#past

"Forgiveness isn’t something I’m preoccupied with — turning the other cheek isn’t my trip."

"Man…who lives in three places – in the past, in the present, and in the future – can be unhappy if one of these three is worthless. Religion has even added a fourth – eternity."

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present."

"We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there."

"I wanted to write a very simple story about a boy, a wolf, a girl, a bear and a forest, so I thought I might set it in the past. I didn't realise that it went back to when I was 10: I used to love the Stone Age when I was a kid and wanted to live in it, and I got rid of my bed and slept on the floor, but I didn't remember it."

"During my life I have seen, known, and lost too much to be the prey of vain dread; and, as for the hope of immortality, I am as weary of that as I am of gods and kings. For my own sake only I write this; and herein I differ from all other writers, past and to come."

"You couldn't erase the past. You couldn't even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right."

"We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we have forgotten how to die. Too often we learn the hard way. As soon as the baby boomers pass pensionable age, their lesson will be harsher still."

"We have a hope of succeeding if we learn from our past mistakes and pull together to make the hard choices."

"We can never live in the past; so everyday we begin anew."

"Regret is counterproductive. It's looking back on a past that you can't change. Questioning things as they occur can prevent regret in the future."

"‎No people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their word for 'tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on the time."

"There is no future without a past, because what is to be cannot be imagined except as a form of repetition."

"The past can teach us, nurture us, but it cannot sustain us. The essence of life is change, and we must move ever forward or the soul will wither and die."

"I'm involved in quite a few ministries as a bridge builder, trying to match generous givers and donors to other ministries. Based on my past, I'm also involved in mainly the prison ministry. I go to jails and prisons and share my story, trying to give them some hope."

"We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it."

"No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language."

"I wanted the past to go away, I wantedto leave it, like another country; I wantedmy life to close, and openlike a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the songwhere it fallsdown over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;I wantedto hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalivefor a little while."

"I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalive for a little while."

"I see two women, one in a reflection in a window, and the other I see through the window, and it's like I'm looking at both my past and future at the same time."