It was time to let go of the mad desire to remember. It was time to start living whatever life would come. In the present, not the past.
—Adi Alsaid in Let's Get Lost
Revolutions are not made: they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back.
—Wendell Phillips
The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe
Study the past, if you would divine the future.
—Confucius
Life is happening whether you embrace it or not. You need to let go of the past, the pain, whatever holds you back from having a bright life.
—S.L. Scott in Scorned
Just because you keep something a secret doesn't mean it never happened, no matter how much you want that to be true.
—Jodi Picoult in Vanishing Acts
Expressions like "the good ole days" implied that life used to be of a higher quality than it is now, but I think everything looks better in retrospect.
—Penelope Douglas in Rival
I'm not trying to hide my past. I've learned a lot from it. It's made me who I am today, and I'm proud of who I've become.
—Amber Lynn Natusch in Undertow
Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.
—Norman Vincent Peale
In that moment I understood what they say about nostalgia, that no matter if you're thinking of something good or bad, it always leaves you a little emptier afterward.
—John Corey Whaley in Noggin
For a moment we're both silent, staring. I wonder if either of us really sees the other clearly anymore or if we're stuck looking at the frozen images of who we used to be.
—Emily Henry in The Love That Split the World
The girl with a future avoids a man with a past.
—Evan Esar
Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to.
—Ashleigh Brilliant
A safe but sometimes chilly way of recalling the past is to force open a crammed drawer. If you are searching for anything in particular you don't find it, but something falls out at the back that is often more interesting.
—J. M. Barrie
Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you… You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life.
—John Gardner