Not Looking At The Past Quotes & Sayings

He answered his own question. He did not seem upset. He seemed puzzled, as if looking back at his past self and wondering how he could possibly have been so stupid.
You're nothing special. — Sarah Rees Brennan

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

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

Here's the thing about middle-class people. They pretend not to look, but they do. They're too polite to actually stare. Instead, they do this weird thing of catching sight of Will in their field of vision and then determinedly not looking at him. Until he's gone past, at which point their gaze flickers toward him, even while they remain in conversation with someone else. They won't talk about him, though. Because that would be rude. — Jojo Moyes

No, Roger had not seen the funny side. But there had been a moment when, after looking at his watch, he had thought: I can remember when Christmas morning would start at about half past ten with a glass of Buck's Fizz in bed. Now it begins at half past five, with a test of my fine motor skills and ability to read Korean. — John Lanchester

What I am searching for is the gaps - the silences. This is how I see the past: as an excavation. You sift through the rubble, pick up one fragment here, another there, label it and record where you found it, noting the time and date of discovery. It is not just the foundations I am looking for but something at once more and less tangible. — Azar Nafisi

I go out on the porch and gaze up at the stars twinkling above, the random scattering of millions of stars. Even in a planetarium you wouldn't find as many. Some of them really look big and distinct, like if you reached your hand out intently you could touch them. The whole thing is breathtaking. Not just beautiful though
the stars like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me. What I've done up till now, what I'm going to do
they know it all. Nothing gets past their watchful eyes. As I sit there under the shining night sky, again a violent fear takes hold of me. My heart's pounding a mile a minute, and I can barely breathe. All these millions of stars looking down on me, and I've never given them more than a passing thought before. Bot just stars
how many other things haven't I noticed in the world, things I know nothing about? I suddenly feel helpless, completely powerless. And I know I'll never outrun that awful feeling. (135) — Haruki Murakami

I sneak quietly up the stairs and toward my door. It's not very late, but I don't want to arouse Cyclops Eye next door. I've stopped looking as I walk past, but it's difficult not to notice her window open just a few inches and her sitting right next to it, ready at a moment's notice to give me her big one-eyed look. Maybe I should get her a monocle for Christmas, so she can make more of a statement. — J.C. Patrick

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

Valentine had wanted to crush the world as Magnus knew it. But this woman had helped crush him instead, and now she was looking at her daughter as if she would make another world, shining and brand new, just for Clary, so Clary would never be touched by any of the darkness of the past. Magnus knew what it was to want to forget as badly as Jocelyn did, knew the passionate urge to protect that came with love.

Perhaps none of the children of the new generation- not this small stubborn red headed scrap, or half-faerie Helen and Mark Blackthorn at the Los Angeles Institute, or even Maryse Lightwood's children growing up in New York far from the Glass City- would ever have to learn the full truth about the ugliness of the past. — Cassandra Clare

But back then, back on Lispenard Street, I didn't know so much of this. Then, we were only standing and looking up at that red-brick building, and I was pretending that I never had to fear for him, and he was letting me pretend this: that all the dangerous things he could have done, all the ways he could have broken my heart, were in the past, the stuff of stories, that the time that lay behind us was scary, but the time that lay ahead of us was not. — Hanya Yanagihara

People, he had said, were always being looked at as points, and they ought to be looked at as lines. There weren't any points, it was false to assume that a person ever was anything. He was always becoming something, always changing, always continuous and moving, like the wiggly line on a machine used to measure earthquake shocks. He was always what he was in the beginning, but never quite exactly what he was; he moved along a line dictated by his heritage and his environment, but he was subject to every sort of variation within the narrow limits of his capabilities.
...
She shut her mind on that too. There was danger in looking at people as lines. The past spread backward and you saw things in perspective that you hadn't seen then, and that made the future ominous, more ominous than if you just looked at the point, at the moment. There might be truth in what Bruce said, but there was not much comfort. — Wallace Stegner

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

In the past it would take you weeks, if not months, to identify how Iranian activists connect to each other. Now you know how they connect to each other by looking at their Facebook page. KGB ... used to torture in order to get this data. — Evgeny Morozov

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

Most readers look at the photograph first. If you put it in the middle of the page, the reader will start by looking in the middle. Then her eye must go up to read the headline; this doesn't work, because people have a habit of scanning downwards. However, suppose a few readers do read the headline after seeing the photograph below it. After that, you require them to jump down past the photograph which they have already seen. Not bloody likely. — David Ogilvy

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

As I walked past I saw the extraordinary wreckage of beer-corpses. Somehow, despite all their economic mismanagement, these parties must have brought about an unexpected level of prosperity. Well, not having to wage war certainly saves the odd cost. Looking at the state of the Volk here, however, even the most deluded individual would have to admit than in 1942 or 1944, yes, even in the most harrowing nights of bombardment, the Germans were in better shape than on this September evening at the beginning of the third millennium. — Timur Vermes

Those slight words and looks and touches are part of the soul's language; and the finest language, I believe, is chiefly made up of unimposing words, such as "light," "sound," "stars," "music" - words really not worth looking at, or hearing, in themselves, any more than "chips" or "sawdust." It is only that they happen to be the signs of something unspeakably great and beautiful. I am of opinion that love is a great and beautiful thing too, and if you agree with me, the smallest signs of it will not be chips and sawdust to you: they will rather be like those little words, "light" and "music," stirring the long-winding fibres of your memory and enriching your present with your most precious past. — George Eliot

Cal's eyes flicker, out to the trees. But he's not looking at the leaves. His gaze is in the past, to something more painful. "She killed my true mother as well. And she'll kill all of us if we let her." The words come out hard and harsh, a rusty blade to saw f lesh. They taste wonderful in my mouth. "Not if I kill her first." For all his talents, Cal is not a violent person. He can kill you in a thousand different ways, lead an army, burn down a village, but he will not enjoy it. So his next words take me by surprise. "When the time comes," he says, staring at me, "we'll flip a coin. — Victoria Aveyard

When we're back on our own time, then you can get competitive. Until we solve this, cut it the fuck out, or you are going to seriously piss me off."
Edward got slowly to his feet. I backed away out of reach. I'd never seen him use martial arts before, but I put nothing past him.
A sound made me back up further until I could see Edward and Marks without looking away from Edward. Marks was making a small sniggering sound. It took me a moment to realize he was laughing, laughing so hard his face was purplish and he seemed to be having trouble breathing.
Edward and I both stared at him.
When Marks could finally talk, he said, "You kick a man in the face, and that's not seriously pissed off."
He straightened, hand to his side like he had a stitch in it. "What the fuck do you call seriously pissed? — Laurell K. Hamilton

Skulduggery."
"Fletcher."
Fletcher stuck out his hand. Skulduggery observed it for a moment.
"I'm sorry, what are we doing now?"
"Shaking hands," Fletcher said. "Like adults. I just want you to know that this past year has changed me. I've grown, as a person. I'm not the same Fletcher you used to know.
"You look a lot like him."
"Well, yeah, but-"
"And you have the same ridiculous hair."
"Can we just shake hands?"
"Of course we can," Skulduggery said, and they shook. "Now what?"
"I, uh...I don't really know. What do adults usually do after they shake hands?"
"Generally, the first thing they do is let go."
"Oh, right," Fletcher said, and Skulduggery took his hand back. "So, Skulduggery, how have you been? You're looking well. That's a really nice tie.
"It's blue."
"And such a nice shade."
Skulduggery looked at Valkyrie. "You promised me he wouldn't be annoying. — Derek Landy

True, he had chosen to live alone, but not unbearably alone. The worst of being unbearably alone was that you had to bear it - either that or you were sunk. You had to work hard to prevent your mind from sabotaging you by its looking hungrily back at the superabundant past. — Philip Roth

Decades have a delusive edge to them. They are not, of course, really periods at all, except as any other ten years may be. But we, looking at them, are caught by the different name each bears, and give them different attributes, and tie labels on them, as if they were flowers in a border. — Rose Macaulay

Looking back, I had the realization that at one point in the not-so-distant past, philosophy wasn't the sort of thing that was discussed only at formal conferences and in arcane journals. It was exchanged over dinner, between families. It was the stuff of everyday life. The — John Jacob Kaag

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

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

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

Whenever in my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed, quite unlike their dear, bright selves. I am aware of them, without any astonishment, in surroundings they never visited during their earthly existence, in the house of some friend of mine they never knew. They sit apart, frowning at the floor, as if death were a dark taint, a shameful family secret. It is certainly not then - not in dreams - but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction. — Vladimir Nabokov

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

I confessed recently to an old friend, "I realized I was looking at you, in your visit, through old glasses. Speaking old words. Telling old stories. I realize that in my life I've made so many physical changes and I need to give my spirit time to catch up." Time for my spirit to look at my friend through the new glasses of current life experiences. Old friends are precious. They become even more treasured when they are wrapped in the currentness of life experiences and not relegated to the past in which they once lived. — Mary Anne Radmacher

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

Have you not noticed that love is silence? It may be while holding the hand of another, or looking lovingly at a child, or taking in the beauty of an evening. Love has no past or future, and so it is with this extraordinary state of silence. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Perspective makes all the difference. It's not what you look at; it's what you see ... Remember that the sun never actually sets; it's our perspective that makes it appear to. Our sunset is another's sunrise. It's all perspective. How would your life be different if you applied this truth to the things that cause you stress? Letting go isn't about erasing the past; it's about looking at the same event and seeing something different. Activate this power in your life! Take the pain and poison of the past and allow it to nourish a new found wisdom. Remember, you can't change the past, but you can change the labels you place on events. Perspective - it's not what you look at; it's what you see. — Steve Maraboli

I'll never stop dreaming that one day we can be a real family, together, all of us laughing and talking, loving and understanding, not looking at the past but only to the future. — LaToya Jackson

So, I believe that what you are looking for, really looking for, is that one person who is capable of recognizing you no matter what. You know, that one person who is going to be able to see past what everybody else sees and even past what you yourself see or want to show, then be able to look at you and really recognize you and say "That's not you! This is you right over here! You just forgot yourself, but I see you! I will help you remember yourself, because I remember you!" And that's what everyone wants. No, actually, I don't know if that's what everyone wants; but I know that's what I want! Because I can put up so many damn walls and faces just to see who really knows me, who really recognizes me, who really remembers me, even more than I recognize and remember myself! Because if I don't get that, then I don't get anything, because I don't want anything less than that. — C. JoyBell C.

I would urge us to be not too certain of our accustomed ways of looking at Genesis, and to open ourselves to the wisdom of the God-bearing men of the past who have devoted so much intellectual effort to understanding the text of Genesis as it was meant to be understood. These Holy Fathers are our key to understanding Genesis. — Seraphim Rose

It is very currently suggested that the modern man is the heir of all the ages, that he has got the good out of these successive human experiments. I know not what to say in answer to this, except to ask the reader to look at the modern man, as I have just looked at the modern man - in the looking-glass. Is it really true that you and I are two starry towers built up of all the most towering visions of the past? — G.K. Chesterton

Floating past the Soyuz TV screen, I noticed we were over the Pacific, off the Chilean coast. At the window, I saw few lights: fishing boats, I thought. Then they resolved themselves: the Southern Cross. I was looking at a constellation in the night sky, not the sea! It was a strange delight to be that disconcerted while simultaneously at ease. — Chris Hadfield

Instead, she sat there, smiling that small, small inscrutable smile, like Mona Lisa herself, although I must say that until that moment, I'd never found Mona Lisa's smile particularly interesting or even particularly a smile. Looking at Lake, I understood what probably everyone else already knows about the woman in that painting: we are drawn to her not because of what the smile gives us but because it gives us nothing. We are waiting to get past the smile. We are waiting
we've spent centuries waiting
for the woman to speak. — Marisa De Los Santos

We're so used to just glancing at the environment through the eyes of the past that we're frequently not certain if we are in fact paying attention or if we merely think that we're paying attention. Dynamic meditation in everyday existence involves the act of truthfully seeing.
Many of us have changed some aspect of our appearance only to have this go unnoticed by friends. Perhaps you've shaved off a mustache, added a tattoo, or altered your hairstyle, but your acquaintances failed to initially notice. In such a case, your friends were looking at their environment through the eyes of the past instead of actually seeing what was taking place in the present. — H.E. Davey

What a lovely thing a rose is!"
He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.
"There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. Looking deeply at life as it is. In the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom. We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly. How can we bargain with it? The sage calls a person who knows how to dwell in mindfulness night and day, 'one who knows the better way to live alone.' — Gautama Buddha

Dagny," he said, looking at the city as it moved past their taxi window, "think of the first man who thought of making a steel girder. He knew what he saw, what he thought and what he wanted. He did not say, 'It seems to me,' and he did not take orders from those who say, 'In my opinion. — Ayn Rand

I hope I'm not disturbing anything," Finn said, looking past Duncan at me.
As soon as his dark eyes landed on mine, my breath caught in my throat. He stood at the door, his black hair mussed a bit.His vest was still neatly pressed but it was marred with a dark stain from Elora's blood.
"No,not at all," I said, sitting up further.
"Actually,we were-" Matt began,his voice hard.
"Actually,we were leaving," Willa cut him off. She scooted off the bed,and Matt shot her a look, which she only smiled at. "We were just saying that we had something to do in your room. Weren't we,Matt?"
"Fine," Matt grumbled and stood up. Finn moved aside to Matt and Willa could walk out of the room, and Matt gave him a warning glare. "But we'll just be right across the hall."
Willa grabbed Matt's hand to keep him moving. Finn, as usual, seemed oblivious to Matt's threats, which only made Matt angrier. — Amanda Hocking

I'm at peace with myself and where I am. In the past, I was always looking to see how everybody else was doing. I wasn't competitive, I was comparative. I just wanted to be where everybody else was. Now I've gotten to an age when I am not comparing anymore. — Courteney Cox

You're not the way everyone says you are," Kaye said, looking at him so fiercely that he couldn't meet her gaze. "I know you're not."
"You know nothing of me," he said. He wanted to punish her for the trust he saw on her face, to raze it from her now so that he would be spared the sight of her when that trust was betrayed.
He wanted to tell her he found her impossibly alluring, at least half enchanted, body bruised and scratched, utterly unaware she would not live past dawn. He wondered what she would say in the face of that. — Holly Black

The principal difference between her "seductive" and her other self-portraits was the absence of self-awareness in the former and its strong presence in the latter. With time, she became brutally direct. In her later self-portraits she was no longer beautiful, merely odd-looking. She did not seduce, she simply drew attention to herself. Her face became hard, serious. The pronounced cheekbones and heavy eyebrows looks as if they had been carved out of stone. The stern black eyes looked either straight through or straight past the viewer. She deliberately exaggerated the brutality of her self-portraits. She was saying: Look at me, I'm alive and it hurts. These self-portraits were like attestations to her existence: one, two, three, four...Exhibitionism, they said. But for her, painting self-portraits was a kind of magical rite, a kind of exorcism. — Slavenka Drakulic

The wind swept the snow aside, ever faster and thicker, as if it were trying to catch up with something, and Yurii Andreievich stared ahead of him out of the window, as if he were not looking at the snow but were still reading Tonia's letter and as if what flickered past him were not small dry snow crystals but the spaces between the small black letters, white, white, endless, endless. — Boris Pasternak

But Amanda ... " Jadina said, looking past Maylin at the young Fate. "She doesn't ask for anything. She doesn't even try to read the future, it's just there. She ends up blurting things out. Starts talking about the car accident you're going to have in three years, or your baby boy dying in child birth in a few months, or your grandmother's funeral next year. Thing's you can't change even if you know about them. Things you're happier not knowing about. People go through life, happily oblivious. If you start telling them all the horrible things that are coming, they get upset. When those horrible things start coming true, they get scared and blame you. They say you caused it. Label you witch. Even burn you at the stake. She's safer in there. — Crissy Moss

Perhaps it has been too uncomfortable for those with vested interests to acknowledge, but we have spent the best part of the past century enthusiastically testing the world to utter destruction; not looking closely enough at the long-term impact our actions will have. — Prince Charles

I have two goals. First, that readers be interested, drawn by a historical account, amused by its comic aspects, saddened by the tragic elements, captured by the possibilities of the past; and second, that readers be aware that there could be another way of looking at things besides the one I offer. I'm not giving a lesson or a sermon, I'm offering a dialogue, as I said before. — Natalie Zemon Davis

He was already looking at their relationship through the lens of the past tense. It puzzled her, the ability of romantic love to mutate, how quickly a loved one could become a stranger. Where did the love go? Perhaps real love was familial, somehow, linked to blood, since love for children did not die as romantic love did. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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

Unconditional Love is a perpetual emotion machine. It inspires us to include others. The longer I am bathed in its radiance, the more I find myself looking at others with an open heart. I can look past their faults and love them. I can say, "I may not like the things you do, but I love you. — Rosa Marchisella

I will look at the past, but I will not stare at it. — M. Spio

You may tell by looking at any twig of the forest, ay, at your very wood-pile, whether its winter is past or not. — Henry David Thoreau

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

Tristan was silent for a few moments, looking at the leaves before them. "Life isn't about the past and the future. It's about today." He paused. "It's about five minutes from now and two seconds ago. It's moments, you know? Not years. Years aren't what define us. — Chelsea Fine

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

A way to make new music is to imagine looking back at the past from a future and imagine music that could have existed but didn't. Like East African free jazz, which as far as I know does not exist. — Brian Eno

Have you ever had the sensation of looking at someone for the first time and ever so quickly the past and future seem to fuse ? Does that not mean something ? That we felt so much, so deeply, before even speaking? — Charles Dickens

The way I see it, truth only looks good when you're looking at it from far away. It's kind of like that beautiful girl you see on the street when you're riding past in the bus ... there she is, this amazing girl walking by on the street, and you think if you could only get off this stupid bus and introduce yourself to her, your life would change.
The thing is, she's not as perfect as you think, and if you ever got off the bus to introduce yourself, you'd find out ... This girl is truth. She's not so pretty, not so nice. But then, once you get to know her, all that stuff doesn't seem to matter. — Neal Shusterman

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

I'm not trying to hide from my past. I want to roll in it. Like a dog, rolling in feces, I'm rolling in the feces of my greatest hits - that's a bit of a wild way of looking at it, but I am a man, and we do like rolling in our own feces at times. — Billy Idol

Most people tend to excuse themselves with the opportunities they have in life, with how many years of school they have, with the people around them. And in doing so, they fail in realizing many other things, such as the fact that not many are lucky enough to give birth to a world bestseller on spirituality, wealth and success in life. Yes, your child may be a little reincarnation of an awesome buddhist monk, of an alchemist or a famous knight templar. Why most people can't see these things, and keep looking at the past for answers, is something that still puzzles me. — Robin Sacredfire

You don't understand," getting mad. "You guys, you're like Puritans are about the Bible. So hung up with words, words. You know where that play exists, not in that file cabinet, not in any paperback you're looking for, but - " a hand emerged from the veil of shower-steam to indicate his suspended head - "in here. That's what I'm for. To give the spirit flesh. The words, who cares? They're rote noises to hold line bashes with, to get past the bone barrier around an actor's memory, right? But the reality is in this head. Mine. I'm the projector at the planetarium, all the closed little universe visible in the circle of that stage is coming out of my mouth, eyes, sometimes other orifices also. — Thomas Pynchon

Oh, Cole," she said, "the jewelry box is lovely - "
"It's not for jewelry."
She gazed up at him, surprised by his somber
tone. "Then what - "
"It's a memory box, Devon. Something in which to store all those memories you collect, so you'll never lose a single one." He paused, looking both tender and serious at once. "Unlike the wedding gift you gave me, this one comes with strings attached. If you accept it, I expect the next fifty years of your life in return to help fill it up."
Devon bit her lip to hide a wayward, trembling smile. "Only the next fifty?"
He shrugged. "We can negotiate after that."
She nodded, swallowing past the tight knot in her throat. "That sounds like a pretty fair deal to me. — Victoria Lynne

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

Oh, shut up. He is not saying that he's too good-looking to be friends with girls. But then again, yesterday at the beach, there were a high percentage of beach beauties sitting very close to us and/or sauntering repeatedly past. And he never looked up once. I snort. You poor handsome thing. If only you were ugly, then girls wouldn't have to throw themselves at you all the time. I could break your perfect nose for you, if it'd make your life easier. — Kiersten White

The common where we had walked the previous evening was a deserted tract of land, typical of Surrey, looking as if it might be miles from any habitation, while only a few deciduous trees divided it from country studded with bungalows. Some of the land showed traces of heath fires, charred roots and stones lying about on the blackened ground. Walking there was not at all like being in the country. Agriculture seemed as remote as in a London street. This waste land might have been some walled-in space in the suburbs where business men practised golfstrokes; or the corner of a cinema studio used for shooting wilderness scenes. It had neither memories of the past nor hope for the future. — Anthony Powell

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

This is what working in what amounts to a rat's nest for the past decade has done to us, I think, looking at our reflections in the mirror. Ten years in a piece-of-crap studio in the armpit of Bushwick with full view-and-sound of the JMZ train, giving ourselves humpbacks craning over our drafting tables, Camels drooping from our mouths, passing expired packages of Peeps back and forth in the dark. The work has made me forget how to act like a person. We're not fit to go out and socialize with the fancy people, all Cheetos-stained hands and dilated pupils. — Kayla Rae Whitaker

People who are focused on the past will quickly become a weight that will hold you back. You must break free from those relationships and embrace those who will take you to your future. Link yourself up with those who are going somewhere. Seek out those who have a vision for their lives, and find your place at their table. These are the people who will open the door to your destiny. These types of individuals will not waste time, nor are they looking — Robb Thompson

He walked to the exit, skirting the pools of vapor light purely out of habit, but he saw that the last lamp was unavoidable, because it was set directly above the exit gate. So he saved himself a further perimeter diversion by walking through the next-to-last pool of light, too. At which point a woman stepped out of the shadows. She came toward him with a distinctive burst of energy, two fast paces, eager, like she was pleased to see him. Her body language was all about relief. Then it wasn't. Then it was all about disappointment. She stopped dead, and she said, "Oh." She was Asian. But not petite. Five-nine, maybe, or even five-ten. And built to match. Not a bone in sight. No kind of a willowy waif. She was about forty, Reacher guessed, with black hair worn long, jeans and a T-shirt under a short cotton coat. She had lace-up shoes on her feet. He said, "Good evening, ma'am." She was looking past his shoulder. He said, "I'm the only passenger. — Lee Child

But even I know that love doesn't steer by logic, nor is power distributed evenly. Lovers arrive at their first kisses with scars as wells as longings. They're not always looking for advantage. Some need shelter, others press only for the hyperreality of ecstasy, for which they'll tell outrageous lies or make irrational sacrifice. But they rarely ask themselves what they need or want. Memories are poor for past failures. Childhoods shine through adult skin, helpfully or not. So do the laws of inheritance that bind a personality. The lovers don't know there's no free will. I haven't heard enough radio drama to know more than that, though pop songs have taught me that they don't feel in December what they felt in May, and that to have a womb may be incomprehensible to those who don't and that the reverse is also true. — Ian McEwan

I have a hunger,
for more than food.
I have a hunger
bigger than Joyce City.
I want tongues to tie, and
eyes to shine at me
like they do at Mad Dog Craddock.
Course they never will,
not with my hands all scarred up,
looking like the earth itself,
all parched and rough and cracking,
but if I played right enough,
maybe they would see past my hands.
Maybe they could feel at ease with me again,
and maybe then,
I could feel at east with myself. — Karen Hesse

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

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

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

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

A face stared up at her from the mirror beside her hand. Was that really what she looked like? Was that really what she looked like, all sharp lines and huge silver-grey eyes? Certainly, no one would ever call those features beautiful, Jame thought ruefully; but were they really enough like a boy's to have fooled that old man the alley? Well, maybe with that long black hair out of sight under a cap. It was a very young face and a defiant one, she thought with a odd sense of detachment, but frightened, too. And those extraordinary eyes ... what memories lived in them that she could not share? Stranger, where have you been she asked silently. What have you seen? The thin lips locked in their secrets.
"Ahhh!" Jame said in sudden disgust, tossing away the mirror. Fool, to be obsessed with a past she couldn't even remember. But it was all behind her now. — P.C. Hodgell