Trapped In The Past Quotes & Sayings

I spent the rest of my day picturing how I'd kill Amy. It was all I could think of: finding a way to end her. Me smashing in Amy's busy, busy brain. I had to give Amy her due: I may have been dozing the past few years, but I was fucking wide awake now. I was electric again, like I had been in the early days of our marriage...
Andie had screwed me over, Marybeth had turned against me, Go had lost a crucial measure of faith. Boney had trapped me. Amy had destroyed me. I poured a drink. I took a slug, tightened my fingers around the curves of the tumbler, then hurled it at the wall, watched the glass burst into fireworks, heard the tremendous shatter, smelled the cloud of bourbon. Rage in all five senses. Those fucking bitches. — Gillian Flynn

Things that look like they were designed, probably were ... If intelligence is an operative component of the universe, a science that methodologically excludes its existence will be susceptible to being trapped in an endless chase for materialistic causes that do not exist ... Where there are sufficient grounds for inferring intelligent causation, based on evidence of "specified complexity," it should be considered as a component of scientific theories.
Inclusion of intelligent causation in the scientific equation is not novel and has not impeded the practice of science in the past, e.g. Newton and Kepler, in an age when science was not constrained by a philosophical materialism, and by many current scientists who have remained open to following the evidence where it leads. — Donald L. Ewert

Nothing should be worth more to you than its value in helping you live your life. If you are willing to slough off the past, even at a loss, you are keeping yourself free, and your world continues to grow. If you insist on holding to some abstract valuation, you are being held hostage by that possession, and you are trapped in a prison of your own devising. — Kent Nerburn

Fear keeps us rooted in the past. Fear of the unknown, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, fear of not having enough, fear of not being enough, fear of the future-all these fears and more keep us trapped, repeating the same old patterns and making the same choices over and over again. Fear prevents us from moving outside the comfort-or even the familiar discomfort-of what we know. It's nearly impossible to achieve our highest vision for our lives as long as we are being guided by our fears. — Debbie Ford

I've never enjoyed myself more than I have the past forty-eight hours, during which I've been trapped in a car with one of the worst drivers I've ever seen, run up the Spanish Steps and then down again so I could be on time to wait in line to perjuer myself at the American consulate. And I'd like to continue doing those sorts of thing with you on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. — Meg Cabot

People have little importance to me because they are unconscious to their real self. And that self that I see in them, they can't see in themselves. They're only manifesting a very small portion of what they could be. Honesty and kindness could unlock many things in their spirit but most people are too afraid and trapped within themselves, their mind, their fake beliefs. And so, I observe everything in them that they may spend an entire lifetime never seeing. I know their wants, their qualities, their dreams, their needs, their spiritual lessons, their karma, their past lives. They only know what their friends, trapped by the same ignorance, believe that they are. — Robin Sacredfire

I knew you would come," he said, "in the end. I have been waiting a long, long time."
Time seemed to change as he spoke its name, bending out of shape, out of rhythm, curving round to encapsulate them in their own miniature cosmos. The past was coiled around the future: the present was an isolated moment, belonging nowhere, trapped at random in a maze of inverse reflections. — Jan Siegel

When you located someone from the past online, it was like finding that person trapped behind glass in the permanent collection of a museum. You knew they were still there, and it seemed to you as if they would stay there forever. — Meg Wolitzer

I begin my life. I live again. I meet a young girl called Valeria. She smiles easily. She laughs tender sounds that pull at my heart. I'm too young to be profound but she makes me feel so safe. So cherished. I am thirty years old. I bump into a woman I knew when she was a girl. Valeria looks annoyed to see me. She lives in the future. Where the world is turning. I live within the past. Where the people are trapped and screaming and alone. I live within the past when Valeria and I were in love. She's waiting for the cab to come, her foot tapping against the sidewalk. Her eyes glancing at her watch every few minutes. I'm eager to reunite our lives through some kind of friendship. I'm so eager to know her again, as she was when she was a child. But Valeria lives within the future. I live within the past. Have the two ever gotten along? Have they ever even met? — F.K. Preston

You know who we been living with for the past week? We been living with the only man in history who ever took a piece in the ladies' can of a Boston & Maine train. When the conductor caught him in there with his Winter Carnival date she screamed, 'He trapped me!' and that's how he got his name. This is the famous Trapper John. God, Trapper, I speak for the Duke as well as myself when I say it's an honor to have you with us. Have a martini, Trapper. — Richard Hooker

It's too easy, you see, to get trapped in the past. The past is very seductive. People always talk about the mists of time, you know, but really it's the present that's in a mist, uncertain. The past is quite clear, and warm, and comforting. That's why people often get stuck there. — Susanna Kearsley

There are those of us who learn to live completely in the moment. For such people the Past vanishes and the future loses meaning. There is only the Present, which means that two of the three Aalim are surplus to requirements. And then there are those of us who are trapped in yesterdays, in the memory of a lost love, or a childhood home, or a dreadful crime. And some people live only for a better tomorrow; for them the past ceases to exist — Salman Rushdie

For years I lived my life suspended, trapped by the past, unable to move into the future. Like every wounded child I just wanted to turn back time and be in that paradise again, in that moment of remembered rapture where I felt loved, where I felt a sense of belonging. We can never go back. I know that now. We can go forward .We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go grief about the love we lost long ago, when we were little and had no voice to speak the heart's longing. All the years of my life I thought I was searching for love I found, retrospectively, to be years where I was simply trying to recover what had been lost, to return to the first home, to get back the rapture of our first love. I was not really ready to love or be loved in the present. I was still mourning
clinging to the broken heart of girlhood, to broken connections. When that mourning ceased I was able to love again. — Bell Hooks

She happily sat in church, while I smoked pot around the corner. She believed in God while I danced with demons. She had a future while I somehow seemed trapped in the past. — Brittainy C. Cherry

The Secoya are trapped between the devastating effects of the colonization frontier and their rich traditional past, which is proving to be as fragile a reality and as fleeting a memory as the most powerful visions of their esoteric science. But instead of detailing that sad scene, in this chapter I have attempted to portray my image of this culture as I see it in its fading colors, magic, and awe-inspiring mystery. — Jonathon Miller Weisberger

Life can sometimes feel like being trapped in the midst of a chaotic storm, swirling with darkness and debris, and no perceivable way out. But there is a way out. Seeking out the stillness of one's mind, challenging limiting perceptions and unloading the burdens of the past can allow a person to break free from the darkness and find a path to peace, joy and light. No one has to stay in the storm. Anyone can leave, if they choose. Hypnosis can help a person uncover the way to freedom. Once the path is revealed, all one needs to do is take it. And when they do, everything will seem possible. — Dawn Wheeler

When you look at the past without God's eyes, you subject yourself to deception. The past no longer exists and God doesn't linger there. However, Satan will show you whatever you want to see and believe, so you will be trapped in an emotion that cannot communicate truth, beyond what you want to remember. — Shannon L. Alder

The comfort and nostalgia of the past you once knew does not exist anymore, but in the subjective experiences of your memory. You can not go back; you can not live there anymore, for you are here.
You are now.
If you linger in the past, you find you are really nowhere at all. A ghost trapped between two worlds. A shadow of your True self.
And who knows the future, except God, the great 'I Am'?
So, why not create fond memories today? — Mac MacKenzie

Battered by shifing currents and a cold, unrelenting wind, we sailed past deserted islands crowded with pines and a ghost tree growing staight out of the water, its gaunt trunk and scrawny branches raised heavenward like an outcast pleading for his life. Now, having reached the north shore, we were doggedly searching for the hidden rivulet that would take us into The Peak. We were trapped in muddy water barbed with grasses and covered with thick green algae, which broke apart in clumps, then, after we'd edged through, resealed, erasing all signs of our passing.

The wind had dissipated - strange, as it'd been so turbulent minutes ago out on the lake. Dense trees surrounded us, packed like hordes of stranded prisoners. There wasn't a single bird, not a scuttle through the branches, not a cry - as if everything alive had fled. — Marisha Pessl

Let me tell you what I think about your fucking rules," he said, his voice dripping with venom as he pushed past Liam. "You sit up in your room and you pretend like you want what's best for everyone, but you don't do any of the work yourself. I can't tell if you're just a spoiled little shit, or if you're too worried about getting your pretty princess hands dirty, but it sucks. You are fucking awful, and you sure as hell don't have me fooled ... You talk about us all being equals, like we're one big rainbow of peace and all that bullshit, but you never once believed that yourself, did you? You won't let anyone contact their parents, and you don't care about the kids that are still trapped in camps your father set up. You wouldn't even listen when the Watch kids brought it up. So what I want to know is, why can't we leave? ... What's the point of this place, other than for you to get off on how great you are and toy with people and their feelings? — Alexandra Bracken

She had that thing most people don't have - curiosity. She might not have always got the right answers, but she wanted to ask the questions. It's very hard if you are interested in ideas and all that, ideas and the philosophies of the past, it's very hard to find someone around here to really talk to. That's the tragedy of the thing really I mean, when you think about it. Certainly I can't find anyone around here to talk to anymore. And for a woman it's even harder you see. They can feel very trapped - because of the patriarchy. I do feel everyone needs to have these little chats now and then. — Zadie Smith

forgiveness helps people control their emotions so they maintain good judgment. They do not waste precious energy trapped in anger and hurt over things they can do nothing about. Forgiveness acknowledges we can't change the past. Forgiveness allows us not to stay stuck in the past. — Fred Luskin

But, no matter what they do, keep walking keep moving. And don't wear a watch. Hell, Indians never need to wear a watch because your skeletons will always remind you about the time. See, it is always now. That's what Indian time is. The past, the future, all of it is wrapped up in the now. That's how it is. We are trapped in the now. — Sherman Alexie

I had thought about forgiveness more and more ... I knew it wasn't a light that could be switched on in an instant-it grew day by day, week by week, month by month-but something was changing inside me now during the hours when I sat alone and tried to calm my feelings. A seed had been sown, and I sensed that, just as I'd once faced a choice about whether to use violence on the night when I stared at the gun, I know had another choice: to remain trapped in the bitterness of the past or to find peace in the present. — Emmanuel Jal

When i spend too much time in my head, focused on things in the past or things in the future ... when i lose sight of the present, i fold in on myself, mentally, my thoughts become toxic and distorted, my emotions, darken. — Jaeda DeWalt

If she opened the closet with her skeletons, they might drag her in with them. — Kayla Krantz

She had told Erstwhile too much in the past, and thus he knew that occasionally she did go crazy. Sometimes it was when she felt particularly trapped or hopeless, or when the tunnels were unusually dark or stuffy, or when she got stuck in a crawl-through. Sometimes it happened for no obvious reason at all. She would feel a terrible panic tightening her chest and giving her heart a queasy lollop, she would be fighting for breath ... and then she would be recovering somewhere, shuddering and sick, devastation around her and her fingernails broken from clawing at the rock walls and ceilings. — Frances Hardinge

I've been burdened with blame trapped in the past for too long, I'm moving on — Rascal Flatts

The Villa Straylight," said a jeweled thing on the pedestal, in a voice like music, "is a body grown in upon itself, a Gothic folly. Each space in Straylight is in some way secret, this endless series of chambers linked by passages, by stairwells vaulted like intestines, where the eye is trapped in narrow curves, carried past ornate screens, empty alcoves. . . . — William Gibson

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

Mutual fund managers are trapped in this rather deadly vicious circle: the more successful they are, the more money flows into their mutual fund. Then, it is more difficult for them to beat the market averages or even to match their own past performance. — Ron Chernow

That morning I realized I would probably spend the rest of my professional life trying to unravel the mysteries of trauma. How do horrific experiences cause people to become hopelessly stuck in the past? What happens in people's minds and brains that keeps them frozen, trapped in a place they desperately wish to escape? Why — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Marriage is the lightning rod that absorbs anxiety and stress from all other sources, past and present. When marriage has a firm foundation of solid friendship and mutual respect, it can tolerate a fair amount of raw emotion. A good fight can clear the air, and it's nice to know we can survive conflict and even learn from it. Many couples, however, get trapped in endless rounds of fighting and blaming that they don't know how to get out of. When fights go unchecked and unrepaired, they can eventually erode love and respect, which are the bedrock of any successful relationship. — Harriet Lerner

Even though I have spent literally years of my life trying to learn another language, any other language - and even though I have in the past claimed in several key professional contexts that I speak other languages - I am in fact still trapped inside the bubble of English. — Lev Grossman

She glowered at him. 'For your information, in the past week, I have been, oh let's see, nearly raped,
kidnapped, tied to a bedpost, forced to cough my voice into nothingness-"
"That was your own fault."
"Not to mention the fact that I embarked upon a life of crime by breaking and entering into my former
home, was nearly trapped by my odious guardian-"
"Don't forget your sprained ankle," he supplied.
"Ooooohhhh! I could kill you!" Another bar of soap flew by his head, grazing his ear.
"Madam, you are certainly doing an able job of trying."
"And now!" she fairly yelled. "And now, as if all of that weren't undignified enough, I am forced to live
for a week in a bloody bathroom! — Julia Quinn

It's not always easy to get over some of those bumps in the road, those disillusionments and disappointments. It's going to take a strong will. Sometimes, it may take courage. Sometimes nothing but faith in God and say, I refuse to be trapped in the past. I'm not going to let the past destroy my future. I'm pressing on. I'm straining forward, knowing that God has great things in store for me. — Joel Osteen

I've been allowed to grow over the past twenty years. I've managed to avoid being trapped in one moment of my career and for that, I'm very thankful. — Giovanni Ribisi

To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation. This creates an endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be. The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions. — Eckhart Tolle

For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. — George R R Martin

History, the winnowing wind, never halts. We see the chaff rise, forget the waiting grain, seed of the future, fallen to the threshing floor. We never learn, but live on, slit-narrow, as if our living were a pencil line traced upon paper, behaving as trapped denizens of a flat world hemmed in by the bigoted horizon of our own making. Yet the meaning of living is a pushing back, a pulling down of the great walls and domes of fear and ignorance, is relinquishing the nest for the sky, ignorance for understanding. The look back is also a look forward. — Han Suyin

The most important thing is to be as attentive and aware as possible, with our senses awakened and our ability to love utterly intact, so that we can exist right here and right now, and enjoy life and be creative, trapped in neither the past nor the future. — A.G. Roemmers

Point of view matters: I see that now, blind, talking to myself, trapped in a coffin falling past the edge of the solar system. I — Peter Watts

A bus drives past and I'm nauseated by a whiff of exhaust. Then rotting fish. The rancid stench of sewage. Is it garbage day? I'm trapped in the pungent fog, in the dreary suburban-style shops, the rat race of city life. The city, even on the west coast, has the power to beat us down, to suck us of passion, to crush our dreams. — Shannon Mullen

I can imagine myself in her place: trapped by a sordid past, terribly alone, defenseless before a crowd of jeering judges who hold my life in their hands. And then, when hope is lost, the one who truly has the right to condemn me looks at me. In his eyes I read something completely unexpected. Compassion. — Judah Smith

At home, loss was everywhere; she could barely see past it, like trying to look out a windowpane covered in fingerprints. She would always feel trapped behind that window, between her and the rest of the world, but at least in Ann Arbor, the glass was clearer. Whenever — Brit Bennett

I must be careful not to get trapped in the past. That's why I tend to forget my songs. — Mick Jagger

Under this swarm of waspish self-inquiries he began to feel sorry for himself - a brilliant man trapped, a Byron tamed; and his mind wandered back to Sarah, to visual images, attempts to recollect that face, that mouth, that generous mouth. Undoubtedly it awoke some memory in him, too tenuous, perhaps too general, to trace to any source in his past; but it unsettled him and haunted him, by calling to some hidden self he hardly knew existed. He said it to himself: It is the stupidest thing, but that girl attracts me. It seemed clear to him that it was not Sarah in herself who attracted him - how could she, he was betrothed - but some emotion, some possibility she symbolized. She made him aware of a deprivation. His future had always seemed to him of vast potential; and now suddenly it was a fixed voyage to a known place. She had reminded him of that. — John Fowles

trapped in his past, refusing to move forward. Unless this is a specific part of the character's arc, a character caught under this mountain of backstory can be painful to — Jordan McCollum