What You Did In The Past Quotes & Sayings

Whatever actions may have been appropriate for your survival when you were a child, are probably no longer necessary. However, the ego cannot know that. It is like a computer program, reacting to life robotically; doing what it deems is most applicable in the present circumstance, according to past experience. The problem is, it often blocks you from feeling what is appropriate in the present moment, through its preconceived notions of what worked best in the past, and may not necessarily pertain any longer. For example you may resist intimacy now by pushing others away, in effect shut them out, because as a five year old you did the same in order to protect your vulnerability. — Paula Horan

The world needs people who have survived mistakes, tragedies, and trials to help the rest of us through. Where would we be if Victor Frankl had never experienced what he did during the war? He wouldn't have used his experiences to benefit millions of people around the world.
The world needs you to let go of self-pity and shame regarding your life experiences, too. The world needs you to use the things you have learned for good. Stop letting your past mistakes define you and affect your value. Let go of separation and victimhood and find meaning in what you have been through. — Kimberly Giles

I feel that God made my body perfect the way I was born. Then man robbed me, took away my power, and left me a cripple. My womanhood was stolen. If God had wanted those body parts missing, why did he create them?
I just pray that one day no woman will have to experience this pain. It will become a thing of the past. People will say "Did you hear, female genital mutilation has been outlawed in Somalia?" Then the next country, and the next, and so on, until the world is safe for all women. What a happy day that will be, and that's what I'm working toward. In'shallah, if God is willing, it will happen. — Waris Dirie

What if you have failed in the past? So, at one time did every man we recognize as a towering success. They called it temporary defeat. — Napoleon Hill

Do you know what happens to all the things we did together in the past? When I asked my daughter this, although it was you I wanted to ask, my daughter said, "It's so strange to hear you say something like this, Mom," and asked, "Wouldn't they have seeped into the present, not disappeared?" What difficult words! Do you understand what that means? She says that all the things that have happened are actually in the present, that old things are all mixed in with current things, and current things mingle with future things, and future things are combined with old things; it's just that we can't feel it. But now I can't go on. Do — Kyung-Sook Shin

But no matter what I did, Elentiya, I want you to know that in the darkness of the past ten years, you were one of the bright lights for me. Do not let that light go out — Sarah J. Maas

Yeah, they did. Didn't you notice they changed the theme of the New Year Art Show? In past years fifth graders painted self-portraits, but this year they made us do those ridiculous self-portraits as animals, remember?" "So big freakin' deal." "I know! I'm not saying I agree, I'm just saying that's what she's saying." "I know, I know. This is just so messed up. — R.J. Palacio

Dogs possess a quality that's rare among humans
the ability to make you feel valued just by being you
and it was something of a miracle to me to be on the receiving end of all that acceptance. The dog didn't care what I looked like, or what I did for a living, or what a train wreck of a life I'd led before I got her, or what we did from day to day. She just wanted to be with me, and that awareness gave me a singular sensation of delight. I kept her in a crate at night until she was housebroken, and in the mornings I'd let her up onto the bed with me. She'd writhe with joy at that. She'd wag her tail and squirm all over me, lick my neck and face and eyes and ears, get her paws all tangled in my braid, and I'd just lie there, and I'd feel those oceans of loss from my past ebbing back, ebbing away, and I'd hear myself laugh out loud. — Caroline Knapp

You look back in time to when there was slavery and you think 'how did people even remotely believe that this was a good idea?'.
It's incomprehensible for us to think of what the mindset was 100 or 200 years ago. I hope to make the present as incomprehensible to the future as the past is to us. — Stefan Molyneux

Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places. — Italo Calvino

There are some things in this world you can never get back ... There's no reclaiming that piece of the past. Don't you think it'd be better to abandon it completely and consider instead what you did wrong and learn from it? — Fuyumi Ono

But how? How can you just get over these things, darling? ... You've had so much strife but you're always happy. How do you do it?'
'I choose to ... I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.'
'But it's not that easy.'
He smiled that Frank smile. 'Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things ... I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount. That I did a proper job of hating, too: very Teutonic! No' - his voice became sober- 'we always have a choice. All of us.' p.323 — M.L. Stedman

He heard the swishing of her skirts as she approached. God above! Could she not leave well enough alone? 'There is another thing I wished to ask you,' she said as she sat across from him - sat down in his presence without so much as a by-your-leave. Now, *this* deserved a sharp word. He opened his mouth, but she beat him to it, leaning across the chiffonier to whisper, 'By any chance, did you consume five pounds of truffles last week?'
What in God's name? 'No.'
'I thought not.' She plucked off her eyeglasses, revealing eyes a startling shade of light blue. He abruptly forgot what he'd been about to say. She was polishing the lenses with her sleeve as she continued to speak. The words might as well have been gibberish.
Her eyes were the precise shade of the sky over his garden this past summer ...
She replaced the spectacles on her nose, the glare of her lenses masking the miracles behind them. — Meredith Duran

What did you learn?"
"Letting go of my past, because it's all soot, nothing is left
of it, if I wandered there for long I would be running in circles
in the dark, no hope, no life. And if I chose to live in those
places rebuilt from ashes, I can never get rid of the darkness
which would prevail underneath."
"The present is my ray of hope. I could have stayed there,
complaining about the gloominess of the light, and regretting
not having turned a corner to explore a new horizon at the same
time I needed to respect that light because it was my savior from
the dark. I learnt it finally and that's why I reached here today
and found you — Dixy Gandhi

What you feel spiritually. I think a lot of that has to do with it. If you have no spiritual life, chances are everything is going to aggravate you, you're going to fly off the handle at everything and that's what I did in the past. I've kind of got that under control now. — Mike Ditka

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

She paused and saw him tense in expectation. He wouldn't like to hear this, but better from her than one of the others. "You aren't the only pilot I have in my service. And you aren't the only person with a dark past, though the illegal things that you did, you were forced to do by the Core. But I will tell you what I've told the others. This is your last chance. You screw up with me and you get shipped up river. I don't offer second chances - I offer last chances."
Nope, he didn't like it. She saw the hand not holding the bottle of beer curl into a fist.
Sin and Del, from Sunscapes Trilogy, Book 1: Last Chance — Michelle O'Leary

At first it was, as I have said, rather bracing and tonic. For after the dream there is not reason why you should not go back and face the fact which you have fled from (even if the fact seems to be that you have, by digging up the truth about the past, handed over Anne Stanton to Willie Stark), for any place to which you may flee will not be like the place from which you have fled, and you might as well go back, after all, to the place where you belong, for nothing was your fault or anybody's fault, for things are always as they are. And you can go back in good spirits, for you will have learned two very great truths. First, that you cannot lose what you have never had. Second, that you are never guilty of a crime which you did not commit. So there is innocence and a new start in the West after all.
If you believe that dream you dream when you go there. — Robert Penn Warren

I have had much experience with the unclean and uncivilized in the recent past. Shall I tell you what I discovered? I am not the state of my feet. I am not the dirt on my hands or the hygiene of my private parts. If I were these things, I would not have been at liberty to pray at any time since my arrest. But I did pray, because I am not these things. In the end, I am not even myself. I am a string of bones speaking the word God. — G. Willow Wilson

Today, there's an expectation that you get to know public people. In the past, it was much more what you did and how you presented yourself. — Theresa May

Did you ever hear the story of the man who walks past the mental hospital?" he said. "He can hear all the patients inside shouting, 'Thirteen! Thirteen! Thirteen!,' but the fence is too high for him to see what is going on. Then he spots a knothole in one of the planks. He looks through it, and bam - a stick pokes him in the eye, and he hears the inmates all shouting, 'Fourteen! Fourteen! Fourteen!'" He took a sip of his cocoa. "I mind my own business, Detectives. — James Patterson

But for the love of piss, make some sort of decision. If you don't want to eat babies and nail bloodbags to walls, that's your choice. What Sarren did or made you do in the past has nothing to do with it now. You're a vampire. Do whatever the hell you want. — Julie Kagawa

Was seriously just a name. They didn't tell you what to do. They didn't tell you how they wanted the character to be nothing. You went in to audition for this character name and that was it. When I started, before I came onto the set, I went to Gene Roddenberry and said: hey, what do you want from this guy? Who is he? And being as smart as he is, he said: don't listen to what you've heard or read or seen in the past, nothing. Just make the character your own. And that's what I did. — Michael Dorn

I don't remember why it all went so wrong. I mean, I do remember. I remember what i did. I just don't remember why anymore. This - you and me - this feels so right. It just seems stupid - so stupid - that we had it before, and we let it go. We wasted so much time. I'm sorry.' She was close to tears.
'Hey. Don't. There's no point in that. It's the past, and that's where it belongs. This is us now. We're here.'
But where's here? We're hiding out. We're playing house. This isn't real life.'
'It feels real to me.'
'But it isn't. — Elizabeth Noble

I'm unable to tell you what it feels like to be "a little" mad. My emotions work as if controlled by a light switch. I'm either fine or I'm out of control. I once spilled a container of thumbtacks and got as angry at myself as I did when I screwed up my relationship with my high school sweetheart. If I'm under the impression that there are Golden Grahams in my cupboard, then realize that there in fact are none, there's a high probability I'll be as sad as I was at my grandfather's funeral.

In other words, my reactions aren't in proportion to the things I'm reacting to. It's something I've been working on with a very lovely shrink for the past few years.

But against the 4Skins one day, all that hard word went out the window. — Chris Gethard

Betrayals that make your soul scream so loud you wonder why no one else hears it. In the end, we are all alone in that private hell. But life isn't about learning to forgive those who have hurt you or forgetting the past. It's about learning to forgive yourself for being human and making mistakes. Yes, people disappoint us all the time. But the harshest lessons come when we disappoint ourselves. When we put our trust and our hearts into the hands of the wrong person and they do us wrong. And while we may hate them for what they did, the one we hate most is ourself for allowing them into our private circle. How could I have been so stupid? How could I let them deceive me? — Sherrilyn Kenyon

For after the dream there is no reason why you should not go back and face the fact which you have fled from (even if the fact seems to be that you have, by digging up the truth about the past, handed over Anne Stanton to Willie Talos), for any place to which you may flee will now be like the place from which you have fled, and you might as well go back, after all, to the place where you belong, for nothing was your fault or anybody's fault, for things are always as they are. And you can go back in good spirits, for you will have learned two very great truths. First, that you cannot lose what you have never had. Second, that you are never guilty of a crime which you did not commit. So there is innocence and a new start in the West, after all.
If you believe the dream you dream when you go there. — Robert Penn Warren

Life ... we understand it differently at different stages. It's what is interesting about getting older, you realize your relationship with the past is always negotiable. There is a lot of freedom in that, because you realize you can go back to what you did such a long time ago. You can talk with the dead, talk with your lost self, your disappeared self, and you can visit those places again, and understand it differently. That makes a huge difference. — Jeanette Winterson

Is this how you will die? Is this what you were meant for? To simply be bled out like a pig?
A spark of rage flickers, an antidote to despair.
Will you not even try to survive? Did the scientists make you too stupid even to consider fighting for your own life?
Emiko closes her eyes and prays to Mizuko Jizo Bodhisattva, and then the bakeneko cheshire spirit for good measure. She takes a breath, and then with all her strength she slams her hand against the knife. The blade slices past her neck, a searing line.
"Arai wa?!" the man shouts.
Emiko shoves hard against him and ducks under his flailing knife. Behind her, she hears a grunt and thud as she bolts for the street. She doesn't look back. She plunges into the street, not caring that she shows herself as a windup, not caring that in running she will burn up and die. She runs, determined only to escape the demon behind her. She will burn, but she will not die passive like some pig led to slaughter. — Paolo Bacigalupi

I have a good friend in the East, who comes to my shows and says, you sing a lot about the past, you can't live in the past, you know. I say to him, I can go outside and pick up a rock that's older than the oldest song you know,
and bring it back in here and drop it on your foot. Now the past didn't go anywhere, did it? It's right here, right now.
I always thought that anybody who told me I couldn't live in the past was trying to get me to forget something that if I remembered it it would get them serious trouble. No, that 50s, 60s, 70s, 90s stuff, that whole idea of decade packaging, things don't happen that way. The Vietnam War heated up in 1965 and ended in 1975
what's that got to do with decades? No, that packaging of time is a journalist convenience that they use to trivialize and to dismiss important events and important ideas. I defy that. — Utah Phillips

You know, and I know, the cause of this accident. It is due to the adventurous, pioneering spirit of our race. It has been like in the past, it is like that in the present, and I hope it will be in the future. Here is a great imaginative project, to build a machine with twice the speed and twice the height of any existing machine in the world. We all went into it with our eyes wide open. We were conscious of the dangers that were lurking in the unknown. We did not know what fate was going to hold out for us in the future. — John Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon Of Tara

The past is a shadow, so I hid in the darkness. Little did I know I had made myself the unsuspecting prey of unseen predator. For only in light can you see what is dark. — Dina Luate-Wani

Okay, let me try to lay this out straight for you," Dan said. "I'm not saying any of this is your fault or even that your grandparents did any of it. I'm saying it happened, and it happened on your people's watch. You're the one who benefited from it. It doesn't matter that you're way downstream from the actual events. You're still drinking the water. "I don't care if you feel guilty. I just care that you take some responsibility. Responsibility's about what you do now, not about feeling bad about what happened in the past. You can't erase the footprints that have already been made. What you've got to do is take a close look at those footprints and make sure you're more careful where you walk in the future. — Kent Nerburn

As members of my cabinet," Alyss calmly explained, "you share in the responsibilty of ensuring a safe furture for Wonderland. I'm sure the four of you will agree that we're in a crisis and that trying times bring out the best in you. What queen wouldn't want such helpful cabinet members by her side in an hour of need? Forgive me for calling you here. I was thinking only of myself and others when I did it. But for the love of your rank if nothing else, advise me. How do you think we should conter this invasion?"
Uh," said the Lady of Clubes.
I know exactly how we should counter it! said her husband. "First and foremost, a decree must be at once ... decreed! All ranking families are to remain indoors and well-protected until it can be guaranteed that every threat is violence is past! It's imperative that nothing inconvenient happen to us, for the population would then have no one to look up to! — Frank Beddor

Did you really think I might have drawn that picture?" Emma swallowed a self-conscious lump in her throat, then lifted her chin. "I own the notion did cross my mind. But can you blame me? After all, you knew what the piece looked like and you gave me prodigious cause to suspect you in the past." He inhaled deeply. "I suppose you are right. But that was a long time ago. I have no interest in tricking you now. Nor in frightening you, nor any other dishonorable motive, I assure you." The warm tenor of his voice did odd things to Emma's stomach. She blinked, unable to meet his gaze. "Emma, look at me." She forced herself to meet his remarkable green eyes and saw the sincerity burning there. He said, "You have my word, Emma. I did not do this." He had called her Emma. She liked the sound of her name on his lips. Nodding, she said, "I believe you. — Julie Klassen

I'm so determined to keep you where you are - with me - because for the past four years I've gone nothing but crazy with wanting you." He grabbed my chin and forced my gaze up. "I came back for you. I did. I was in a bad place walking into that club, but then I saw you - the drunk doncellita dancing on top of the bar. I can't put into words what holding you this morning did to me." A slow, easy smile grew on his lips. "Though, I'm sure you know exactly what it did to me. — Nadege Richards

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe? — Allen Ginsberg

If you sit back & spend too much time feeling good about what you did in the past, you're going to come up short next time — Bill Belichick

He wants to tell her that he is not hopeless, that he is not filled with hatred or violence, that he is not a number, a 300 or 600 or any hundred, but just a kid with no one and nothing, and who would do anything to make it otherwise. Just tell me how, he wants to scream. He wants to tell her what it's like to have the same dream night after night, that he's playing tag with his little sister, laughing, happy - then waking up and not knowing if the image in his head is a dim memory, or just something his mind cooked up to fill the black hole. Do you know what it's like to have no past? he wants to ask. And behind it all, like a ringing in his ears, is the question that really nags at him all the time, the one that has haunted him since he was six years old and his family evaporated. He wants to ask it, then and there and for good: What did I do wrong back then? What did I do to deserve this life? — Edward Humes

I went to my grandmother ... and asked her to write a letter. I hardly knew her. I didn't have any interest in knowing her. I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.
What kind of letter? my grandmother asked.
I told her to write whatever she wanted to write.
You want a letter from me? she asked.
I told her yes.
Oh, God bless you, she said. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I wasn't trying to be different; I just did what I liked. Don't misunderstand when I say I really had no particular DP I was aspiring to be. I really fell in love with the movies as I was growing up, and I must say, I was emulating things that I saw others doing, that's how you learn, but you soon have to push past that, and do things that you feel are right ... or better. — Gordon Willis

Kugel didn't like attics, he never did. The roofing nails overhead like fangs, waiting to sink into his skull; the cardboard boxes and plastic crates and leather trunks - tombs, sarcophagi - full of ghosts and regret and longing and loss; worse yet was the implication in all this emotional hoarding that the past was preferable to the present, that what came before bests whatever comes next, so clutch it to your chests in mourning and dread as you head into the unknowable but probably lousy future. — Shalom Auslander

Ed, it was everything, those nights on the phone, everything we said until late became later and then later and very late and finally to go to bed with my ear warm and worn and red from holding the phone close close close so as not to miss a word of what it was, because who cared how tired I was in the humdrum slave drive of our days without each other. I'd ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you, and I did. But that's why right there it was doomed. We couldn't only have the magic nights buzzing through the wires. We had to have the days, too, the bright impatient days spoiling everything with their unavoidable schedules, their mandatory times that don't overlap, their loyal friends who don't get along, the unforgiven travesties torn from the wall no matter what promises are uttered past midnight, and that's why we broke up. — Daniel Handler

I can no longer hear my voices, so I am a little lost. My suspicion is they would know far better how to tell this story. At least they would have opinions and suggestions and definite ideas as to what should go first and what should go last and what should go in the middle. They would inform me when to add detail, when to omit extraneous information, what was important and what was trivial. After so much time slipping past, I am not particularly good at remembering these things myself and could certainly use their help. A great many events took place, and it is hard for me to know precisely where to put what. And sometimes I'm unsure that incidents I clearly remember actually did happen. A memory that seems one instant to be as solid as stone, the next seems as vaporous as a mist above the river. That's one of the major problems with being crazy: you're just naturally uncertain about things. (9) — John Katzenbach

The morning came, pale and clammy. Frodo woke up first, and found that a tree-root had made a hole in his back, and that his neck was stiff. "Walking for pleasure! Why didn't I drive?" he thought, as he usually did at the beginning of an expedition. "And all my beautiful feather beds are sold to the Sackville-Bagginses! These tree-roots would do them good." He stretched. "Wake up, hobbits!" he cried. "It's a beautiful morning."
"What's beautiful about it?" said Pippin, peering over the edge of his blanket with one eye. "Sam! Get breakfast ready for half-past nine! Have you got the bath-water hot?"
Sam jumped up, looking rather bleary. "No, sir, I haven't, sir!" he said.
Frodo stripped the blankets from Pippin and rolled him over, and then walked off to the edge of the wood. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Hey, Ivashkov! Open up. " Avery argued. She kept pounding on the door and yelling, and finally, Adrian answered. His hair stuck up at odd angles, and he had dark circles under his eyes. He'd drunk twice as much as Lissa last night.
"What ... ?" He blinked. "Shouldn't you guys be in class? Oh God. I didn't sleep that much, did I? "
"Let us in, " said Avery, pushing past. "We've got refugees from a fire here. " She flounced onto his couch, making herself at home while he continued staring. Lissa and Christian joined her.
"Avery sprang the fire alarm, " explained Lissa.
"Nice work, " said Adrian, collapsing into a fluffy chair. "But why'd you have to come here? Is this the only place that's not burning down? "
Avery batted her eyelashes at him. "Aren't you happy to see us? " He eyed her speculatively for a moment.
"Always happy to see you. — Richelle Mead

Life was about loss. One minute standing on the promise of your dreams, then free-falling backward into nothingness. Is this what it meant to grow old? To gradually be stripped of all you cared about. And then what? Were you supposed to spend the rest of your life, dreaming about the past while you waited to die? Or did you start a new life, set the cycle in motion once again. Take the chance of losing that, too. And if you did, what happened to the old life? Did it die away from lack of attention? — Shelley Noble

Dear Willem:
I've been trying to forget about you and our day in Paris for nine months now, but as you can see, it's not going all that well. I guess more than anything, I want to know, did you just leave? If you did, it's okay. I mean it's not, but if I can know the truth, I can get over it. And if you didn't leave, I don't know what to say. Except I'm sorry that I did.
I don't know what your response will be at getting this letter, like a ghost from your past. But no matter what happened, I hope you're okay. — Gayle Forman

You cannot cook and you cannot sew. Tell me, Jessica, are you good for aught besides making my life hell?" Well, that certainly put her in her place. She rose. "You know what they say about guests and fish after three days," she said, starting toward the door. "I'll be going now." Where, she didn't know, but she could work that out later. "I did not give you permission to depart," he said curtly. "You may still sleep in my bed. I will sleep there as well - " "Wait a minute," she interrupted. "I never agreed to - " "You will remain unmolested," he said curtly. "There is only one bed and we have shared it the past two days." "Yeah, and you were feverish." "We will put a bolster of some sort between us," he said, through gritted teeth. "I will not touch you, since you seem to find the thought so repugnant." She had no answer for that. It was much too complicated for a quick fix. "You will retire now," he said, pointing again toward the bed. "In silence. — Lynn Kurland

Hated France when I first got over here. Got on the train at Le Havre, and looked out of the window and thought it looked so exactly like America, I wanted to cry. The scenery flying past, the hills and barns and cows, were just the sort of things you keep coming across through a train window in the States. The Untrained Eye, I told myself, training it enough to see that all the signs were written in French, at the same time letting the untrained nose get its first exotic whiff of garlic from my traveling companions, and the untrained stomach its first attack of French dysentery. But still, these were the only differences. I asked myself finally what exactly did I expect France to look like? No answer. — Elaine Dundy

What do you think?" I asked, a teasing smile curving my lips. "Did we know each other in another life?"
He gave a faint smile. "I can guarantee it."
I looked up at him, surprised by his seriousness. "Oh really?" I said, cocking an eyebrow coyly, "So what was I like, oh-expert-on-my-past-life?"
A smile touched his lips. As he thought, he seemed to be in another place.
When he came out of his trance, he answered, "Similar to how you are now. Smart,funny, stunningly beautiful ... and you were a horrible pool player then too." He laughed as I punched him in the shoulder.
"Very funny," I said.
"Your punches used to hurt less though. — Angela Corbett

He said something interesting: he said that he thinks there is only free will when you are in time, in the present. He says in the past we can only do what we did, and we can only be there if we were there. — Audrey Niffenegger

I
" She swallowed, perhaps summoning her courage, then continued, "I would not lie to you and say that I did not want this."
"Me," he cut in peevishly. "You wanted me."
She closed her eyes. "Yes," she finally said, "I wanted you."
Part of him wanted to interrupt again, to remind her that she still wanted him, that it wasn't and would never be in the past.
"But I can't have you," she said quietly, "and because of that, you can't have me."
And then, to his complete astonishment, he asked, "What if I married you? — Julia Quinn

In magic - and in life - there is only the present moment, the now. You can't measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. 'Time' doesn't pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we're always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn't act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don't want and how to get what we have always dreamed of. — Paulo Coelho

But in doing so
moving forward ...
he's still dealing with the past. It's always strung out behind us, innit, attached to our arses like a roll of toilet paper we trail out of the bathroom, pointing the way to the giant shite we just took. It doesn't matter if we flushed it down; Everyone still knows what we did there. So its fine to say it's all done and you have no connection with the past, that you're a new person every second, but silly in my view to pretend that person isn't made of the old one. — Kevin Hearne

Good boy" can be canceled out the next day by "bad boy." "You're a smart girl" by "What a stupid thing to do!" "Careful" by "Careless" . . . and so on.

But you can't take away the time he shoveled the whole walkway even though his arms were tired and his toes were frozen. Or the time he made the baby laugh with his goofy faces when the babysitter couldn't get her to stop crying, or found his mom's reading glasses, or figured out how to make the alarm on the cell phone stop going off when no one else could do it. These are the things he can draw upon to give himself confidence in the face of adversity and discouragement. In the past he did something he was proud of, and he has, within himself, the power to do it again. — Julie King

It is a great pity," she said, "a girl like you, that instead of teaching or doing needlework, you should not go to Vernon's, as you have a right to do, and work there." "I wish I could," Hester said, with eager eyes. "They tell me you wanted to do something like what I had done. Ah! you did not know it was all to be done over again. This life is full of repetitions. People think the same thing does not happen to you twice over, but it does in my experience, You would soon learn. A few years' work, and you would be an excellent man of business; but it can't be,"' "Why cannot it be? You did it. I should not be afraid - - " "I was old. I was past my youth. All that sort of thing was over for me. — Mrs. Oliphant

And on this you have my pledge - unlike in the past, when you stood up and did what was right, this governor will not pull the rug out from underneath you - I will sign strong reform bills. — Chris Christie

The first principle of contract negotiations is don't remind them of what you did in the past - tell them what you're going to do in the future. — Stan Musial

Why is it so important for me to forgive that son-of-a-bitch? I'm not the one at fault here. It shouldn't be about me. He's the one that did wrong. Screw his feelings. He should feel like he's hated for what he did." Lisa added another used tissue to the growing pile on the table.
Lyn warmly smiled. "Forgiving Byron isn't for his sake, it's for yours. The block in your life's road can only be removed if you forgive him for what he did. If you don't, you'll just keep bumping into that block again and again. The life you live will be miserable. You'll never be able to break the chains of the past."
Lisa listened and let the words sink into her subconscious. She realized the only way to get to the end of the road was to take the first step. There was a block preventing her from moving forward in life. She had to find a way past it. — Dane Hatchell

I don't know what happened in your past, what he did to you, how he hurt you, but I'm not that guy. The only thing I want from you is you. I would never use you, Clair. I can't make you trust me, but if you let me, I'll prove to you that you can. What good is life without taking a chance? — Loni Flowers

Time doesn't conceal anything, it tells the future what you did in the past, so prepare well in order to score extra marks. — Michael Bassey

I went to my grandmother, your great-great-grandmother, and asked her to write a letter. She was my mother's mother. Your father's mother's mother's mother. I hardly knew her. I didn't have any interest in knowing her. I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.
What kind of letter? my grandmother asked.
I told her to write whatever she wanted to write.
You want a letter from me? she asked.
I told her yes.
Oh, God bless you, she said.
The letter she gave me was sixty-seven pages long. It was the story of her life. She made my request into her own. Listen to me. — Jonathan Safran Foer

You, yesterday, did the usual things, just as any day, You don't know if it's worth remembering. You would prefer to remember, there lying in the half-darkness of the bedroom, not what has happened already but what is going to happen. In your half-darkness your eyes would prefer to look ahead, not behind, and they do not know how to foresee the past. — Carlos Fuentes

From what I know of you already, you have quite a reputation for providing customer satisfaction."
Julie's cheeks burned. For Kate's benefit she said, "I try."
"Oh, I'm certain you do more than try. You go all out." He paused for several beats. Then, "I've driven past the gallery thousands of times and always admired the works displayed in the windows. But I haven't had a reason to stop."
"And now you did?"
"Now I did."
She drew herself up. "Well, I'm sure Katherine will find the perfect piece for you. She's very knowledgeable."
"He came to see you."
"That's right, Ms. Rutledge. Not that Ms. Fields isn't perfectly charming and, I'm sure, knowledgeable." He shot Kate a smile over his shoulder, which she returned before he came back around to Julie. "But I'm placing myself in your very capable hands. — Sandra Brown

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

As soon as the doors were closed, Amelia went to her sister with her hands raised. At first Cam thought she intended to shake her, but instead Amelia pulled Beatrix close, her shoulders trembling. She could barely breathe for laughing.
"Bea ... you did it on purpose, didn't you? ... I couldn't believe my eyes ... that blasted lizard running along the table ... "
"I had to do something," the girl explained in a muffled voice. "Leo was behaving badly - I didn't understand what he was saying, but I saw Lord Westcliff's face - "
"Oh ... oh ... " Amelia choked with giggles. "Poor Westcliff ... one moment he's def-fending the local population from Leo's tyranny, and then Spot comes s-slithering past the bread plates ... "
"Where is Spot?" Twisting away from her sister, Beatrix approached Cam, who deposited the lizard in her outstretched palms. "Thank you, Mr. Rohan. You have very quick hands."
"So I've been told." He smiled at her. — Lisa Kleypas

Was there ever an aerial war in our distant past, maybe 2,000 years ago? An aerial war? Yes. There are certain understandings, what you would call treaties between various visiting civilizations, specifying how they are to conduct themselves in contact with humans. Those that did not have the best intentions for Earth applied certain arrangements and pressures to certain civilizations. These aspirations were restrained to create a reasonably safe and neutral area of space that includes Earth and many other planets. This might be what you call aerial warfare. That is probably it. The reference comes from very old writings in India and a description of ships in the sky, fighting. I understand the Hindu texts. They give insights into the background of a number of civilizations that have come to Earth. These Indian texts have many clear insights and provide early information on contact with humans. — J. Steven Reichmuth

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

They call it 'the whispering of the stars.' Listen," he said, raising a finger for silence. I could still hear the tinkling and craned my neck to see what it was. Zhensky laughed. "No, here. Look." He formed his mouth into a wide O and exhaled slowly. As he did, I saw the cloud of breath fall in droplets to the ground. That was the sound I heard: our breath falling. "It's a Yakut expression. It means a period of weather so cold that your breath falls frozen to the ground before it can dissipate. The Yakuts say that you should never tell secrets outside during the whispering of the stars, because the words themselves freeze, and in the spring thaw anyone who walks past that spot will be able to hear them. — Jon Fasman

For a good part of my life, I had a share in this idea that I have not yet quite abandoned. But there came a time when I could not protect myself, and indeed did not wish to protect myself, from the onslaught of reality. Marxism, I conceded, had its intellectual and philosophical and ethical glories, but they were in the past. Something of the heroic period might perhaps be retained, but the fact had to be faced: there was no longer any guide to the future. In addition, the very concept of a total solution had led to the most appalling human sacrifices, and to the invention of excuses for them. Those of us who had sought a rational alternative to religion had reached a terminus that was comparably dogmatic. What else was to be expected of something that was produced by the close cousins of chimpanzees? Infallibility? Thus, dear reader, if you have come this far and found your own faith undermined - as I hope - I am willing to say that to some extent I know what you are going through. — Christopher Hitchens

I would become anyone, anything for you. I would lie, steal, beg, kill for you. I'm not sorry for what I did in the past few months. My life would have been nothing without them. — Lisa Kleypas

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

Was there to be any end to the gradual improvement in the techniques and artifices used by the replicators to ensure their own continuation in the world? There would be plenty of time for improvement. What weird engines of self-preservation would the millennia bring forth? Four thousand million years on, what was to be the fate of the ancient replicators?
They did not die out, for they are past masters of the survival arts. But do not look for them floating loose in the sea; they gave up that cavalier freedom long ago. Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.
They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines. — Richard Dawkins

Did you know that the light from our nearest star takes four years to reach us? Which means when we see it- when we see any star- we are really seeing what it looks like in the past. All those twinkling lights, every star in the sky, could have burned out years ago- the entire sky could be empty this very minute, and we wouldn't even know it. — Ali Benjamin

PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION How much work did you do today that you will be proud of tomorrow? I don't mean just how you handled the big things, but also how you addressed the little, seemingly insignificant ones. Did you make progress on what matters most to you, or did you allow the buzz, busyness, and expectations of others to squelch your passion and focus? I've been asking these questions of others and myself each day for more than a decade, and they are the main reason I originally felt compelled to write Die Empty. Through my work I've encountered many teams of brilliant, sharp, amazing, talented people who have at some point "settled in" or begun coasting on past success. Unfortunately, — Todd Henry

You can't figure out what to do in the future by looking at how you did things in the past — Roger Lewin

I am a very good cook." When she did cook.
"Good. I like to eat." He lightly bit her palm.
The too-much-air feeling in Lucy's stomach pressed upward into her heart. "What?" she asked past the constriction in her chest.
"What do I like to eat?"
"Yeah."
"Blondes with blue eyes."
Oh God. She pulled her hand from his. "Are you hungry?"
His gaze lowered to her mouth. "I could eat. — Rachel Gibson

Forgiveness" is a term that has been in use for two thousand years, but most people have a very limited view of what it means. You cannot truly forgive yourself or others as long as you derive your sense of self from the past. Only through accessing the power of the Now, which is your own power, can there be true forgiveness. This renders the past powerless, and you realize deeply that nothing you ever did or that was ever done to you could touch even in the slightest the radiant essence of who you are. The whole concept of forgiveness then becomes unnecessary. — Eckhart Tolle

What did he do?" he murmured.
"He said something about if his words didn't put me in my place, he would find something that would. And then he slapped me."
Bram abruptly regretted not making use of the knife he'd carried in his boot to the Hampton soiree. He could understand Cosgrove desiring her and wanting to control her. But to strike her... Bram was accustomed to being angry; he'd spent most of the past ten years in varying states of it. What he felt as he listened to Rosamund, though, to the shake of her words and the despair in her voice, was deeper and hotter than anything he'd ever experienced. Plainly and simply, it was fury. White-hot, blood-boiling fury.
"Hope that he enjoyed hitting you, Rosamund," he said in a low voice, "because he will never touch you again. — Suzanne Enoch

You had me," she whispered, cheeks flushing at the reminder. "I did," he agreed. "But the past isn't what matters. I live in the present, Genna. I live in the now. I had you, yeah, but what I want is to have you. — J.M. Darhower

My dad says stop thinking that way. "You be lookin' backward all the time, Brady, you're gonna have one heck of a crook in the neck." He smiles when he says that. But I know what he means deep down, and it's not funny. You can't keep dwelling on the past when you can't undo it. You can't make it happen any different than it did. — Priscilla Cummings

I know little of my past, but almost from the beginning of my imprisonment I have known of you. I waited. I called you to my side. I hated you for allowing my suffering to continue.
She caught his face in her hands, suddenly anxious that he believe her. "I didn't know. I swear to you, I didn't know. I never would have left you there." Grief clogged her throat that she had not somehow ended his suffering sooner. What was it about him that drew her like a magnet, that captivated her and made her want to ease his pain? The urge was so strong in her, so intense, she could hardly bear to see him lying so vulnerable and shattered.
I know you speak the truth; you cannot lie to me. It was a courageous thing you did, rescuing me. But as your lifemate I can do no other than forbid you to ever take such a risk again. — Christine Feehan

What you did in the past is how you got to today. What you do today is how you will get to the future. — Ron Kaufman

Wow," the empty air finally said. "Wow. That puts a pretty different perspective on things, I have to say. I'm going to remember this the next time I feel an impulse to blame myself for something. Neville, the term in the literature for this is 'egocentric bias', it means that you experience everything about your own life but you don't get to experience everything else that happens in the world. There was way, way more going on than you running in front of me. You're going to spend weeks remembering that thing you did there for six seconds, I can tell, but nobody else is going to bother thinking about it. Other people spend a lot less time thinking about your past mistakes than you do, just because you're not the center of their worlds. I guarantee to you that nobody except you has even considered blaming Neville Longbottom for what happened to Hermione. Not for a fraction of a second. You are being, if you will pardon the phrase, a silly-dilly. Now shut up and say goodbye. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

I'm a very private person. What I did in the past or what somebody heard me do or has a bootleg of me doing ... well, if you have a bootleg, then I did it. — Mark Lanegan

You did what was right for those who agreed with you, and that is all in the past. We are talking about our future. Oliver, we cannot live as we did. — Rachel Caine

A man and his young son crouched in the woods just before sunset, out where Palm Beach County meets the Everglades. Their eyes focused on the train tracks a few yards away, a tight bend just past the clearing where Pratt & Whitney tests its jet engines. A shiny new Lincoln penny sat on one of the rails. "Why are we doing this, Daddy?" "To get a flat penny." "What for?" "Because it's fun!" A train whistle blew in the distance. "Here she comes! Get down!" The pair crouched and waited, the train growing closer. It was in sight before they knew it, nothing but a blur as it entered the bend and hit the penny. There was a harsh grinding of metal. The father and son watched in astonishment as The Silver Stingray jumped the tracks and twenty cars jackknifed down the embankment toward the swamp. "Daddy? Did we do that?" "How'd you like some ice cream? — Tim Dorsey

I don't think a day has gone past in 10 years where someone hasn't said, 'What did you do with those guns from Lock, Stock?' And there's pretty much not a week that's gone by where someone hasn't got me to say, 'It's a deal, it's a steal, it's the sale of the f**king century.' Apart from that I get, 'You were brilliant in Notting Hill,' because I look vaguely like Rhys Ifans. — Jason Flemyng

A Rough Guide
Be polite at the reception desk.
Not all the knives are in the museum.
The waitresses know that a nice boy
is formed in the same way as a deckchair.
Pay for the beer and send flowers.
Introduce yourself as Richard.
Do not refer to what somebody did
at a particular time in the past.
Remember, every Friday we used to go
for a walk. I walked. You walked.
Everything in the past is irregular.
This steak is very good. Sit down.
There is no wine, but there is ice cream.
Eat slowly. I have many matches. — Mark Haddon

It was everything, those nights on the phone, everything we said until late became later & then later & very late & finally to go to bed with my ear warm & worn & red from holding the phone close, close, close so as not to miss a word of what it was, because who cared how tired I was in the humdrum slave drive of our days without each other? I'd ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you & I did. But that's why right there it was doomed. We couldn't only have the magic nights buzzing through the wires. We had to have the days, too, the bright impatient days spoiling everything with their unavoidable schedules, their mandatory times that don't overlap, their loyal friends who don't get along, the unforgiven travesties torn from the wall no matter what promises are uttered past midnight & that's why we broke up. — Daniel Handler

The world is wrong. You can't put the past behind you. It's buried in you; it's turned your flesh into its own cupboard. Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you. Who did what to whom on which day? Who said that? She said what? What did he just do? Did she really say that? He said what? What did she do? Did I hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? Do you remember when you sighed? — Claudia Rankine

It is certainly not impossible that my father would attempt to frighten me," he said. "He did so many times in my youth. But he takes too great a risk here. I am his only heir. There is little point in winning an empire if one cannot launch a dynasty. With both his age and his past ... performance, he is not foolish enough to believe he can father more sons. That is why I can get away with some degree of disrespect. Yet there is a limit, as I've learned. My sons could be his heirs as well as I could. He has threatened me with that when I am overtly impudent."
"Threatened you with what? Forcing you to father children? I'm hardly an expert in the matter, but my rudimentary knowledge of the process suggests that would be difficult."
She swore Gavril flushed. Impossible to tell with his skin tone, of course, but his expression said if he was a Northerner, he'd be as red as a summer plum. — Kelley Armstrong

Because that's just the way it is, and don't sleep on what you did before, you know, because it can ... not hurt you, but you can find yourself sleeping on something that happened in the past, but you dare to progress and there is always room for progression. — Thierry Henry

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn't last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he's done. — Richard Hugo

1. "Mistress Jamieson" tells Mary when they meet: "My mother likes to say some people choose the path of danger on their own, for it is how the Lord did make them, and they never will be changed." Do you agree? Was it more true in the past than today? Did Mary purposely choose a path of danger? Who else? 2. The author has people in her own life with Asperger's syndrome who helped her with Sara's character. What was it like to be in the point of view of a person with Asperger's syndrome? Did you have any preconceived ideas about Asperger's? Did they change? 3. Journeys (physical and otherwise) are a prevalent theme in many of Susanna Kearsley's books. What journeys can you identify in this book, past and present? How do they differ for female and male characters? 4. Mary takes "Mistress Jamieson" as a role model. "She — Susanna Kearsley

I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been. — Raymond Carver

... deceitful!" she decided with a little bounce of fury that briefly ballooned the silk of her trousers. "There! You deceitful ... "
"Gillia ... "
" ... misleading, dishonest, insincere ... "
"Those are all the same words, Gill - "
"Ooh! Liar!"
She'd managed to get her hands on a small pillow. He ducked just as it whizzed past him. In justice, however, it did strike the mosaic vase behind him on an engraved mahogany pedestal, and it tipped and spun on its base before landing in a shattered heap on the bare floor.
"Now, look what you've done!" she accused tearfully and bolted from the room. — V.S. Carnes

Resentment is the emotion that goes with complaining and the mental labeling of people and adds even more energy to the ego. Resentment means to feel bitter, indignant, aggrieved, or offended. You resent other people's greed, their dishonesty, their lack of integrity, what they are doing, what they did in the past, what they said, what they failed to do, what they should or shouldn't have done. The ego loves it. Instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others, you make it into their identity. Who is doing that? The unconsciousness in you, the ego. Sometimes the "fault" that you perceive in another isn't even there. It is a total misinterpretation, a projection by a mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior. At other times, the fault may be there, but by focusing on it, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else, you amplify it. And what you react to in another, you strengthen in yourself. — Eckhart Tolle