The Past Looking To The Future Quotes

It does not matter how much we distance ourselves, how far we run - the past always shadows us. ~ Jayne Castel

Perhaps you need to look back before you can move ahead. ~ Alan Brennert

I will look at the past, but I will not stare at it. ~ M. Spio

The sadness in your heart is a yesterday you can no longer see, so put it behind you and walk always forward.
Swift Antelope to Amy in Comanche Heart ~ Catherine Anderson

Perspective makes all the difference. It's not what you look at; it's what you see ... Remember that the sun never actually sets; it's our perspective that makes it appear to. Our sunset is another's sunrise. It's all perspective. How would your life be different if you applied this truth to the things that cause you stress? Letting go isn't about erasing the past; it's about looking at the same event and seeing something different. Activate this power in your life! Take the pain and poison of the past and allow it to nourish a new found wisdom. Remember, you can't change the past, but you can change the labels you place on events. Perspective - it's not what you look at; it's what you see. ~ Steve Maraboli

Faith, courage, optimism, looking forward, bring us new life and more life. Futility, frustration, living in the past are not only characteristic of 'old age'; they contribute to it. ~ Maxwell Maltz

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
enough money within her control to move out
and rent a place of her own even if she never wants
to or needs to...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
something perfect to wear if the employer or date of her
dreams wants to see her in an hour...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ...
a youth she's content to leave behind....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to
retelling it in her old age....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .....
a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black
lace bra...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
one friend who always makes her laugh... and one who
lets her cry...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone
else in her family...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a
recipe for a meal that will make her guests feel honored...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a feeling of control over her destiny...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to fall in love without losing herself..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
HOW TO QUIT A JOB,
BREAK UP WITH A LOVER,
AND CONFRONT A FRIEND WITHOUT RUINING THE FRIENDSHIP...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
when to try harder... and WHEN TO WALK AWAY...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that she can't change the length of her calves,
the width of ~ Pamela Redmond Satran

I realize that life is risks. It's acknowledging the past but looking forward. It's taking a chance that we will
make mistakes but believing that we all deserve to be forgiven. ~ Carrie Ryan

True, he had chosen to live alone, but not unbearably alone. The worst of being unbearably alone was that you had to bear it - either that or you were sunk. You had to work hard to prevent your mind from sabotaging you by its looking hungrily back at the superabundant past. ~ Philip Roth

The lady set off, in search of summers long past, always just around the next corner. On a basic level, maybe all of us on the path were the same; perhaps we were all looking for something. Looking back, looking forward or just looking for something that was missing. Drawn to the edge, a strip of wilderness where we could be free to let the answers come, or not, to find a way of accepting life, our life, whatever that was. Were we searching this narrow margin between the land and the sea for another way of being, becoming edgelanders along the way. Stuck between one world and the next. Walking a thin line between tame and wild, lost and found, life and death. At the edge of existence. ~ Raynor Winn

Strangely enough, he didn't feel any guilt for separating himself from his past. Five years ago, he clearly heard in his dream a message brought to him by Archangel Michael from the God Almighty, telling him he should get up and leave everything behind; that his place was not there; that it was time to go in search for his true self and for his true destiny.
Now, five years after, he was sitting in the Bowery chapel, a broken and homeless man, still trying to find that which he was looking for. But he didn't regret anything he had done in those five years. In his mind, it wasn't his doing. He sincerely believed that he surrendered his own will to the will of God and that everything that happened to him, good or bad, had to happen for some reason. It was God's doing. It was his destiny. He just had to figure out why. ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

When we're back on our own time, then you can get competitive. Until we solve this, cut it the fuck out, or you are going to seriously piss me off."
Edward got slowly to his feet. I backed away out of reach. I'd never seen him use martial arts before, but I put nothing past him.
A sound made me back up further until I could see Edward and Marks without looking away from Edward. Marks was making a small sniggering sound. It took me a moment to realize he was laughing, laughing so hard his face was purplish and he seemed to be having trouble breathing.
Edward and I both stared at him.
When Marks could finally talk, he said, "You kick a man in the face, and that's not seriously pissed off."
He straightened, hand to his side like he had a stitch in it. "What the fuck do you call seriously pissed? ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

I had always avoided looking at Ford when I could and I always held my breath when I was near him in a closed room, but this was the open air and the fallen leaves blew along the sidewalks from my side of the table past his, so I took a good look at him, repented, and looked across the boulevard. The light was changed again and I had missed the change. I took a drink to see if his coming had fouled it, but it still tasted good. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I keep my scrapbooks in the car. When I come to a stoplight, I start looking through my past. Sometimes I wish the red lights were longer. ~ Garry Shandling

PRAYER IS AN EGG

On Resurrection Day God will say, "What did you do with the strength and energy

your food gave you on earth? How did you use your eyes?
What did you make with

your five senses while they were dimming and playing out?
I gave you hands and feet

as tools for preparing the ground for planting. Did you, in the health I gave,

do the plowing?" You will not be able to stand when you hear those questions. You

will bend double, and finally acknowledge the glory. God will say, "Lift

your head and answer the questions." Your head will rise a little, then slump

again. "Look at me! Tell what you've done." You try, but you fall back flat

as a snake. "I want every detail. Say!" Eventually you will be able to get to

a sitting position. "Be plain and clear. I have given you such gifts. What did

you do with them?" You turn to the right looking to the prophet for help, as

though to say, I am stuck in the mud of my life. Help me out of this! They

will answer, those kings, "The time for helping is past. The plow stands there in

the field. You should have used it. "Then you turn to the left, where your family

is, and they will say, "Don't look at us! This conversation is between you and your

creator." Then you pray the prayer that is the essence of every ritual: God,

I have no hope. I am ~ Rumi

Very few entities are powerful enough to create Patinas, and those that can guard them closely. The library is here. But Arriane's right. We'll need to figure out the way in."
"I heard you need an Announcer to get through one," Arriane said.
"Cosmic legend." Annabelle shook her head. "Every Patina is different. Access is entirely up to the creator. They program the code."
"I once heard Cam tell a story at a party about how he accessed a Patina," Rolan said. "Or was that a story about a party that he threw in a Patina?"
"Luce!" Daniel said suddenly, making all of them startle in midair. "It's you. It was always you."
Luce shrugged. "Always me what?"
"You're the one who always rang the bell. You're the one who had entry to the library. You just need to ring the bell."
Luce looked at the empty street, the fog tinting everything around them brown. "What are you talking about? What bell?"
"Close your eyes," Daniel said. "Remember it. Pass into the past and find the bellpull-"
Luce was already there, back at the library the last time she'd been in Vienna with Daniel. Her feet were firmly on the ground. It was raining and her hair splayed all across her face. Her crimson hair ribbons were soaked, but she didn't care. She was looking for something. There was a short path up the courtyard, then a dark alcove outside the library. It had been cold outside, and a fire blazed within. There, in the musty corner near the door, was a woven cord em ~ Lauren Kate

Young man," he went on, raising his head again, "in your face I seem to read some trouble of mind. When you came in I read it, and that was why I addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the story of my life, I do not wish to make myself a laughing-stock before these idle listeners, who indeed know all about it already, but I am looking for a man of feeling and education. Know then that my wife was educated in a high-class school for the daughters of noblemen, and on leaving, she danced the shawl dance before the governor and other personages for which she was presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit. The medal … well, the medal of course was sold - long ago, hm … but the certificate of merit is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed it to our landlady. And although she is most continually on bad terms with the landlady, yet she wanted to tell some one or other of her past honours and of the happy days that are gone. I don't condemn her for it. I don't blame her, for the one thing left her is recollection of the past, and all the rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is a lady of spirit, proud and determined. She scrubs the floors herself and has nothing but black bread to eat, but won't allow herself to be treated with disrespect. That's why she would not overlook Mr. Lebeziatnikov's rudeness to her, and so when he gave her a beating for it, she took to her bed more from the hurt to her feelings than from the blows. She was a widow when I married ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I really don't think in the past. I sit down with many friends at dinner, and they like to talk about the good old days. I'm respectful of the good old days, but I find myself spending very little time reminiscing. I'm really looking forward. ~ Donald Bren

They spend their time looking forward to the past. ~ John Osborne

Remorse is a terrible thing to bear, Pam, one of the worst of all punishments in this life. To wish undone something you have done, to wish you could look back on kindness to someone you love, instead of on unkindness - that is a very terrible thing. ~ Enid Blyton

Death had tried fiery steeds and skeletal horses in the past, and found them impractical, especially the fiery ones, which tended to set light to their own bedding and stand in the middle of it looking embarrassed. Death ~ Terry Pratchett

Calumny... gives [Harry] a spiritual purity in the sense that it scours away any outward show, any wish to live by the impression he makes on others. It gives him a lonely independence, so that he is able to act from his own depth. As he goes on to fulfill "his true destiny", which as far as he knows is his death, he is able to walk, hidden from view, past the woman he loves, without speaking, without looking back. This ability to act alone contrasts him with Voldemort, who needs others. That need is apparent in Voldemort's possession of Quirrell.

Voldemort's shallowness is apparent in the way Pettigrew has to do his work for him and then has to carry him to his rebirthing. Above all, it is in his need to be encircled by Death Eaters. Yet Voldemort is not truly in relationship with any of these people. He is connected to them only by magic, manipulation and threats. To be truly in relation with others, he would need, like Harry, to be capable of acting from his own depth. He would need to be able to act WITHOUT them. Voldemort, who wants to be independent, cannot truly act alone. ... Voldemort lives outwardly, in his domination of others; Harry lives inwardly, in the purity of his own being. ~ Luke Bell

When we saw a destitute-looking man trying to sell worn flip-flops, I vowed never to complain about a job again. When I considered the steady paycheck and quality of life it provided, most of my past gripes - primarily about unproductive meetings, back-biting office politics and panty hose - were just whining. ~ Kristine K. Stevens

Sometimes a word, a sound, triggers an image or recollection of something forgotten. A search for the truth sounds romantic, a thoughtful quest. As often as not, it is as mind numbing as reading a list of names or looking through scores of obtuse documents in the hope of finding a clear pattern, divined by not much more than intuition and observation. A shrugged-off remark can lead to more truth than studied responses to severe cross-examination. ~ Jackson Burnett

Perhaps it has been too uncomfortable for those with vested interests to acknowledge, but we have spent the best part of the past century enthusiastically testing the world to utter destruction; not looking closely enough at the long-term impact our actions will have. ~ Prince Charles

Death's pale horse looked up from its oats and gave a little whinny of greeting. The horse's name was Binky. He was a real horse. Death had tried fiery steeds and skeletal horses in the past, and found them impractical, especially the fiery ones, which tended to set light to their own bedding and stand in the middle of it looking embarrassed. ~ Terry Pratchett

Okay? It's okay! Don't worry about it! Just chill out! You don't have to feel like you're suffering just because your life is unfortunate, you don't have to sulk just because your life hasn't been blessed! What's wrong with staying positive in the face of adversity? You know what? What you're going to do after this is go home looking like nothing ever happened! Live the same old life with your father and mother who are out of the hospital now! You'll never be able to reconcile with either of them, I guarantee that! Even if you somehow beat the odds and become happy someday, it's not going to matter, because no matter how happy you are, it's never going to erase your crappy past! You can't pretend it never happened, you're going to be dragging it around with you! No matter what you do, no matter what happens, that misfortune is going to sit in your heart forever! You'll remember it just when you think you forgot, you'll dream about it for the rest of your life! We are going to have nightmares for the rest of our lives! That's how it's going to be-and since there's nothing you can do about it, don't try to look away! Playing a prank on some random passerby, playing streaker in your underwear is just going to take a tiny bit of stress off your mind, in reality it's not going to change a thing! ~ NisiOisiN

Me?" he said in some surprise. "I won't be dancing! It's the bridal dance. The bride and groom dance alone!"
For one circuit of the room," she told him. "After which they are joined by the best man and first bridesmaid, then by the groomsman and the second bridesmaid."
Will reacted as he had been stung. He leaned over to speak across Jenny on his left, to Gilan.
Gil! Did you know we have to dance?" he asked. Gilan nodded enthusiastically.
Oh yes indeed. Jenny and I have been practicing for the past three days, haven't we, Jen?"
Jenny looked up at him adoringly and nodded. Jenny was in love. Gilan was tall, dashing, good-looking, charming and very ammusing. Plus he was cloaked in the mystery and romance tat came with being a Ranger. Jenny had only ever known one ranger and that had been grim-faced, gray-bearded Halt. ~ John Flanagan

I hate the small looking-glass on the stairs," said Jinny. "It shows our heads only; it cuts off our heads...So I skip up the stairs past them, to the next landing, where the long glass hangs, and I see myself entire. I see my body and head in one now; for even in this serge frock they are one, my body and my head. Look, when I move my head I ripple all down my narrow body; even my thin legs rippled like a stalk in the wind. I flicker between the set face of Susan and Rhoda's vagueness; I leap like one of those flames that run between the cracks of the earth; I move, I dance, I never cease to move and dance. I move like the leaf that moved in the hedge as a child and frightened me. i dance over these streaked, these impersonal, distempered walls with their yellow skirting as firelight dances over teapots. i catch fire even from women's cold eyes. when I read, a purple rim runs around the black edge of the textbook. yet I cannot follow any word through its changes. I cannot follow any thought from present to past. I do not stand lost, like Susan, with tears in my eyes remembering home; or lie, like Rhoda, crumpled among the ferns, staining my pink cotton green, while I dream of plants that flower under the sea, and rocks through which the fish swim slowly. I do not dream. ~ Virginia Woolf

In Luth poetry, there was a formula used to indicate a very beautiful woman: you would fall off your horse trying to keep looking at her, as you rode past. That was what the Phemian Adares was like. He had a face like one of the gods painted on the Kossian urns that stood in the summer hall of the kahar- except that unlike them he was always breaking into a smile. And such a smile. You would fall off your horse. ~ A.J. Demas

I stopped looking at the cars after the first few miles. Once I started to see past the exteriors, I saw what lay inside some of them and felt the urge to sprint to the nearest freeway exit. Some people had tried to outrun The Plague by leaving town. They hadn't realized the illness could still find them in their cars, and now the 405 was one of the largest graveyards in the world. I thought for a moment about all of the other cities across the globe that probably had scenes just like this. My eyes stung, wondering if my mother, my dad, or any of my friends were in similar graveyards.
I made the mistake of glancing into an overturned Volkswagen Beetle as I passed and saw a pair of legs clad in jeans and white Jack Purcell sneakers in the shadows of the car. They reminded me of Sarah's shoes. The man who laced those up that morning hadn't realized he wouldn't be taking them off again. ~ Kirby Howell

Here's the thing about middle-class people. They pretend not to look, but they do. They're too polite to actually stare. Instead, they do this weird thing of catching sight of Will in their field of vision and then determinedly not looking at him. Until he's gone past, at which point their gaze flickers toward him, even while they remain in conversation with someone else. They won't talk about him, though. Because that would be rude. ~ Jojo Moyes

I walked past the lady in yellow robes and the maid bringing her a letter, past the soldier with a magnificent hat and the girl smiling at him, thinking of warm lips, brown eyes, blue eyes. Her brown eyes stopped me.
It's the painting from whose frame a girl looks out, ignoring her beefy music teacher, whose proprietary hand rests on her chair. The light is muted, winter light, but her face is bright.
I looked into her brown eyes and I recoiled. She was warning me of something-- she had looked up from her work to warn me. Her mouth was slightly open, as if she had just drawn a breath in order to say to me, "Don't!"
I moved backward, trying to get beyond the range of her urgency. But her urgency filled the corridor. "Wait," she was saying, "wait! Don't go!"

...

She had changed a lot in sixteen years. She was no longer urgent. In fact, she was sad. She was young and distracted, and her teacher was bearing down on her, trying to get her to pay attention. But she was looking out, looking for someone who would see her.
This time I read the title of the painting: Girl Interrupted at Her Music.
Interrupted at her music.- as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen, as her life had been, snatched and fixed on canvas: one moment made to stand still and to stand for all the other moments, whatever they would be or might have been. What life can recover from that?
I had something to tell her now "I see you," ~ Susanna Kaysen

Unconditional Love is a perpetual emotion machine. It inspires us to include others. The longer I am bathed in its radiance, the more I find myself looking at others with an open heart. I can look past their faults and love them. I can say, "I may not like the things you do, but I love you. ~ Rosa Marchisella

The last glow of sundown dims away. Stars appear in the east. Night encloses us. The ocean seems to enlarge. When you're adrift at night, imagination and perception merge. They have to. You can't see as well, as far, as deep. You tie knots by muscle memory, and you operate your reel mostly by feel. Your boat drifts, your thoughts drift. You sense the sweep of tide and water, and the boat gets rocked in turbulence just past each undersea ridgeline and boulder field. You, too, are looking up, searching constellations, dreaming. You fell again how flexible and expansive your mind can be when it's working right. And you slip your leash to explore the vast vault of sky and great interior spaces. ~ Carl Safina

I can see the driver as if I'm looking at him through binoculars, bending to adjust the volume on his radio, eyes wide at what he hears, which I can't understand because when he hits you there is only silence. My feet, pounding through the grass, make no sound. I know that my mouth is open, that air is rushing across my stretched vocal chords, but I hear nothing. You lift into the air and the car is past before you land silently at my feet, as if something as small as you couldn't possibly make a sound in a world where buildings can come down. ~ Philip Beard

the past year or so that make me think Leigh Anne might be having an affair." "What kind of things?" "She's always been a big shopper, but now she's going several times a week. Always going to Austin or San Antone. I know she does actually go shopping sometimes, because she comes home with bags of stuff. Other times, nothing. She says she was just looking." "Well, you know, women do that. They can shop for ten hours and come home with one item that ~ Ben Rehder

There are no angels yet
here comes an angel one
shut-off the dark
side of the moon turning to me
and saying: I am the plumed
serpent the beast
with fangs of fire and a gentle
heart

But he doesn't say that His message
drenches his body
he'd want to kill me
for using words to name him

I sit in the bare apartment
reading
words stream past me poetry
twentieth-century rivers
disturbed surfaces reflecting clouds
reflecting wrinkled neon
but clogged and mostly
nothing alive left
in their depths

The angel is barely
speaking to me
Once in a horn of light
he stood or someone like him
salutations in gold-leaf
ribboning from his lips
Today again the hair streams
to his shoulders
the eyes reflect something
like a lost country or so I think
but the ribbon has reeled itself
up

He isn't giving
or taking any shit
We glance miserably
across the room at each other

It's true there are moments
closer and closer together
when words stick in my throat
'the art of love'
'the art of words'

I get your message Gabriel
just will you stay looking
straight at me
awhile longer ~ Adrienne Rich

Everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. 24Yet God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. ~ Anonymous