Past Quotes - Page 281

There is a relative order to the fossilized species of plants found in the geologic record for which Flood Geology cannot account, unless you can imagine apple and orange trees with Nike sneakers on their roots, racing past the magnolias and primitive mammals, leaving the ginkgoes back there with the dinosaurs when the Flood waters began to rise.

My maturity level is rising. I think there are certain situations that I'm handling better than in the past.

However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they’re missing? Uh huh.

Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed.

Face the past without regret, the future without fear, and live in the present with gratitude.

Philosophy easily triumphs over past and future ills; but present ills triumph over philosophy.

The compliments you are about to pay could only sadden me, because what you love in our dear peninsula is exactly the object of our hatreds. Indeed, you crisscross Italy only to meticulously sniff out the traces of our oppressive past, and you are happy, insanely happy, if you have the good fortune to carry home some miserable stone on which our ancestors have trodden.

This crisis is not just a crisis. Consumers are understanding for the first time that [their] degree of personal happiness doesn't rise past a certain earnings threshold.

Preserve your peace of mind. There is not much time; all things end in death. Do not lament the past too much, or fear the future too acutely, ot waste too much energy on other peoples' woes, in case the present dissolves altogether.

As the United States continues its slow but steady recovery from the depths of the financial crisis, nobody actually wants a massive austerity package to shock the economy back into recession, and so the odds have always been high that the game of budgetary chicken will stop short of disaster. Looming past the cliff, however, is a deep chasm that poses a much greater challenge -- the retooling of the country's economy, society, and government necessary for the United States to perform effectively in the twenty-first century.

Never carry the baggage of your past relationships on the honeymoon of your future relationships.

I don't regret anything I do, ever, whether articles I've done or things I've said. And as far as what's happened in the past, I wouldn't take anything back.

It is only after a fair portion of one's life that one really knows what are the things that matter, the things that will remain until the end.

If the past decade was the decade of searching and finding and looking for stuff, this coming decade is going to be the decade of filtering and going to your friends for recommendations.

Because Fascism is a lie, it is condemned to literary sterility. And when it is past, it will have no history, except the bloody history of murder.

"Lights," I said softly. This had become my favorite word over the past week. In my mind, it had become synonymous with freedom.

The future is merely a shadow which blocks out the joys of the present and emphasizes the miseries of the past.

There's a limit that you will not be able to go past if you don't understand the importance of reading.

We can't start dividing people up into categories. In the past, France has often committed the error of not speaking to everybody because there was a belief that some countries could be neglected.

That's the main work that I've done in my life - really wanting to get past that gender trap where there's a certain nudity in poetry. It's not about showing my soul, it's about observations.

Exultation is the going Of an inland soul to sea Past the houses, past the headlands Into deep eternity! Bred as we, among the mountains Can the sailor understand The divine intoxication Of the first league out from land?

Thank you. It used to be knee length, but then I discovered that when I get angry I like to cut things. I'm not allowed to have scissors any more. It's still pretty lengthy, but I've been threatening to shave half of it for the past week and nobody seems to believe me... I do it all myself though because I scream when I'm touched and that scares people.

You can't live in the past, and I don't. I'm not nostalgic about my own work, at all.

Memory is a tenuous thing. . . . flickering glimpses, blue and white, like ancient, decomposing 16mm film. Happiness escapes me there, where faces are vague and yesterday seems to come tied up in ribbons of pain. Happiness? I look for it intead in today, where memory is something I can still touch, still rely on. I find it in the smiles of new friends, the hope blossoming inside. My happiest memories have no place in the past; they are those I have yet to create.

Cleansed, chlorinated to the point of chemical peel, sore muscles relieved, I felt almost human again. Tiptoe to my room, up a darkened hall, past closed doors, I wondered if I'd ever feel completely human again.