Quotes About Past

strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.

All'improvviso mi sembra che una delle differenze tra la gioventù è la vecchiaia potrebbe essere questa: da giovani, ci inventiamo un futuro diverso per noi stessi; da vecchi, un passato diverso per gli altri. da Il senso di una fine

La principal característica del remordimiento es que no tiene remedio: que ha pasado el tiempo de las disculpas o enmiendas

mental states can be inferred from actions. That's in history—Henry VIII and all that. Whereas in the private life, I think the converse is true: that you can infer past actions from current mental states.

But I remember what Old Joe Hunt said when arguing with Adrian: that mental states can be inferred from actions. That's in history—Henry VIII and all that. Whereas in the private life, I think the converse is true: that you can infer past actions from current mental states.

Strange how, when you are young, you owe no duty to the future; but when you are old, you owe a duty to the past. To the one thing you can't change.

I lie in bed at home, trying to put feelings into words. On the one hand—and this is the part to do with the past—love feels like the vast and sudden easing of a lifelong frown. But simultaneously—this is the part to do with the present and the future—it feels as if the lungs of my soul have been inflated with pure oxygen.

Sometimes the past may be a greased pig; sometimes a bear in its den; and sometimes merely the flash of a parrot, two mocking eyes that spark at you from the forest.

I replayed the words that would forever haunt me. As would Adrian's unfinished sentence: 'So, for instance, if Tony . . .' I knew I couldn't change, or mend, anything now.

Ma se nostalgia significa il ricordo potente di un'emozione forte, e il rimpianto di non ritrovare più sensazioni del genere nella vita, allora mi dichiaro colpevole. da Il senso di una fine

Qué vanidad tan curiosa es la que impulsa al presente a esperar que el pasado se amamante de él.

characteristic of remorse is that nothing can be done about it: that the time has passed for apology or amends.

They say one sign of growing old is that the past becomes more real than the present and already I can feel the fingers of those lost decades closing their grip round my imagination, making more recent memory seem somehow greyer and less bright.

Así es cómo funciona el olvido: eliminando el pasado y no hablando nunca de él.

How do you know me? she says. He looks at her through his narrow eyes. I was, he says. You were what? she asks. I was, he says again. And now I'm not.

New losses dig up past losses, as if one needs the other to remember how it's done.

I don't sleep. All night long I'm wide awake, thinking, Secrets, secrets, secrets. There are secrets in my past no one needs to know. Secrets in my present that might kill Kim and Chip. I don't want to take my secrets with me when I go. When I pass through the light, i want to be free of everything and everyone.

Their old life seemed far away and remote to him now, like a dream he could not quite remember. The bright green grass, the roses, the house on the wide street not far from the sea -- that was another time, a different year.

It's been years, and yet she still talks about my first New York studio like it was the hole in a Khmer Rouge prison.

Human memory is a strange thing," he observed. "How it comes and goes. How sometimes folk tuck the past away so deep they forget it's there at all. The human mind is full of byways, dead ends, locked chambers. Strongboxes guarding matters too painful to be brought into the light; dusty corners where items considered too trivial are tossed away. You'll remember one day. And if you do not, perhaps it is no matter.

Who would awaken the past? It shines like a sunrise And cuts like a fine blade.

Sometimes, when the past catches up, you just can't stop yourself.

To Yukiko, however, drawn as she was to the past, there was something very unsatisfactory about this brother in law, and she was sure that from his grave her father too was reproaching Tatsuo.

The future is merely a function of the past. There could be no plan of action tomorrow for a mask that had been alive not yet twenty-four hours. The human social equation, in short, is, like a child, too unrestricted.