Quotes & Sayings About Looking Into The Past

It remains to be asked why today it is the image of the woman of the "Golden Age" [the Abbasid dynasty] - a "slave" who intrigues in the corridors of power when she loses hope of seducing - who symbolizes the Muslim eternal female, while the memory of Umm Salama, A'isha, and Sukayna awakens no response and seems strangely distant and unreal.
The answer without doubt is to be found in the time-mirror wherein the Muslim looks at himself to foresee his future. The image of "his" woman will change when he feels the pressing need to root his future in a liberating memory. Perhaps the woman should help him do this through daily pressure for equality, thereby bringing him into a fabulous present. And the present is always fabulous, because there everything is possible - even the end of always looking to the past and the beginning of confidence, of enjoying in harmony the moment that we have. — Fatema Mernissi

A Farewell For a while I shall still be leaving, Looking back at you as you slip away Into the magic islands of the mind. But for a while now all alive, believing That in a single poignant hour We did say all that we could ever say In a great flowing out of radiant power. It was like seeing and then going blind. After a while we shall be cut in two Between real islands where you live And a far shore where I'll no longer keep The haunting image of your eyes, and you, As pupils widen, widen to deep black And I am able neither to love or grieve Between fulfillment and heartbreak. The time will come when I can go to sleep. But for a while still, centered at last, Contemplate a brief amazing union, Then watch you leave and then let you go. I must not go back to the murderous past Nor force a passage through to some safe landing, But float upon this moment of communion Entranced, astonished by pure understanding - Passionate love dissolved like summer snow. — May Sarton

Childhood is a human water, a water which comes out of the shadows. This childhood in the mists and glimmers, this life in the slowness of limbo gives us a certain layer of births. What a lot of beings we have begun! What a lot of lost springs which have nevertheless, flowed! Reverie toward our past then, reverie looking for childhood seems to bring back lives which which have never taken place, lives which have been imagined. Reverie is a mnemonics of the imagination. In reverie we re-enter into contact with possibilities which destitute has not been able to make use of. — Gaston Bachelard

We're not very good as a species at looking into the future. It's much easier to look back at the past. We can edit out the bits we don't like, reinvent ourselves. But there's nothing about the future we can edit or reinvent. Most people are prisoners of the future just as much as they are prisoners of their genes. — Peter James

But as the primeval past faded into memory, mankind's knowledge expanded and its hubris grew with the promise of the Serpent that humans would become as gods. The Watchers became less obvious with passing time, as they sought to work more behind the veil of the supernatural world. As divine beings, Watchers could exert hypnotic effect on humans to see them in any appearance they desired. Thus, the eight-foot tall shining Belial made himself appear to be a mere five-foot ten being, both male and female, neither male nor female, a dissolution of gender, an abomination in the Law of God. But to Belial, such intolerant condemnation would not stop him from looking good. Unlike the ordinary, quite uncomely human before him, Belial still wanted to stand out from the crowd. He reveled in abomination. — Brian Godawa

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

Vonnegut could not help looking back, despite the danger of being turned metaphorically into a pillar of salt, into am emblem of the death that comes to those who cannot let go of the past — Kurt Vonnegut

The thing about rowing, you face backward. Always looking into the past, never the future. Always seeing what you're losing, never what you've got to gain. — Joe Abercrombie

I laughed, loud enough that Delia looked up at me. She made motions for me to come over, but I pretended to be looking past her into the food tent. "Hurry. Pretend you're pointing something out so I can pretend not to see her." Luke put a hand on my shoulder and pointed with the other towards the sky. "Look, the moon." "That was the best you could come up with?" I demanded. — Maggie Stiefvater

One June evening, when the orchards were pink-blossomed again, when the frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marshes about the head of the Lake of Shining Waters, and the air was full of the savor of clover fields and balsamic fir woods, Anne was sitting by her gable window. She had been studying her lessons, but it had grown too dark to see the book, so she had fallen into wide-eyed reverie, looking out past the boughs of the Snow Queen, once more bestarred with its tufts of blossom. — L.M. Montgomery

Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way. — Edna Ferber

A Klee painting named 'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon 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 irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. — Walter Benjamin

Why had he called Jesper by Jordie's name? When he looked into the past, he saw his brother through the eyes of the boy he'd been: brave, brilliant, infallible, a knight bested by a dragon dressed like a merch. But how would he see Jordie now? As a mark? Another dumb pigeon looking for a shortcut? He leaned his hands on the edge of the sink. He wasn't angry anymore. He just felt weary. — Leigh Bardugo

The next time you get into your car, notice the size of the front windscreen, compared to the size of the rear view mirror. This is because what is up ahead is more important than what you have already passed. Where you are going is far more important than where you have been. If you let your thoughts dwell in the past, then you will get stuck in the past, and when looking back, you cannot see where you are going and can easily lose your way. Don't let one setback ruin your life. Don't let losing that job, that relationship, that house define who you are. Each step on the journey is simply another step on the road to your divine destiny. — Rev. J Martin

The warlock's gaze, on the flames, was remote and distant, as if he were looking back into the past. Simon couldn't help but remember what Magnus had said to him once, about living forever:
Someday you and I will be the only two left. — Cassandra Clare

Well, look at the other characters in Winnie the Pooh. They all actually demonstrate that Pooh is the most mentally balanced. There's Tigger, I mean, that tiger just can't stay in the moment and enjoy it. He's too much of a hedonist; he always wants the next adventure. That's not healthy, he'll burn out." I started properly laughing. "And what about Eeyore?" "Well he's a depressive, isn't he? If Eeyore walked into my doctor's office he'd be prescribed with a lifetime supply of antidepressants. And not just because US doctors dole them out like candy canes at Christmas." The music stopped and I found myself clapping without even looking. "But Pooh?" "Pooh lives in the moment. He doesn't fret about the past, or freak about the future. He's an expert at mindfulness." Kyle — Holly Bourne

The night sky is filled brimful as a night sky can be, lit brightly as it is with clusters of planets and pulsating stars and marriages of galaxies, all of it within a wobble of dust and gas and debris unseen. There are the Dippers Little and Big tonight, a lovely Pleiades, and a throbbing red star out like a tiny heart. This is the stuff of which we are made, I say to Son, all that is of us above us. We stand together looking upward, our mouths hung open as if to swallow what's above down and into us. Looking out at the past in its far distance, where from there, he we are not. — Susan Froderberg

Walking past the kitchen counter again, I reached into my left pocket and grabbed my chocolate supply. I stopped and grabbed the door to exit. As I did, I dipped my shoulder and dropped my laptop in the entrance. I stood for a long moment, looking at the computer bag. I released my grip on my right hand and dropped the chocolate bars beside it, locked the door, and left. — Scott Hildreth

Children of India, I am here to speak to you to-day about some practical things, and my object in reminding you about the glories of the past is simply this. Many times have I been told that looking into the past only degenerates and leads to nothing, and that we should look to the future. That is true. But out of the past is built the future. Look back, therefore, as far as you can, drink deep of the eternal fountains that are behind, and after that, look forward, march forward, and make India brighter, greater, much higher than she ever was. Our ancestors were great. We must recall that. We must learn the elements of our being, the blood that courses in our veins; we must have faith in that blood, and what it did in the past: and out of that faith, and consciousness of past greatness, we must build an India yet greater than what she has been. And — Annie Besant

They bear down upon Westminster, the ghost-consecrated Abbey, and the history-crammed Hall, through the arches of the bridge with a rush as the tide swelters round them; the city is buried in a dusky gloom save where the lights begin to gleam and trail with lurid reflections past black velvety- looking hulls - a dusky city of golden gleams. St. Paul's looms up like an immense bowl reversed, squat, un-English, and undignified in spite of its great size; they dart within the sombre shadows of the Bridge of Sighs, and pass the Tower of London, with the rising moon making the sky behind it luminous, and the crowd of shipping in front appear like a dense forest of withered pines, and then mooring their boat at the steps beyond, with a shuddering farewell look at the eel-like shadows and the glittering lights of that writhing river, with its burthen seen and invisible, they plunge into the purlieus of Wapping.
("The Phantom Model") — Hume Nisbet

Dan gestured past Neil toward the changing room. "What happened?" Neil counted it off on his fingers. "Kevin told them Coach is his father, said he's never going back to Edgar Allan, and called the Ravens out as two-faced assholes. Oh," he said, looking up from his hand, "and he said his injury wasn't an accident. Not in so many words, but it won't take them long to figure out what he meant." Dan gaped. "He what?" "Great," Wymack said. "He's turning into another you. That's just what I needed. — Nora Sakavic

I can see the driver as if I'm looking at him through binoculars, bending to adjust the volume on his radio, eyes wide at what he hears, which I can't understand because when he hits you there is only silence. My feet, pounding through the grass, make no sound. I know that my mouth is open, that air is rushing across my stretched vocal chords, but I hear nothing. You lift into the air and the car is past before you land silently at my feet, as if something as small as you couldn't possibly make a sound in a world where buildings can come down. — Philip Beard

A movement unlocked my attention. I re-focused my eyes, looking past the vodka glass and into the static buzz of the TV. I stayed very still for a few seconds before lowering the glass to the floor, careful not to take my eyes off the screen. There was something distant and alive in the depths of the white noise - a living glide of thoughts swimming forward, a moving body of concepts and half felt images. — Steven Hall

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

Analysis is like a shock treatment, it throws you back into childhood in order to recapture the reparable elements, to reconstruct the personality. To reconstruct the personality it is necessary to find the original wound. You have to revaluate the past so it will not remain an incubus or succubus.
For example, I look at others with my own eyes, my own values, I evaluate them by my own standards, but when it comes to looking at myself, I look at myself through my father's eyes. I judge myself by his standards, and in his eyes I was not beautiful, I had flaws. — Anais Nin

Looking repeatedly into the past, you do not necessarily become fascinated with your own life, but rather with the phenomenon of memory. — Patricia Hampl

Our national obsession with sex (and if you don't think there is a national obsession with sex, just browse the magazine racks in the local chain bookstore) is really nothing more than a profound spiritual longing in disguise: the desire to exhaust all other desires and feel loved and sated, at peace with our fragmented modern selves, linked to those around us. At peace, at rest. I wonder, sometimes, if the same deep desire lies at the heart of addiction to drugs, to drink, to eating, to work: are we all just desperately looking for some strategy that will get us past the shoals of modern existence and safely into that imagined, calm port? — Roland Merullo

The man held himself still and turned his milk-flooded eyes on her. Fin felt something like vertigo and knew that, though blind, he was seeing. He wasn't looking at her or past her. He was looking into her. And what he saw, he judged.
"Is very good. — A.S. Peterson

There comes a moment in life when one must acknowledge that you just can't keep looking back into your past for reasons to keep someone in your present and future. Regardless of how much looking that cruel reality in the eye hurts ... memories can't be enough. — Eiry Nieves

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years. — Khaled Hosseini

When you focus upon lack in an attitude of complaining, you establish a vibrational point of attraction that then gives you access only to more thoughts of complaint. Your deliberate effort to tell a new story will establish a new pattern of thought, providing you with a new point of attraction from your present, about your past, and into your future. The simple effort of looking for positive aspects will set a new vibrational tone that will begin the immediate attraction of thoughts, people, circumstances, and things that are pleasing to you. — Esther Hicks

i would like to look
into a mirror
without inmediately
looking away.
- healing is ongoing II — Amanda Lovelace

God, I loved him. I could insist I was okay with just being friends, that I'd find someone else and get over him, but I was fooling myself. There was no getting past this. I loved him, and fifty years from now we could be married to other people, never exchanged so much as a kiss, and I'd still looking into his eyes and know he was the one. He'd always be the one. — Kelley Armstrong

In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which are frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you ... And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. — Italo Calvino

But she was looking into the past, trying to understand when it was that all the laughter died. — Sidney Sheldon

When tadpole was born, I spent a sleepless night on the maternity ward gazing intently into her inky, newborn eyes, grappling to come to terms with the indisputable fact that this was an actual person looking back at me, not just a version of Mr Frog, or me, or both, in miniature. From the outset she seemed to know what she wanted, and I realised I could have no inkling of the paths she would choose to follow. But if I watch her life unfold carefully enough, perhaps I will see clear signposts pointing to who or what she will become.
Because when I look backwards, ransacking my own past for clues with the clarity that only hindsight can bring, several defining moments do stand out. Moments charged with significance; snapshots of myself which, if I were to join the dots together, lead me unswervingly to where I stand today. — Catherine Sanderson

Past, present, and future, the symbiosis of our lives," the old man continued quietly, gently. "Our birth, our life, our death, all tied into a single package that we spend our time on this earth unwrapping. Sometimes we see clearly what it is we are looking at. Sometimes we do not. Sometimes things happen to distract or deceive us, and we must look more carefully at what it is we hold. — Terry Brooks

Looking, Walking, Being, I look and look. Looking's a way of being: one becomes, sometimes, a pair of eyes walking. Walking wherever looking takes one. The eyes dig and burrow into the world. They touch, fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor. World and the past of it, not only visible present, solid and shadow that looks at one looking. And language? Rhythms of echo and interruption? That's a way of breathing. breathing to sustain looking, walking and looking, through the world, in it. — Denise Levertov

I stopped looking at the cars after the first few miles. Once I started to see past the exteriors, I saw what lay inside some of them and felt the urge to sprint to the nearest freeway exit. Some people had tried to outrun The Plague by leaving town. They hadn't realized the illness could still find them in their cars, and now the 405 was one of the largest graveyards in the world. I thought for a moment about all of the other cities across the globe that probably had scenes just like this. My eyes stung, wondering if my mother, my dad, or any of my friends were in similar graveyards.
I made the mistake of glancing into an overturned Volkswagen Beetle as I passed and saw a pair of legs clad in jeans and white Jack Purcell sneakers in the shadows of the car. They reminded me of Sarah's shoes. The man who laced those up that morning hadn't realized he wouldn't be taking them off again. — Kirby Howell

At seven o'clock Ivan got into the train and set off to
Moscow. 'Away with the past. I've done with the old
world for ever, and may I have no news, no echo, from it.
To a new life, new places, and no looking back!' But
instead of delight his soul was filled with such gloom, and
his heart ached with such anguish, as he had never known
in his life before. He was thinking all the night. The train
flew on, and only at daybreak, when he was approaching
Moscow, he suddenly roused himself from his meditation.
'I am a scoundrel,' he whispered to himself. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I am noticing a big difference in the way the hospital workers are looking at me as I approach Jess's room.
The look of sincere sympathy that used to be on their faces when they made eye contact with me is gone.
It has been replaced by shear helplessness as they quickly walk past me with their heads tilted down and to the right.
I feel like Bud Fox walking into his office with the Securities and Exchange Commission awaiting him. — JohnA Passaro

He's not-" Daniel started to say. He watched a red-tailed hawk land in an oak tree over their heads. "He's not good enough for you."
Luce had heard people say that line a thousand times before. It was what everyone always said. Not good enough. But when the words passed Daniel's lips, they sounded important, even somehow true and relevant, not vague and dismissive the way the phrase had always sounded to her in the past.
"Well, then," she said in a quiet voice, "who is?"
Daniel put his hands on his hips. He laughed to himself for a long time. "I don't know," he said finally. "That's a terrific question."
Not exactly the answer Luce was looking for. "It's not like it's that hard," she said, stuffing her hands into her pockets because she wanted to reach out for him. "To be good enough for me."
Daniel's eyes looked like they were falling, all the violet that had been in them a moment before turned a deep, dark gray. "Yes," he said. "Yes, it is. — Lauren Kate

Each day we have to decide to choose to have an awesome life. We are responsible for our own fate and cannot blame circumstances for our failures. It is in our own best interest to make choices that are going to create the life we desire and be accountable for our failure to make such good choices. Today is a present so do not squander your time looking into the past. Life is about the journey so press ahead by always looking forward to the next opportunity to succeed. — Don A. Holbrook

I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree, past the trunk and up into the branches. It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree. — Georgia O'Keeffe

I do my precalc homework, and then when I'm done I actually sit with the textbook for like three hours and try to understand what I just did. That's the kind of weekend it is
the kind where you have so much time you go past the answers and start looking into the ideas. — John Green

No sane paleontologist would ever claim that he or she had discovered "The Ancestor." Think about it this way: What is the chance that while walking through any random cemetery on our planet I would discover an actual ancestor of mine? Diminishingly small. What I would discover is that all people buried in these cemeteries
no mater whether that cemetery is in China, Botswana, or Italy
are related to me to different degrees. I can find this out by looking at their DNA with many of the forensic techniques in use in crime labs today. I'd see that some of the denizens of the cemeteries are distantly related to me, others are related more closely. This tree would be a very powerful window into my past and my family history. It would also have a practical application because I could use this tree to understand my predilection to get certain diseases and other facts of my biology. The same is true when we infer relationship among species. — Neil Shubin

My talent is looking into a woman's eyes and instinctively knowing what I need to. If she's lonely or bored; neglected or abused; timid or adventurous; satisfied or confused; looking to recapture the past or re-invent the present; making plans for tomorrow or merely concerned about tonight. I discover what a woman is looking for and promise it to her. If all she wants is a good time, she gets everything. If she wants more, I lie and take what she has to give. Then I move on.
— Roy L. Pickering Jr.

I looked into her gray-blue eyes and saw myself in them, as clearly as looking in a mirror. Building a miniature record player for my dollhouse long past bedtime. Teaching myself to code a Web site under the covers, so my dad wouldn't come in and tell me to go to sleep. DJing alone in my bedroom in the dark. These things could always wait until daylight, but I wanted to do them in the night. — Leila Sales

He was looking past Amy's naked body, over the crescent line between her chest and hip, haloed with tiny hairs, to where, beyond the weathered French doors with their flaking white paint, the moonlight formed a narrow road on the sea that ran away from his gaze into spreadeagled clouds. It was as if it were waiting for him. — Richard Flanagan

There are houses in Gloucester where grooves have been worn into the floorboards by women pacing past an upstairs window, looking out to sea. — Sebastian Junger

Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair? — Walker Percy

The past is gone and the future is still to happen. Only the present moment is real. I believe we all know this very well. As for me, I have been practising the art of being in the here and now for three decades. I have used many techniques aimed at focusing the attention on the present, while releasing attachment to past and future. There are also many courses and workshops on the topic. And I can provide details, if you are interested. Yet, I warn you, learning to be in the present requires lots of hard work, time and money. Yet there is one circumstance when results are immediate, with no effort and also free of charge. This is when both looking ahead or backwards is so painful and horrible, that the only option is looking straight into the present. Hence, if it is the case for you now, rejoice, this may be your greatest chance, and you are in good company! — Franco Santoro

Stop looking for that person you were in the past. She has changed. Look for the person she has grown into. She is wiser and stronger than than ever before. Don't go back to who you were. Cherish who you are." --Without a Voice by Chris Pepple — Chris Pepple

Through our own creative experience we came to know that the real tradition in art is not housed only in museums and art galleries and in great works of art; it is innate in us and can be galvanized into activity by the power of creative endeavor in our own day, and in our own country, by our own creative individuals in the arts. We also came to realize that we in Canada cannot truly understand the great cultures of the past and of other peoples, until we ourselves commence our own creative life in the arts. Until we do so, we are looking at these from the outside. — Lawren Harris

Your past is handing you a tool you can use to leap into your future: the crucible moments from your own life. The power you need is in looking back to look forward. — Bill Jensen

And I knew the point of love right then.
The point of love was to help you survive.
The point was also to forget meaning. To stop looking and start living. The meaning was to hold the hand of someone you cared about and to live inside the present. Past and future were myths. The past was just the present that had died and the future would never exist anyway, because by the time we got to it the future would have turned into the present. The present was all there was. — Matt Haig

What is it about maps and globes that seems to require our undivided attention? I've spent hours looking at maps of places I will never see and maps so old that they are a record of nothing but the faintest glow of the past. Perhaps they turn us into gods, letting us look down at the insignificant drones that occupy the earth. Or maybe they simply feed off our hunger to go off into the unknown. Venturing off to places where people don't chain themselves to tedious jobs and financial debts but places of imagination, mystery and freedom Perhaps they're just trying to tell us something. — Dan Kieran

From the beginning, she had sat looking at him fixedly. As he now leaned back in his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes upon her in his turn, perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, when she was impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pent-up confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he must have overleaped at a bound the artificial barriers he had for many years been erecting, between himself and all those subtle essences of humanity which will elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too many and too high for such a leap. With his unbending, utilitarian, matter-of-fact face, he hardened her again; and the moment shot away into the plumbless depths of the past, to mingle with all the lost opportunities that are drowned there. — Charles Dickens

The sidewalks were jammed and the crowds drifted slowly past bars from which disco music blared and where men sat on barstools looking out the windows. The air smelled of beer and sweat and amyl nitrate. At bus benches and on strips of grass in front of buildings, men sat, stripped of their shirts, sunbathing and watching the flow of pedestrians through mirrored sunglasses. Approaching the bar where I was meeting Hugh, I smelled marijuana, turned my head and saw a couple of kids sharing a joint as they manned a voter registration table for one of the gay political clubs. I stepped into the bar expecting to find more of the carnival but it was nearly empty. The solitary bartender wiped the counter pensively. — Michael Nava

I'm older now, I'm a man getting near middle age, putting on a little fat and I still love to walk along Fifth Avenue at three o'clock on the east side of the street between Fiftieth and Fifty-seventh streets, they're all out then, making believe they're shopping, in their furs and their crazy hats, everything all concentrated from all over the world into eight blocks, the best furs, the best clothes, the handsomest women, out to spend money and feeling good about it, looking coldly at you, making believe they're not looking at you as you go past. — Irwin Shaw

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

Traditionally, photography is supposed to capture an event that has passed; but that is not what I'm looking for. Photography brings the past into the present when you look at it. — Julian Schnabel

The Buddha said that we should not be afraid of the past; but he did warn us not to lose ourselves in it, either. We should not feed our regret or pain over the past, and we should not get carried away by the past. We do need to study and understand the past, however, because by looking deeply into the past we learn a lot of things that can benefit the present and the future. The past is an object of our study, of our meditation, but the way to study it or meditate on it is by remaining anchored in the present moment. We — Thich Nhat Hanh

A man is a fool who sits looking backward from himself in the past. Ah, what shallow, vain conceit there is in man! Forget the things that are behind. That is not where you live. Your roots are not there. They are in the present; and you should reach up into the other life. — Henry Ward Beecher

To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the future. The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future. If you are firmly grounded in the present moment, the past can be an object of inquiry, the object of your mindfulness and concentration. You can attain many insights by looking into the past. But you are still grounded in the present moment. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Turned and ran down another. They remembered the corridors that held no cheese and quickly went into new areas. Sniff would smell out the general direction of the cheese, using his great nose, and Scurry would race ahead. They got lost, as you might expect, went off in the wrong direction and often bumped into walls. But after a while, they found their way. Like the mice, the two Littlepeople, Hem and Haw, also used their ability to think and learn from their past experiences. However, they relied on their complex brains to develop more sophisticated methods of finding Cheese. Sometimes they did well, but at other times their powerful human beliefs and emotions took over and clouded the way they looked at things. It made life in the Maze more complicated and challenging. Nonetheless, Sniff, Scurry, Hem and Haw all discovered, in their own way, what they were looking for. They each found their own kind of cheese one day at the end of one of the corridors in Cheese Station — Spencer Johnson

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

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

The library will endure; it is the universe. As for us, everything has not been written; we are not turning into phantoms. We walk the corridors, searching the shelves and rearranging them, looking for lines of meaning amid leagues of cacophony and incoherence, reading the history of the past and our future, collecting our thoughts and collecting the thoughts of others, and every so often glimpsing mirrors, in which we may recognize creatures of the information. — Jorge Luis Borges

Although the world places a premium on the latest things, some realities are discovered by looking into the past. — Max Anders

Now, at the end of the long journey from Vegas, as I turned into Patriots Landing and drove past the twin white lions, the fearful clench of my stomach finally eased. I glanced at the rearview mirror and let out a breath of relief at what I didn't see as I passed the very model house where my wife and I had made our choice. The roads were lined with examples of all the houses we considered that day, each looking neatly squared away on its suitably sized lot, the Carter Braxtons, the George Wyeths, even the insipid Patrick Henrys with their fake-brick fronts. — William Lashner

Venerable architecture critic Witold Rybczynski, for instance, suggests in his book How Architecture Works: A Humanist's Toolkit that "the first question you ask yourself approaching a building is: Where is the front door?" But this is by no means the first architectural question many among us will ask; it is altogether too straightforward a query for a segment of the population. Some of us deliberately and strategically seek out, say, an attic window within reach of a strong tree branch or an unlocked storm shelter leading down into someone's basement, even a badly fit screen door that looks easy to slip through around back. Perhaps you even did this yourself as a teenager, just looking for a new way to sneak out of the house past your bedtime or to avoid the all-seeing gaze of your girlfriend's parents. — Geoff Manaugh

To be conservative in politics is to take one's bearings not from the latest bright idea about how to make a better world, but by looking carefully at what the past reveals both about the kind of people we are and the problems that concern us. As we get older, we often become conservative in our habits, in our family practices, and in our recognition of the richness of our civilization, but this evolution of our character into a set of habits in no way blocks adventurousness. The old no less than the young may be found starting new enterprises, sailing around the world, and solving arcane academic questions. But it is in the ordinary business of life that we find our excitement, not in foolish collective dreams of political perfection. — Kenneth Minogue

Life moves forward. The old leaves wither, die and fall away, and the new growth extends forward into the light. — Bryant McGill

Out of past experience it flows into the present quality of the human soul and out of this into deed and their effects, and from these on into the future. What if this future will at some time be the past? How if the deeds performed are also, further on ahead, to remain bound up with the Ego? Might not the Ego which was over-looking, guarding and guiding the whole of the stream's course, determine that from all this, in the far future, new experiences should develop? — Hermann Poppelbaum

Ego is the central figure of our personal history, based upon the past and looking into the future. Ego is the deepest dream of the Consciousness. — Frank M. Wanderer

Cecily peers at the murky grey liquid and frowns at a cube of meat that's floating against the rim. "What was this in a past life?" she asks.
"Pigeons and a field rabbit," Reed says. "Hunted them down myself."
"He's an excellent shot," Linden says.
"Can you eat pigeons, though?" Cecily falls back into her chair, looking a mix of disgusted and curious.
"You can eat just about anything," Reed says, dumping a ladleful into her bowl. — Lauren DeStefano

Einstein theorized that time travel was possible, but he was looking at it as unidirectional, going forward. Traveling into the past is much more problematic, as countless stories have demonstrated! — Kelley Armstrong

Having studied art history, as opposed to political history, I tend to incorporate found objects into my books. Just as Pablo Picasso glued a fragment of furniture onto the canvas of Still Life with Chair Caning, I like to use whatever's lying around to paint pictures of the past--traditional pigment like archival documents but also the added texture of whatever bits and bobs I learn from looking out bus windows or chatting up people I bump into on the road. — Sarah Vowell

I shall always be grateful for this curious love of history, allowing me to spend a lifetime looking back into the past, allowing me to learn from these large figures about the struggle for meaning for life. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

You don't realize that if you stop looking backwards craving the love and acceptance which you didn't receive from your parents, then you might open your eyes to what is available for you now. But you won't let go. If only you could see that looking back into an incomplete and imperfect past, with regret, blame, guilt or resentment is keeping you from the treasures that await you here now. The past has gone. You cannot rectify something that is no longer with you. — Leonard Jacobson

I think every artist that you like, or even artists that have defined their own times, they're definitely looking to the past as a starting place. It's just about how you infuse your own personality, your own message, and your own ideas into it. The record is supposed to be really sensual and sexy. — Tamaryn

If an object - a star, for instance, like our own sun - is eight hundred light years away from the Earth, it would take light leaving that object eight hundred years until it reached our eyes. So when you look at that object, you are seeing it as it appeared eight hundred light years ago, not as it looks today. It might not even exist anymore. Every time you look up at the stars, you are looking into the past. — Wendy Mass

Emperor held court from his Iron Throne, made from the personal weapons of all those monarchs the Emperors of the past had conquered and deposed, each glazed and guarded against rust. The throne itself was over six feet tall and four feet in width; a monolithic piece of furniture, it was so heavy that it had not been moved so much as a finger-length in centuries. Anyone looking at it could only be struck by its sheer mass - and must begin calculating just how many sword blades, axes, and lance points must have gone into the making of it ... None — Mercedes Lackey

But the boy was there, and he was looking at her. That was when Yorda understood what was drawing out her memories of the castle into the boy. It was him. He wanted to know its dark past. He wanted to know everything. No one could stop this. Not even the queen. — Miyuki Miyabe

For the past few years, I've been on a quest for a good old-fashioned date, the kind where the guy calls, makes the plans, picks you up in a car that's not his dad's or his other girlfriend's, and takes you somewhere that shows he put thought into what you might like, not what he might get off on like the latest how-many-naked-boobs-can-we-cram-into-this-movie-to-disguise-the-complete-lack-of-plot movie. I'm looking for the kind of date that starts with good conversation , has a sweet and satisfying middle, and ends with long, slow kisses and the dreamy feeling that you're walking on clouds. — Karen Marie Moning

Puck laughed, shaking his head at the prince's expression. "Looks like you just got scolded by a gremlin, Your Magesty," he chuckled and crossed his arms. "Ah, can't say I'm not gonna miss you two. We had some fun times, right, princeling? Sadest past is, I won't ever hear ice-boy complain that I'm corrupting you again. But, I guess all good things mus come to an end." He sighe'd, gave Kierran a friendly arm punch and raised his hand. "See ya'round kid. Try not to let those Slim Shadys suck out all your fun. Ethan Chase?" Puck winked at me. "I'm sure I'll see you again, whether you like it or not."
"Yeah," I deadpanned. "So looking forward to it." Puck laughed again. "Don't you forget it. Until the next adventure kiddos." Sticking his hands into his pockets, the Great Prankster sauntered off, whistling until he reached the edge of the trees and vanished into the shadows. — Julie Kagawa

By the time you look a few hundred feet down, you are looking at a snapshot of the past that has remained undisturbed for millions of years. In the blockchain, the most recent few blocks might be revised if there is a chain recalculation due to a fork. The top six blocks are like a few inches of topsoil. But once you go more deeply into the blockchain, beyond six blocks, blocks are less and less likely to change. — Andreas M. Antonopoulos

We are always looking into the future, but we see only the past. — Sophie Swetchine