Looking Back Quotes - Page 4

• Russia on its path has oftentimes discussed and overdiscussed what had happened earlier, instead of moving forward. The result is always the same: It is very difficult to move forward when you're looking backward.

  Mikhail Khodorkovsky

  Mistake, Moving, Russia

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• Important thing is not the me that's lying here, but the me that's sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me that's downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count. I'm not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family.

  Ray Bradbury

  Death, Lying, Reading

  Ray Bradbury (1980). “The Stories of Ray Bradbury”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

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• Like the Sweetness of Gardenias Mother, you died 15 years ago. pain, a rapier, cut until, finally, there was just peace like the sweetness of gardenias in the crystal vase on your yellow kitchen table. so fragrant. your voice lingers in my ear reminding, scolding, guiding a pleasant mantra of tenderness, magic words that move my palms, your palms. together we are molding, helping, creating. in the mirror I see your eyes, your beautiful brown circles looking back, so radiant. "don't forget me," you whispered the day you died. I won't.

  Wallace Stevens

  Beautiful, Mother, Peace

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• As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity.

  Simon Newcomb

  New Year, Memorial Day, Adversity

  Simon Newcomb (1903). “The reminiscences of an astronomer”, Harper and Brothers

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• The best thing is looking back and realizing how good life is. If you don't take the time to think about it and analyze it, you'll never realize all the dots that are connected.

  Beyonce Knowles

  Dream, Good Life, Thinking

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• I'm just always looking forwards. I spend very little time, looking backwards.

  Gary Vaynerchuk

  Inspirational, Littles, Looking Forward

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• In all my life I'd never been approached this way, the car pulling up, the Where you going? It was something I wish had happened hundreds of times. I was a looker - someone who looked over at every car at every traffic light, hoping something would happen, and almost never finding anyone looking back - always everyone looking forwards, and every time I felt stupid. Why should people look at you? Why should they care?

  Dave Eggers

  Stupid, Light, People

  Dave Eggers (2009). “You Shall Know Our Velocity”, p.221, Vintage

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• The world is full of banks and rivers running between them, of men and women crossing bridges and fords, unaware of the consequences, not looking back or beneath their feet, and with no loose change for the boatman.

  Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  Running, Men, Bridges

  Arturo Pérez-Reverte (1998). “The Club Dumas: A Novel”, Vintage

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• Re-vision – the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction – is for woman more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival. Until we understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves. And this drive to self-knowledge, for women, is more than a search for identity: it is part of our refusal of the self-destructiveness of male-dominated society.

  Adrienne Rich

  Eye, Self, Survival

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• Looking back now across fifteen years I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escape from it.

  John Knowles

  Mean, Years, Important

  John Knowles (2014). “A Separate Peace”, p.174, Simon and Schuster

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• That was Youth with its reckless exuberance when all things were possible pursued by Age where we are now, looking back at what we destroyed, what we tore away from that self who could do more, and its work that's become my enemy because that's what I can tell you about, that Youth who could do anything.

  William Gaddis

  Self, Enemy, Age

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• Looking back, it was the thing in his life that shamed him the most: the times he was purposefully, calculatingly mean to Alice. It was those moments, and there had been many of them, that indicated to him that he was not a good person. He got mad at her for many things, but it was always really for the same thing: that she possessed his love and he couldn't seem to get it back. She didn't deserve it, which was to say she deserved better

  Ann Brashares

  Mean, Mad, His Love

  Ann Brashares (2008). “The Last Summer (of You and Me)”, p.43, Penguin

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• I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Wall, Winter, Past

  Khaled Hosseini (2004). “The Kite Runner”, p.14, Penguin

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• The reality of the Life Review is becoming part of our every day understanding. We know that after death, we have to look at our lives again; and we’re going to agonize over every missed opportunity, over every case in which we failed to act. This knowledge is contributing to our determination to pursue every intuitive image that comes to mind, and keep it firmly in awareness. We’re living life in a more deliberate way. We don’t want to miss a single important event. We don’t want the pain of looking back later and realizing that we blew it, that we failed to make the right decisions.

  James Redfield

  Determination, Pain, Live Life

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• After the trial, I watched as another female pathologist collected maggots from a spinal column found in the desert. There was a decomposed head, too, and before leaving work she planned to simmer it and study the exposed cranium for contusions. I was asked to pass this information along to the chief medical examiner, and, looking back, I perhaps should have chosen my words more carefully. 'Fire up the kettle,' I told him. 'Ol'-fashioned skull boil at five p.m.

  David Sedaris

  Fire, Should Have, Skulls

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• Looking back, it seemed like it should have been harder to lose someone, or have them lose you, especially when they were in the same state, only a few towns over.

  Sarah Dessen

  Should Have, Towns, States

  Sarah Dessen (2008). “Lock and Key”, p.44, Penguin

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• What a mystery blood was -- how did a tiny gesture, a tome of voice, endure through generations like the harder verities of flesh? He had seen it again and again, watching his nieces and nephews grow, and accepted without thought the ehoes of parent and grandparent that appeared for brief moments. the shadow of a face looking back through the years -- that vanished again into the face that was now.

  Diana Gabaldon

  Niece, Blood, Years

  Diana Gabaldon (2015). “The Outlander Series 8-Book Bundle: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart's Blood”, p.2966, Dell

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• My grandfather used to say: Life is astoundingly short. To me, looking back over it, life seems so foreshortened that I scarcely understand, for instance, how a young man can decide to ride over to the next village without being afraid that -not to mention accidents- even the span of a normal happy life may fall far short of the time needed for such a journey.

  Franz Kafka

  Fall, Happy Life, Journey

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• The only thing a person can ever really do is keep moving forward. Take that big leap forward without hesitation, without once looking back. Simply forget the past and forge toward the future.

  Alyson Noel

  Motivational, Change, Moving On

  Alyson Noel (2013). “The Immortals Bundle 1-3: The Immortals: Evermore, The Immortals: Blue Moon and The Immortals: Shadowland”, p.217, Pan Macmillan

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• Looking back, I could not point to one special time and say, There! That's what is amazing. We can change completely and not recognize it. We think terrible events have made us into stone. But love slips in like a chisel - and suddenly it is an ax, breaking us into pieces from the inside.

  Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  Thinking, Terrible Events, Special

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• I look into my heart and see the abyss looking back at me.' 'I won't let you fall.

  Nalini Singh

  Fall, Heart, Looks

  Nalini Singh (2012). “Nalini Singh: Guild Hunters Novels 1-4”, p.427, Penguin

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• I felt myself trapped in line for a ride I was not nearly ready for, looking back but moving forward in the only direction I could go.

  Elizabeth Berg

  Moving, Lines, Ready

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• Looking back, perhaps the single biggest problem was fear. Fear of failure, fear of other people, but mostly fear of myself. It has taken sixty years to discover who I really am. It's never too late to find yourself however lost you may be.

  Lynda Bellingham

  Taken, Years, People

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• View your life from your funeral, looking back at your life experiences, what have you accomplished? What would you have wanted to accomplish but didn't? What were the happy moments? What were the sad? What would you do again, and what you wouldn't

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Happiness, Spiritual, Views

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• You don't realize that if you stop looking backwards craving the love and acceptance which you didn't receive from your parents, then you might open your eyes to what is available for you now. But you won't let go. If only you could see that looking back into an incomplete and imperfect past, with regret, blame, guilt or resentment is keeping you from the treasures that await you here now. The past has gone. You cannot rectify something that is no longer with you.

  Leonard Jacobson

  Letting Go, Regret, Eye

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