Looking Backward Quotes

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack is fantastic. It's volcanic and sexy and utterly unlike anything I've read before. It feels like the future in a dazzling way that has nothing to do with looking backward. It's been a long wait for a new novel from Mark Leyner, but worth it. Ten out of ten from me. ~ Douglas Coupland

Too much looking backward ... is bad for progress. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

She seated herself on a dark ottoman with the brown books behind her, looking in her plain dress of some thin woollen-white material, without a single ornament on her besides her wedding-ring, as if she were under a vow to be different from all other women; and Will sat down opposite her at two yards' distance, the light falling on his bright curls and delicate but rather petulant profile, with its defiant curves of lip and chin. Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers which had opened then and there. Dorothea for the moment forgot her husband's mysterious irritation against Will: it seemed fresh water at her thirsty lips to speak without fear to the one person whom she had found receptive; for in looking backward through sadness she exaggerated a past solace. ~ George Eliot

You can't go forward if you're looking backward. You run into walls that way. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Every Jewish holiday has a religious significance, a historical significance, and a relevance to the time of year in the natural calendar of the seasons and trees and growing things, as well as a personal significance. So you are always looking backward, outward, inward and forward. ~ Marge Piercy

One shouldn't live in the past, Parker. You'll smack into something in the present looking backward and not get a clear view of your future. Trust me. ~ Kelly Moran

Used to the conditions of a capitalistic environment, the average American takes it for granted that every year business makes something new and better accessible to him. Looking backward upon the years of his own life, he realizes that many implements that were totally unknown in the days of his youth and many others which at that time could be enjoyed only by a small minority are now standard equipment of almost every household. He is fully confident that this trend will prevail also in the future. He simply calls it the American way of life and does not give serious thought to the question of what made this continuous improvement in the supply of material goods possible. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

I do not like to dwell on the past. Life is ahead of us. If we spend too much time looking backward, we can't see where we are going! ~ R.J. Palacio

•Looking backward should never divert our path to one of hatred and bitterness, for those steps lead nowhere but to destruction. To live in hatred is to miss the point of living. ~ Mari Serebrov

I used to think that grief was about looking backward, old men saddled with regrets or young ones pondering should-haves. I see now that it is about eyes squinting through tears into an unbearable future. The world cannot be remade by the sheer force of love. A brutal world demands capitulation to what seems impossible--separation. Brokeness. An end without an ending. ~ Kate Bowler

These are islands in time - with nothing to date them on the calendar of mankind. In these areas it is as though a person were looking backward into the ages and forward untold years. Here are bits of eternity, which have a preciousness beyond all accounting. ~ Harvey Broome

We all know what we should have done as we look backward. Yet looking backward further still, we may say that all goes as the Wild Magic wills. And we must look forward if we are to live long enough to look backward. ~ Mercedes Lackey

Looking forward to going home, I was necessarily looking backward. ~ Muriel Spark

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

You live life looking forward, you understand life looking backward. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

It (NY) was like the city that Lot left behind and it would dissolve if it ever began looking backward over its own shoulder. Two pillars of salt. Long Island and New Jersey. ~ Colum McCann

The people in 'July, July' do find themselves looking backward, talking to others and to themselves about those over-the-cliff, fork-in-the-road moments in their lives. I imagine this is what must happen at a 30th college reunion. ~ Tim O'Brien

One thing that tells me a company is in trouble is when they tell me how good they were in the past. Same with countries. You don't want to forget your identity. I am glad that you were great in the fourteenth century, but that was then and this is now. When memories exceed dreams, the end is near. The hallmark of a truly successful organization is the willingness to abandon what made it successful and start fresh."
In societies that have more memories than dreams, too many people are spending too many days looking backward. They see dignity, affirmation, and self-worth not by mining the present but by chewing on the past. And even that is usually not a real past but an imagined and adorned past. Indeed, such societies focus all their imagination on making that imagined past even more beautiful than it ever was, and then they cling to it…, rather than imagining a better future and acting on that. ~ Thomas L. Friedman

Beauty is looking backward and urging forward, and trying desperately to pay attention to the now. ~ Lou Gaglia

Perhaps that's why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present. ~ Kristin Hannah

VI. LOOKING BACKWARD

How the planters, having lost the war for slavery, sought to begin again where they left off in 1860, mere substituting for the individual ownership of slaves, a new state serfdom of black folk. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

Looking backward through life, one can see the points of change like great locks through which one glides on a flood wave, so smoothly, on such irresistible power that one is hardly aware of any movement. But life is never the same again. One has gone through the lock and lives on a new level. ~ Mary O'Hara

The past is preserved only in darkness, the future is not raised to the level of an image, as something which can be anticipated. It is the symbolic expression which first creates the possibility of looking backward and looking forward... What occurred in the past, now separated out from the totality of representations, no longer passes away, once the sounds of language have placed their seals on it and given it a certain stamp. ~ Ernst Cassirer

I once thought that The Bridges Ablaze would be that masterpiece. I'm not so sure it matters much anymore. You must learn this while you are still young. Live in the crux of the present. And write to explain the world to yourself and to others. Look forward only to the summer of your first convertible. Look forward only if what's in front of you is a mirror. Because one day you'll be so busy looking backward, and everything will feel like winter. If you still don't get it, pare, let me make it abundantly clear. Just write and write justly. Ezra Pound be damned. Poets lie though beautifully. Don't make things new, make them whole. ~ Miguel Syjuco

Most people I know live their lives moving in a constant forward direction, the whole time looking backward. ~ Charles Yu

Life must be lived forward but only makes sense by looking backward. Only in retrospect do the pieces of the puzzle connect, revealing an intelligently orchestrated evolution. Our journey through life is in a way like walking blindfolded. ~ Dorit Brauer

I used to belong to a family unit, with a foster mom and dad and my little sister, Bean, but that's over and I don't want to talk about what happened , or how unfair it was. Not yet. The less said about that the better, because if there's one thing I learned from Ryter it's that you can't always be looking backward or something will hit you from the front. ~ Rodman Philbrick

Seeing outward is equivalent to looking backward in time because the telescope's mirror is capturing primeval light ... galaxies that existed before our time. ~ Richard Preston

I assumed that looking back reminded older guys of what they had shot at and missed, the what-ifs, the good memories, the bad, the people left behind, the people who moved on. ~ Dan Groat

Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward. ~ Eric Roth

Art need not be intended. It comes inevitably as the tree from the root, the branch from the trunk, the blossom from the twig. None of these forget the present in looking backward or forward. They are occupied wholly with the fulfillment of their own existence. ~ Robert Henri

Spare the stress on your neck muscles ... Looking backward takes more energy; it's more painful than looking forward! Go ahead! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

There is little to be gained from looking backward with disapproval at the consistency of human folly except to notice how each generation thinks itself immune to its predecessor's mistakes. ~ John H. Makin

The decision to let go of that which has completed its course in your experience is even more important than the decision to welcome new ideas. You cannot walk forward by looking backward. New wine cannot be put into old bottles, for the Bible states that the old bottles will break. You intuitively know what should depart from your life. ~ Raymond Charles Barker

It is hopeless trying to go forward when you are looking backward. ~ Nancy Astor

Traditionally art is to create and not to revive. To revive: leave that to the historians, who are looking backward. ~ Josef Albers

Stop looking backward. Life isn't lived in that direction. Your future isn't in that direction. It's forward, out into the horizon ahead of you. ~ F.E. Feeley Jr.

Looking backward always presents an overdetermined depiction of fate; by this perspective we leave out of focus the possibilities of action which existed at the time. ~ Reinhard Bendix

When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

As Gazzaniga put it, these findings all suggest that the interpretive mechanism of the left hemisphere is always hard at work, seeking the meaning of events. It is constantly looking for order and reasons, even when there is none - which leads it continually to make mistakes. ~ David Eagleman

I'm looking forward to being a mom and a wife and a business owner. ~ Melanie Roach

I nodded, looking at Rachel with respect. You hit the Lord of the Titans in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush. ~ Rick Riordan

She stopped at a red light and turned to face him. "Look. You must know your eyes are truly distracting, and you keep LOOKING at me. I've also never talked to anyone who sounds like a movie trailer announcer before. Your voice is so cool. I'm sure you know that. It's probably part of your famousness. But here in this car it's unsettling, because I have this sensation you might suddenly begin sentences with some dramatic start." She lowered her voice. "like ... IN A WORLD, FAR, FAR AWAY ... ~ Anne Eliot

Clear up??" said Ron, looking around at the partly destroyed café. "Why?"
"Don't you think they might wonder what's happened if they wake up and find themselves in a place that looks like it's just been bombed?"
"Oh right, yeah…"
Ron struggled for a moment before managing to extract his wand from his pocket.
"It's no wonder I can't get it out, Hermione, you packed my old jeans, they're tight."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," hissed Hermione, and as she dragged the waitress out of sight of the windows, Harry heard her mutter a suggestion as to where Ron could stick his wand instead. ~ J.K. Rowling

He had always disliked the people who encored a favorite air in an opera - "That just spoils it" had been his comment. But this now appeared to him as a principle of far wider application and deeper moment. This itch to have things over again, as if life were a film that could be unrolled twice or even made to work backward . . . was it possibly the root of all evil? No: of course the love of money was called that. But money itself - perhaps one valued it chiefly as a defense against chance, a security for being able to have things over again, a means of arresting the unrolling of the film. He ~ C.S. Lewis

When a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it, a way of looking at the world. ~ George Steiner

We shouldn't make decisions based on feelings alone but rather should make decisions based on creating a positive difference for the future. If it's a good, logical move, or even if it simply interests you, commit to starting and taking it one step at a time. Get started, because the passion you're looking for may be just a few steps away. Passion FOLLOWS commitment, not the other way around. ~ David Anderson

Magic was not an answer; it was an excuse to avoid looking for one. ~ Frances Hardinge

A good amount of the guys wanted to date me. Even older guys looking at me. It took some getting used to. ~ Vanessa Hudgens

We have so many points in common that it is like looking at myself in a cracked mirror. ~ Henry Miller

We find what we are looking for. If we are looking for life and love and openness and growth, we are likely to find them. If we are looking for witchcraft and evil, we'll likely find them, and we may get taken over by them. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

I glanced over and saw Wyatt glaring at me. Journey's "Lovin' Touchin', Squeezin'" was playing on the radio.

"What?" I asked.

"You secretly hate me, don't you." He gestured toward the radio. "You can't stand the thought of me taking a much needed nap and leaving you to drive without conversation. You're torturing me with this sappy stuff."

"It's Journey. I love this song."

Wyatt mumbled something under his breath, picked up the CD case, and started looking through it. He paused with a choked noise, his eyes growing huge.

"You're joking, Sam. Justin Bieber? What are you, a twelve-year old girl?"

There's gonna be one less lonely girl, I sang in my head. That was a great song. How could he not like that song? Still, I squirmed a bit in embarrassment.

"A twelve-year old girl gave me that CD," I lied. "For my birthday."

Wyatt snorted. "It's a good thing you're a terrible liar. Otherwise, I'd be horrified at the thought that a demon has been hanging out with a bunch of giggling pre-teens."

He continued to thumb through the CDs. "Air Supply Greatest Hits? No, no, I'm wrong here. It's an Air Supply cover band in Spanish." He waved the offending CD in my face. "Sam, what on earth are you thinking? How did you even get this thing?"

"Some tenant left it behind," I told him. "We evicted him, and there were all these CDs. Most were in Spanish, but I've got a Barry Manilow in there ~ Debra Dunbar

Of course, I believe most of the older noblemen are actually bringing their sons - only ones eligible for marriage, of course - to dance with me. The consensus seems to be that I would make a pretty good catch.
You aren't going to marry a boring nobleman's boring son.
No?
No, because if one proposes to you, he'll be eaten by morning. Dragons have very healthy appetites.
Draconi don't eat people.
I've been looking for a new hobby. ~ C.J. Redwine

I'm not trying to hide from my past. I want to roll in it. Like a dog, rolling in feces, I'm rolling in the feces of my greatest hits - that's a bit of a wild way of looking at it, but I am a man, and we do like rolling in our own feces at times. ~ Billy Idol

So, what - you just walk right past me? Don't even say hello?" He clutches the socks to his chest. "I'm crushed. I saved us a table and everything."

I glance at him. Keep walking.

He catches up. "I'm serious. Do you have any idea how awkward it is to wave at someone and have them ignore you? And then you're just looking around like a jackass, trying to be all, 'No, really, I swear, I know that girl' and no one believes y - ~ Tahereh Mafi

Until you have formed the habit of looking for the good instead of the bad there is in others, you will be neither successful nor happy. ~ Napoleon Hill

I had an interest in health policy and a realization that, as an academic physician, one of the things you're always looking to do is to have your clinical interests and your scholarly interests overlap and reinforce one another. ~ Risa Lavizzo-Mourey

Try and travel alone, or - if you are married - with your spouse. It will be harder work, no one will be looking after you, but this is the only way of truly leaving your country. Group travel is just a disguised way of pretending to go abroad, where you speak your own language, obey the leader of the pack, and concern yourself more with the internal gossip of the group than with the place you are visiting. ~ Paulo Coelho

What does Mother always say? Those who go looking for pain...'
'Find it every time,' I replied, completing the phrase. ~ Veronica Roth

People whose lives are upside down often read fiction. When you're not sure where you'll end up or how you are going to be, and you're looking for some way forward, fiction is a great friend. ~ Anne Enright

I like to dress up but I'm not so concerned with looking very sexy, it's really more the art of dressing. ~ Andrej Pejic

It gets bigger every time you go over. In China, there was Yao Ming stuff everywhere. I'm just fortunate to have a good-looking face to where they recognize me. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

I ain't got a job cause I ain't got a car, so I'm looking for a girl with a job and a car. ~ Alice Cooper

I was stuck on the side of a mountain in Scotland. I was looking down on emptiness. I lay on my back and looked around in panic. I prayed to God and relaxed. I realised if I turned carefully on my front I could see bits of grass to hold on to. ~ Ivor Cutler

She dug around in her bag, found what she was looking for, and brought the little stuffed dog back to bed with her. Childish, yeah. She didn't care. He was soft and cuddly-unlike Jones-and she had a need for soft and cuddly right now. She'd like to meet a woman who could breeze through a shotgun blast and not need something to hold on to. Even if it was just an old stuffed pup.( ... )She swallowed hard,then caught her breath when he opened his eyes, turned his head on the pillow toward her. He searched her face in the dark.
"Come here," he whispered.
When she hesitated, he reached for her. "The dog can come, too. ~ Cindy Gerard

lion looking for someone to devour. ~ Lysa TerKeurst

The history of horror movies goes back a long way ... of people trying to convincingly be terrified when looking at a piece of tape on the side of the camera box. I have a whole new respect for it. ~ Josh Hamilton

If we want to be loved, we are looking for a support system. If we want to love, we are looking for spiritual growth. ~ Ayya Khema

I really like looking at other people's book collections when I'm at someone's house. I think it is an amazing cross section of a person's brain and lifestyle. I think everyone should photograph their book spines and make a website. Seriously. ~ Phil Elvrum

I can't play bridge. I don't play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn't seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.
~ Alice Munro

I have two kids who were like me, we get out of bed feeling good, and the other two would sit at the breakfast table and grumble. I think it's born into us. I usually wake up feeling pretty good. Looking forward to the day. ~ Dick Van Dyke

So ... I'm larking through the Baby Gap, looking at tiny capri pants and sweaters that cost more than ... I don't know, more than they should. And I get totally sucked in by this ridiculous, tiny fur coat. The kind of coat a baby might need to go to the ballet. In Moscow. In 1918. To match her tiny pearls. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Having a lover/friend who regards you as a living growing criatura, being, just as much as the tree from the ground, or a ficus in the house, or a rose garden out in the side yard ... having a lover and friends who look at you as a true living breathing entity, one that is human but made of very fine and moist and magical things as well ... a lover and friends who support the ciatura in you ... these are the people you are looking for. They will be the friends of your soul for life. Mindful choosing of friends and lovers, not to mention teachers, is critical to remaining conscious, remaining intuitive, remaining in charge of the fiery light that sees and knows. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Im going to kiss you, Eleanore" he said quietly, still looking at her. "Not now. Later." His eyes cut back to mine. "I thought it fair to tell you first." I stilled. "If you think you can do so without me biting your lip, feel free to try." His gaze shone wicked blue. "I dont mind if you bite." "Biting your lip off, I should have said." "Ah,Lets see how it goes, shall we? ~ Shana Abe

Special Agent Pallas. Just the man I was looking for.' Cameron went to fold her arms across her chest, then seemed to realize - nope, no room there. 'What is this I hear about someone saying that my employees need to stay out of my way or risk an untimely death by paper clip?' Next to Jack, Agent Sam Wilkins looked up at the ceiling, speaking under his breath. 'I told you that would not go over well ... ' Jack held up his hands. 'It was a joke.' 'A joke.' Cameron's gaze went to Sam. 'Agent Wilkins. Was Agent Pallas scowling or smiling at the time of this alleged joke?' 'I plead the fifth.' 'A paralegal practically dove headfirst into a cubicle to get out of my way, Jack. So no more jokes. ~ Julie James

It is no parlor trick: There is a skull and, in the dark, it is glowing. Somehow it is now floating above us all. Listen: The skull is speaking. It is saying your name. It knows about you and your favorite flower and all about your tenth birthday. But it does not matter. You are not convinced. For some reason, you are still full of doubt. You stare into the dark, looking for wires. Grasping for strings, you hold your hands out. ~ Joe Meno

If someone knows of a job creator anywhere in the world that's looking for a high, complex tax environment or looking for a high regulatory environment, I would like to meet them because I have yet to meet a job creator that's looking for that, and that's what we have. ~ Marco Rubio

People who seek the truth never stop looking for it ~ Phil Mitchell

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that will propel them into bold evangelism. It will never happen. It is impossible to love "the lost". You can't feel deeply for an abstraction or a concept. You would find it impossible to love deeply an unfamiliar individual portrayed in a photograph, let alone a nation or a race or something as vague as "all lost people".
Don't wait for a feeling or love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God. ~ John Piper

Looking at the mother, you might hope that the daughter would become like her, which is a prospective advantage equal to a dowry - the mother too often standing behind the daughter like a malignant prophecy - Such as I am, she will shortly be. ~ George Eliot

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Rick: Here's looking at you, kid. ~ Humphrey Bogart

Some say we can't choose who we fall in love with; love chooses us. Sometimes people fall for the complete antithesis of everything they believe they're looking for. ~ Alexandra Adornetto