Old Place Quotes

This is an example of what Jung called "the regressive restoration of the persona," namely, the re-identification with a former position, role, ideology because it offers a predictable content, security, and script. In the face of the new and uncertain, we often return to the old place, which is why we so often stop growing. (It has become clear to me, for example, that aging itself does not bring wisdom. It often brings regression to childishness, dependency, and bitterness over lost opportunities. ~ James Hollis

From whichever side I start, I think I am in an old place where others have been before me. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

Any old place I can hang my hat is home sweet home to me. ~ William Jerome

I shall return to Kunana, walk around the old place and venerate the ground where lived and worked my mother-in-law whom I never saw. I shall go down to the field of carnage, bestride the old battlefield, and say: Here fell the noble Rolong woman who gave birth to my faithful Mhudi. Somewhere here lies the remains of the woman who mothered my wife and nourished every fibre of her beautiful form. Then I will call to her spirit and say: Come down from the heights and approve the feeble cares I am trying to bestow on the noble treasure thou hast bequeathed to me. My mother, O cradle of my wife! That after all my pains and nursing, thou shouldst have been hounded out of this life without receiving a pin from the worthless fellow who wived thy noble offspring! [159 – 160] ~ Sol T. Plaatje

The Eliots found it a queer sort of evening - a transition evening. Hitherto the Herb of Grace had been to them a summer home; they had known it only permeated with sun and light, flower-scented, windows and doors open wide. But now doors were shut, curtains drawn to hide the sad, grey dusk. Instead of the lap of the water against the river wall they heard the whisper of the flames, and instead of the flowers in the garden they smelt the roasting chestnuts, burning apple logs, the oil lamps, polish - all the home smells. This intimacy with the house was deepening; when winter came it would be deeper still. Nadine glanced over her shoulder at the firelight gleaming upon the dark wood of the panelling, at the shadows gathering in the corners, and marvelled to see how the old place seemed to have shrunk in size with the shutting out of the daylight. It seemed gathering them in, holding them close. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

They have removed the struggle to find anything. And therefore there is no genuine sense of discovery. Struggle is the first thing we know getting along the birth canal, out in the world. It's pretty basic. Book store owners and record store owners used to be oracles, in that way; you'd go in this dusty old place and they might point you toward something that would change your life. All that's gone. ~ Tom Waits

This is life, uh? We lose something here; we get something there. The trick is to stop looking in the old place to find the new thing. ~ Elizabeth Berg

I live in the same house I've lived in for 25 years. I haven't gone off and bought mansions. Even though my subject is living, living in a mansion wouldn't do for my readers. I have to keep my credibility alive with my readers, so we're in the same place. I just make that place nicer and nicer. And that's a secret. People don't know that. People think, oh, she lives in this fabulous place, but it's the same old place. It started out like a farm, it got to be a farmette, then it got to be an estatelet. I built a wall; it helped a lot. But it's the same place, the same grounded nature. ~ Martha Stewart

It's tucked away in a quiet corner, shadowed and obscured, no part of the Nightside's usual bright gaudy neon noir. It doesn't advertise and it doesn't care if you habitually pass by on the other side. It's just there for when you need it. Dedicated to the patron saint of lost causes, St. Jude's is an old old place ... St. Jude's isn't a place for comfort for frills and fancies and the trappings of religion. just a place where you can talk to your god and sometimes get an answer. ~ Simon R. Green

The world may or may not need another cookbook, but it needs all the lovers – amateurs – it can get. It is a gorgeous old place, full of clownish graces and beautiful drolleries, and it has enough textures, tastes, and smells to keep us intrigued for more time than we have. Unfortunately, however, our response to its loveliness is not always delight: It is, far more often than it should be, boredom. And that is not only odd, it is tragic; for boredom is not neutral – it is the fertilizing principle of unloveliness.

In such a situation, the amateur – the lover, the man who thinks heedlessness is a sin and boredom a heresy – is just the man you need. More than that, whether you think you need him or not, he is a man who is bound, by his love, to speak. If he loves Wisdom or the Arts, so much the better for him and for all of us. But if he loves only the way meat browns or onions peel, if he delights simply in the curds of his cheese or the color of his wine, he is, by every one of those enthusiasms, commanded to speak. A silent lover is one who doesn't know his job. ~ Robert Farrar Capon

I guess they're having what you might call panic attacks. It's an old place and smells a little musty. The hallways are sort of long and narrow. The exhibits are gory. The people are listening to some creepy, nasty stuff on their earphones. It apparently just overwhelms some of them, especially on a busy day when there might be some congestion in the rooms and hallways. You'll have flippers, fainters and barfers every so often.'
'It's sounding more fun all the time.' 'Not as much fun as the heart attacks.' 'You get heart attacks?'
'I don't, they do. Not often, though. ~ Richard Laymon

Took her old place in the corner of the front row, ~ Harper Lee

Holloway Prison is a very old place, and it has the disadvantages of old places which have never known enough air and sunshine. It reeks with the odours of generations of bad ventilation, and it contrives to be at once the stuffiest and the draughtiest building I have ever been in. ~ Emmeline Pankhurst

I thought. I thought of the slow yellow autumn in the swamp and the high honey sun of spring and the eternal silence of the marshes, and the shivering light on them, and the whisper of the spartina and sweet grass in the wind and the little liquid splashes of who-knew-what secret creatures entering that strange old place of blood-warm half earth, half water. I thought of the song of all the birds that I knew, and the soft singsong of the coffee-skinned women who sold their coiled sweet-grass baskets in the market and on Meeting Street. I thought of the glittering sun on the morning harbor and the spicy, somehow oriental smells from the dark old shops, and the rioting flowers everywhere, heavy tropical and exotic. I thought of the clop of horses' feet on cobblestones and the soft, sulking, wallowing surf of Sullivan's Island in August, and the countless small vistas of grace and charm wherever the eye fell; a garden door, a peeling old wall, an entire symmetrical world caught in a windowpane. Charlestone simply could not manage to offend the eye. I thought of the candy colors of the old houses in the sunset, and the dark secret churchyards with their tumbled stones, and the puresweet bells of Saint Michael's in the Sunday morning stillness. I thought of my tottering piles of books in the study at Belleau and the nights before the fire when my father told me of stars and butterflies and voyages, and the silver music of mathematics. I thought of hot, milky sweet coffee in the mo ~ Anne Rivers Siddons

Dirty Freds ... I love this filthy old place. I love the dust and the dirt, the crappy old books and the objects of art. ~ Alan C. Martin

And now they were across the world in a wholly new place, but -- and she wasn't sure what this meant -- every new place reminded her of an old place. The moon, after all, was still the moon. ~ Joanna Hershon

What a grand, higgledy-piggledy, sensible old place Norwich is! ~ J.B. Priestley

New becomes stale and old becomes fresh. The impractical, ageing estate long ago left behind to Singapore's pioneers and their homemade tofu stalls takes on a certain irreverence and originality; an anarchic streak even. It goes against the architectural grain. It stands out in a crowd, a rebel with curves. The reclusive behaviour only adds to the appeal. So the old place becomes "hip". ~ Neil Humphreys

Sometimes the opportunity doesn't involve going to a new place; it means finding a new and previously unrecognized opportunity in the old place. ~ John Ortberg

But Fairyland is an old place, and old things have strange hungers. ~ Catherynne M. Valente

No, it would be stupid. That's what I tell my clients. Don't run away from the problem. Making a fresh start can be much harder than sticking things out in the same old place.' 'I ~ Penny Kline

Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space, but when you return, it's the same old place. ~ Barry McGuire

Yes, you have been away a very long time.'
'Oh, centuries and centuries; so long,' she said, 'that I'm sure I'm dead and buried and this dear old place is heaven. ~ Edith Wharton

It's a pretty good little old place after all, and I have little time for the gloomers who are eternally shrieking that this old mud ball is rolling to the bow wows. I am satisfied to take my chances with this one, thank you, and not worry about the next ...
You must carry along with you a lively imagination and plenty of romance in your soul. Some of the most wonderful things in the world will seem dull and drab unless you view them in the proper light. ~ LeRoy Robert Ripley

Human beings do not know their place and purpose. They have fallen from their true place, and lost their true purpose. They search everywhere for their place and purpose, with great anxiety. But they cannot find them because they are surrounded by darkness. ~ Blaise Pascal

Hearing Mass is the ceremony I most favor during my travels. Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back. ~ Charles De Gaulle

I used to think like that at school," Sabriel answered. "Dreaming about the Old Kingdom. Proper Charter Magic. Dead to bind. Princes to be
"
"Rescued? ~ Garth Nix

Getting older is tough. I remember the last time I felt an erection. It was at the movies. The only trouble is, it belonged to the guy sitting next to me. ~ Rodney Dangerfield

You don't need to be recluse and stay away from people. But you have to set aside a lot of time for stillness. That is the only place there is real fulfillment. You need to slow it down. ~ Frederick Lenz

People say that teenagers don't know how to love like an adult. Part of me believes that, but I'm not an adult and so I have nothing to compare it to. But I do believe it's probably different. I'm sure there's more substance in the love between two adults then there is between two teenagers. There's probably more maturity, more respect, more responsibility. But no matter how different the substance of a love might be at different ages in a person's life, I know that love still has to weigh the same. You feel that weight on your shoulders and in your stomach and on your heart no matter how old you are. ~ Colleen Hoover

That house is such an emotionally loaded place for you, just being inside was enough to trigger a stress reaction. ~ Ransom Riggs

I want to try with someone who loves me enough to try with me. I want to grow old looking at the same face every morning. I want to grow old looking at the same face every night at the dinner table. I want to be one of those old couples you see still holding hands and laughing after fifty years of marriage. That's what I want. I want to be someone's forever. ~ Rachel Gibson

Only if we grant power to something can it have power over us. It becomes a serving and sustaining potency when we again are able to place it into the realm where it belongs, instead of submitting to it. ~ Jean Gebser

And what else can I do, lame old man that I am, than sing the praise of God? If I were a nightingale, I would perform the work of a nightingale, and if I were a swan, that of a swan. But as it is, I am a rational being, and I must sing the praise of God.
This is my work, and I accomplish it, and I will never abandon my post for as long as it is granted to me to remain in it; and I invite all of you to join me in this same song. ~ Epictetus

By midafternoon soft snow is falling, muffling four voices that rise from the cardinal points around the circle, north, south, east, and west,intoning names from registration lists obtained by Rainer from museum archives in Berlin--long lists that represent but tiny fractions of that fraction of new prisoners who survived, however briefly, the first selections on this platform and were tattooed with small blue numbers. The impeccable lists include city and country of origin, arrival date, and date of death, not infrequently on that same day or the next.

Column after column, page after page, of the more common family names ascend softly from the circle of still figures to be borne away on gusts of wind-whirled snow. Schwartz, Herschel; Schwartz, Isaac A.; Schwartz, Isaac D.; Schwartz, Isidor--Who? Isidor? You too? The voices are all but inaudible as befits snuffed-out identities that exist only on lists, with no more reality than forgotten faces in old photo albums--Who's this bald guy in the back? Stray faces of no more significance than wind fragments of these names of long ago, of no more substance than this snowflake poised one moment on his pen before dissolving into voids beyond all Knowing. In Paradise 87-88 ~ Peter Matthiessen

He was one whose power was akin to, and as strong as, the Old Powers of the earth; one who talked with dragons, and held off earthquakes with his word. And there he lay asleep on the dirt, with a little thistle growing by his hand. It was very strange. Living, being in the world, was a much greater and stranger thing than she had ever dreamed. The glory of the sky touched his dusty hair, and turned the thistle gold for a little while. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I build worlds around us and solar systems and creatures that only exist in dreams. I manifest colors that have flavors and darkness that's all encompassing. I go to a place unborn by man, created in a space where the natural law has no reach and the science of reason is washed away , replaced by the basic pure desire to exist, all of it coming from a place I never knew I had. ~ E.J. Mellow

Whatever you read, there's no better place to read than the cockpit or the berth of a boat. It's kind of like being in a womb. ~ Nathaniel Philbrick

We need a place in which we may flourish and be ourselves. ~ Timothy Radcliffe

As the devoted wife of a man that worshiped her, she felt she would take her place with a certain dignity in the world of reality, closing the portals forever behind her upon the realm of romance and dreams ~ Kate Chopin

Of course, a Christian can revert to old habits and act unloving at times, but that is no longer their nature. Being unloving is not supposed to be our regular way of life. We are now partakers of the divine nature. As Christians, when we drift off center of the Father's love, we need to recognize our error and repent, coming back into the light. ~ Chad Kidd

I am adding another language to the spoken language, and I am trying to restore to the language of speech its old magic, its essential spellbinding power, for its mysterious possibilities have been forgotten. ~ Antonin Artaud

The only thing my old man ever gave me was a beating. ~ Sonny Liston

My life was nothing but misery at this place and now people come along ruining my death! ~ J.K. Rowling

I will allow others to be there for me. I will share my feelings. I'm not allowed to fake it! I will view the world as a positive place. The cup is half full, not half empty. ~ Ronnie Sellers

Conversion is not a repairing of the old building, but it takes all down and erects a new structure. It is not the sewing on a patch of holiness; but, with the true convert, holiness is woven into all his powers, principles and practice. ~ Joseph Alleine

It can be tough when you're on the road, but I think food is meant to be enjoyed, so whenever we go to a new place, we look for the specialty item there. ~ Hannah Kearney

And if you ever feel yourself losing your way again,Cooper,and find that you just can't get your shit together,just reach out and love someone.Love is the most adult action anyone can ever carry out in this emotionally-stunted world,and once you love,the rest will fall into place.It has to. ~ Seth King

Ah, my old friend, anxiety-throwing itself into the blender with sheer terror and embarrassment. ~ Myra McEntire

I always wear size 14 boat shoes that are so old they could have been built by Noah. ~ Jarod Kintz

Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

To me, the remarkable thing is it's pretty much unanimous the way blind people have been perceived in all cultures and for millennia. The first is, if they can't see, they must be stupid. The second one is, and this is a very old one, that blindness is such a terrible thing that it must be a curse from God for some evil that you committed. ~ Rosemary Mahoney

He didn't like to fly
the noise and vibration gave him a headache
but, as with anything new, he was excited by the strangeness of it. The disjuncture intrigued him: stepping through a door in one place, sitting still for a few hours, then stepping out a thousand miles away. It seemed to him a very American mode of travel, even more so than the car, not simply going farther faster, but eliminating any temporal experience of the journey, skipping over whole sections of the country, the sole focus on arriving, with the help of expensive and arcane technologies, at one's destination, except of course, when one didn't
a thought brought on by his own instinctive disbelief and the bumpiness of the flight. ~ Stewart O'Nan

We could cope - the world could cope - with a Jesus who ultimately remains a wonderful idea inside his disciples' minds and hearts. The world cannot cope with a Jesus who comes out of the tomb, who inaugurates God's new creation right in the middle of the old one. ~ N. T. Wright

God is a person [in Christ]. A person can be known only by personal understanding, not impersonal understanding. Personal understanding takes place through love, caring, willingness, intimacy, and relationship. ~ Peter Kreeft

V: You asked for Knowledge, Eve, and that is what I shall pass on to you. Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.
Eve: Oh, V, come on. You've always kept thinks mysterious: yourself, this place, your plans ... If knowledge is like air, you've been suffocating me.
V: Not at all. I've been teaching you to breathe. ~ Alan Moore

When did an old white guy yelling at me, telling me what to think become news? What gives him the right to tell me what to think? When was the last time he was in Iraq or Afghanistan or Sri Lanka ... or anywhere that didn't have a beach? ~ Lisa Ling

I covered Kennedy when she was three years old and the darling daughter of President Kennedy who doted on her and whose mother did everything to protect her from the prying press. ~ Helen Thomas

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards. ~ Mark Twain

I don't think you ever get to relax. I mean, sure there's a couple of people who could, but I bet they don't. Because by the time they get to where they could relax, they don't. Because by the time they get to where they could relax, they've gotten completely used to not being able to. How do you just suddenly become somebody who relaxes? The kind of ambition you need to get to that place is not relaxing. It's searing. I think there's probably something about living your whole life in a popularity contest -- trying to get people to like you who you couldn't give a flying fuck about -- that kills relaxation. ~ Carrie Fisher

But man grows old, lies down, remains where once he's laid. ~ Anne Bradstreet

That which destroys the old mythos becomes the new mythos. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Compassion has no place on any battlefield ... magical or otherwise. ~ A.G. Howard

The omnisecular spirit keeps the old with the new also.
Nothing at all has suffered erasure.
There is life not of our time. He calls ungainly bodies
As beautiful as the grace of horses.
He is weary of nothing; he watches air-planes; he watches pelicans. ~ Robinson Jeffers

We marched. Gates opened and closed. We continued to march between the barbed wire. At every step, white signs with black skulls looked down on us. The inscription: WARNING! DANGER OF DEATH. What irony. Was there here a single place where one was NOT in danger of death? ~ Elie Wiesel

I am forced
outside myself to
mount the light and ride joined with Hope.
Through all the bright hours
I cling to expectation, until
darkness comes to reclaim me
as its own. Hope fades, day is gone
into its irredeemable place
and I am thrown back into the familiar
bonds of disconsolation.
Gloom crawls around
lapping lasciviously
between my toes, at my ankles,
and it sucks the strands of my
hair. It forgives my heady
fling with Hope. I am
joined again into its
greedy arms.
from A Plagued Journey ~ Maya Angelou

He was very still, and turned toward me. I knew he was looking at me but I could not look back. "What is it like?" he said at last. "Seeing the dead."

An old woman walked by, huddled into a thick coat, her footsteps splashing through the reflected lamplight on the street. "Like plunging your hand into a bucket of worms in the dark," I said. "Except it's inside your mind. It's repellent, and cold, and you don't know what you're touching because you can't see - you don't know what it looks like, and you don't want to know."

"Jesus, Ellie," James said. I turned to him to find his face stark in the harsh lamplight. "Gloria did that for a living."

"So did my mother," I said.

So do I. ~ Simone St. James

This is a little parable about cities and genres; how, while some of them lose their imaginative centrality, others take their place. ~ Amit Chaudhuri

Lobbing hand grenades on the bride of Christ takes zero talent or effort. I also think this really ticks God off. My five-year-old child complains and whines when things aren't the way she wants them, but courageous men and women roll up their sleeves and get busy. I want to be an active participant in putting back together the broken pieces. ~ Mike Foster