact same thing. That may scare some people away, might force them to always be moving forward, never looking back, not for a second. — Pete Wentz

I have a lot faith in the younger generation of music lovers. Youth isn't living in the past; if somebody tells them that there's something better than what they have, they're going to check it out. And if they like it, they're going to get it. I'm not worried about the youth. Young people aren't just looking back, they are also looking forward. — Neil Young

Yet in opinions look not always back,
Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track;
Leave what you've done for what you have to do;
Don't be "consistent," but be simply true. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

I'm looking forward to getting back to my house and my Ugg boots and not washing sometimes, and getting back to writing. — E.L. James

Listen, I know you just got back, and you're exhausted, but I need a favor."
Not again ... I was looking forward to going home and sleeping for a day, or several. "I have a date tonight?"
"A date?" He choked.
I didn't date, and he knew it. "Yeah, with my bed. We were totally going to sleep together." I said sarcastically. — Sophie Monroe

I had read four thousand pages of letters by Lawrence and I wanted thousands of pages more... I wanted them not to end. And yet, at the same time that I was wishing they would not come to an end, I was hurrying through these books because however much you are enjoying a book, however much you want it never to end, you are always eager for it to end. However much you are enjoying a book you are always flicking to the end, counting to see how many pages are left, looking forward to the time when you can put the book down and have done with it. At the back of our minds, however much we are enjoying a book, we come to the end of it and some little voice is always saying, "Thank Christ for that! — Geoff Dyer

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I felt myself trapped in line for a ride I was not nearly ready for, looking back but moving forward in the only direction I could go. — Elizabeth Berg