Quotes About Nostalgia

In the sad B movie that was life in Grantham, actors were recast periodically, replaced with younger models, but the script itself never changed. It was that kind of town.

That the woman was beautiful and dear to him, that he'd told her things he'd never told a living soul: this would have been more than enough even without the dreamlike echo of another moment, equally potent. For it seemed to him, the whole day long, that both reels were rolling at once, his boyhood and manhood, the indelible past and achingly tangible present. The boy he'd been and the man he was;

What can a photograph mean? It seems to me, now, that it's not so much the image itself as the fact that it was kept. In my own bedroom closet are three large boxes I labeled—late one night, in a dark mood—PLUTONIUM. They are filled with my own keepsakes and very heavy, decades of living distilled down to a few potent sentiments: tenderness, longing, regret.

The air smelled of sweet ocean, a special thing. As a little girl she'd identified a half dozen ways the sea could smell, briny or fishy or sandy or green. A few times each summer, for reasons she couldn't explain, the breeze smelled of molasses, dark and sweet. ….

How was life before Pop-Tarts, Prozac and padded playgrounds? They ate strudel, took opium and played on the grass.

It's not the bad memories that tear a person apart. It's the good ones.

Xander smiled, and something about it made me want to cry. "Do you think it's okay," he said, sounding younger than I'd ever heard him, "that I loved playing those Saturday morning games? Loved growing up here? Loved the great and terrible Tobias Hawthorne?

But now all I could think about was that, yes, Harry used to scowl when I outmaneuvered him on the chess board, but his eyes had gleamed. He'd called me princess and horrible girl, and I'd called him old man.

You're a very pretty girl...Did you know? Once upon a time, I had a pretty, pretty boy.' She reached forward and touched my cheek with one manicured hand.

But when he smiled, I still felt seven years old and about three inches tall.

Your grandfather was a piece of work," I told Xander. He picked up a fourth scone. "I agree. In his honor, I eat this scone." He did just that.

But after reading even just a couple of my mom's postcards? It was getting harder to ignore Grayson's presence beside me, harder not to think about Jameson. My eyes stung, even though there was zero reason for me to be crying.

Libby's hair was dyed again--not one color, but dozens. I thought about what she'd said about her ninth birthday. About the cupcakes my mom had baked for her, and the rainbow colors she'd clipped into her hair, and I wondered how much of her life Libby had spent trying to get that one perfect moment back.

Sometimes I wonder if you remember things the way they really were.

She closed her eyes. Said the four most comforting words she knew: "Once upon a time." An incantation.

Reggie smiled. 'You haven't changed at all.' Tara took another pile of clothing from her bag and gave Reggie a sly grin from over the top of it. 'Do any of us really?

Each photo is like a novel I can never open, Gary had explained once. I can hold it in my hand and only begin to imagine what's inside -- the lives these people might have led. Sometimes if there was a little clue on the photo - a name, date, or place - he'd try to research it...

And as Rhonda told the story, she thought: this is how the past gets passed down. This is how memories are made. Half-invented, embellished, given a touch of whimsy. Daniel would be a saint now that he was dead. A beautiful man who made his child wings.

I've lived here ... my whole life. It's where I lost all my baby teeth. Where tiny hamster, gerbil, and bird skeletons lie in rotted-out cardboard coffins beneath the oak tree in our backyard. Also where, if some future archaeologist goes digging, they'll find the remains of a plush toy: a gray terrier named Toto I buried after the accident.

Think of me. Remember me. Love me.

she swore she was breathing 1971 air—it smelled like dust and cigarettes and long-faded perfume. Like ghosts, if ghosts had a smell.

I remember running down a road on my way to a nursery of flowers. I remember her smile and her laugh when I was my best self and she looked at me like I could do no wrong and was whole. I remember how she looked at me the same way even when I wasn't. I remember her hand in mine and how that felt, as if something and someone belonged to me.

If a song's meant to stay around, you carry it with you in your bones.

I feel homesick for this London I left behind.