Times Gone By Quotes

Well,' I said, 'Paris is old, is many centuries. You feel, in Paris, all the time gone by. That isn't what you feel in New York - 'He was smiling. I stopped.
'What do you feel in New York?' he asked.
'Perhaps you feel,' I told him, 'all the time to come. There's such power there, everything is in such movement. You can't help wondering - I can't help wondering - what it will all be like -
many years from now. ~ James Baldwin

When friends speak overmuch of times gone by, often it's because they sense their present time is turning them from friends to strangers. Long before the moment came to say goodbye, I think, we said goodbye in other words and ways and silences. Then when the moment came for it at last, we didn't say it as should be said by friends. So now at last, dear Mouse, with many, many years between: goodbye. ~ Frederick Buechner

Ana, honey. The voice is soft and warm, full of love and sweet memories of times gone by. ~ E.L. James

I think folk music helps reinforce your sense of history. An old song makes you think of times gone by. ~ Pete Seeger

Their bricks and I thought how the world had once been filled with these houses. I remember the first time I ever climbed a Roman staircase, and how odd it felt, and I knew that in times gone by men must have taken such things for granted. Now the world was dung and straw and damp-ridden wood. We had stone masons, of course, but it was quicker to build from wood, and the wood rotted, but no one seemed to care. ~ Bernard Cornwell

There is great weight in the modern times of being monarch, the scrutiny and access is much more than in times gone by. ~ George VI

Houses. I remember the first time I ever climbed a Roman staircase, and how odd it felt, and I knew that in times gone by men must have taken such things for granted. Now the world was dung and straw and damp-ridden wood. We had stone masons, of course, but it was quicker to build from wood, and the wood rotted, but no one seemed to care. The whole ~ Bernard Cornwell

Home is a place in the mind. When it is empty, it frets. It is fretful with memory, faces and places and times gone by. Beloved images rise up in disobedience and make a mirror for emptiness. ~ Maeve Brennan

A Wyvern's body is different from the body of a young girl in several major respects. First, it has wings, which most young girls do not (there are exceptions). Second, it has a very long, thick tail, which some young girls may have, but those who find themselves so lucky keep them well hidden. Let us just say, there is a reason some ladies wore bustles in times gone by! Third, it weighs about as much as a tugboat carrying several horses and at least one boulder. There are girls who weigh that much, but as a rule, they are likely to be frost giants. Do not trouble such folk with asking after the time or why their shoes do not fit so well. ~ Catherynne M Valente

We cannot escape the longing, no matter what life we choose. We're either longing for people, places or times gone by, which are essentially the same things: memories. And, whether or not we travel, the older we get, the more memories we collect. Nostalgia is simply the result of aging and liking the life you've lived. Be happy you can feel it - it's a good sign. ~ Anthony Marais

One day when our hearts were young,
we went roving with right good will,
side by side two comrades
to find what lay o'er the hill.
Our spirits never wearied then,
in those high old times gone by.
What friends we made, what perils we faced,
together you and I.
Now eyes grow dim and paws feel stiff,
even vittles don't taste the same.
You wake one day, with your whiskers grey,
what price then, medals an' fame?
Alas, all we have are memories,
to take out, dust off, and share.
But, oh, my friend, the pride we feel,
just to know that we were there!
We travelled an' fought an' feasted,
we triumphed, we marched and songs were sung,
We faced death, saw life and adventure!
One day when our hearts were young. ~ Brian Jacques

The time's gone by for sentiment and all that foolery. Mercy's all very well but after all it's justice that clinches the bargain. ~ Walter De La Mare

The peoples of the old world have their cities built for times gone by, when railroads and gunpowder were unknown. We can have cities for the new age that has come, adopted to its better conditions of use and ornament. We want, therefore, a city planning profession ... ~ Horace Bushnell

Though weeks, even months, have at times gone by without contact, when we were separated by distance and occupied with busy lives and raising families, the thread of connection had continued true and deep, allowing us to pick up where we left off, as if there had been no time lost. Time had never been a part of the equation. ~ Sue Henry

Many things combine to show that Midaq Alley is one of the gems of times gone by and that it once shone forth like a flashing star in the history of Cairo. Which Cairo do I mean? That of the Fatimads, the Mamlukes, or the Sultans? Only God and the archaeologists know the answer to that, but in any case, the alley is certainly an ancient relic and a precious one. How could it be otherwise with its stone-paved surface leading directly to the historic Sanadiqiya Street. And then there is its cafe known as "Kirsha's". Its walls decorated with multicolored arabesques, now crumbling, give off strong odors from the medicines of olden times, smells which have now become the spices and folk-cures of today and tomorrow ...

Although Midaq Alley lives in almost complete isolation from all surrounding activity, it clamors with a distinctive and personal life of its own. Fundamentally and basically, its roots connect with life as a whole and yet, at the same time, it retains a number of the secrets of a world now past. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

The night felt like it had gone by so fast, yet every second of it was bright and burned into my mind, and I felt sure I would never forget any of it, almost like I'd left some part of me back there on that island, a piece carved out that wouldn't travel into whatever came next. It would just stay behind, living that night over and over. ~ Kevin Emerson

Surely time past is gone by like a shadow. ~ E.R. Eddison

Sometimes you imagine that everything could have been different for you, that if only you had gone right one day when you chose to go left, you would be living a life you could never have anticipated. But at other times you think there was no other way forward
that you were always bound to end up exactly where you have. ~ Kevin Brockmeier

To pragmatists, the letter Z is nothing more than a phonetically symbolic glyph, a minor sign easily learned, readily assimilated, and occasionally deployed in the course of a literate life. To cynics, Z is just an S with a stick up its butt.
Well, true enough, any word worth repeating is greater than the sum of its parts; and the particular word-part Z can, from a certain perspective, appear anally wired.
On those of us neither prosaic nor jaded, however, those whom the Fates have chosen to monitor such things, Z has had an impact above and beyond its signifying function. A presence in its own right, it's the most distant and elusive of our twenty-six linguistic atoms; a mysterious, dark figure in an otherwise fairly innocuous lineup, and the sleekest little swimmer ever to take laps in a bowl of alphabet soup.
Scarcely a day of my life has gone by when I've not stirred the alphabetical ant nest, yet every time I type or pen the letter Z, I still feel a secret tingle, a tiny thrill…
Z is a whip crack of a letter, a striking viper of a letter, an open jackknife ever ready to cut the cords of convention or peel the peach of lust.
A Z is slick, quick, arcane, eccentric, and always faintly sinister - although its very elegance separates it from the brutish X, that character traditionally associated with all forms of extinction. If X wields a tire iron, Z packs a laser gun. Zap! If X is Mike Hammer, Z is James Bond. If X marks the spot, Z avoids the spot, ~ Tom Robbins

It surprises me, though it shouldn't, how short the memories of these politicians are. They forget the brutal lengths women have gone to in order to terminate pregnancies when abortion was illegal or when abortion is unaffordable. Women have thrown themselves down stairs and otherwise tried to physically harm themselves to force a miscarriage. Dr. Waldo Fielding noted in the New York Times, "Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion - darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off." Women have tried to use soap and bleach, catheters, natural remedies. Women have historically resorted to any means necessary. Women will do this again if we are backed into that terrible corner. This is the responsibility our society has forced on women for hundreds of years. ~ Roxane Gay

1 SHA'BAN


Did you know that 6 month prior to Ramadan the Sahaba's used to make du'a to Allah that He would let them reach Ramadan. After Ramadan they used to make du'a for 6 month that Allah would accept their fasting and good deeds.
Today is the first day of Sha'ban and Ramadan is not too far off. You might be wondering where the time has gone, and might feel a bit overwhelmed or even afraid of the long hours of fasting. You might also be asking yourself, "what have I done so far to prepare myself for this blessed month?"
Many times we focus too much on the aspect of planning our meals for this month, but Ramadan is not the month of cooking, it is the month when the Quran was sent down, a month of worship. So let's put the menu planning on the side, and prioritize on how we can prepare our hearts for this glorious month.
Something you can start right now is to follow the Sahaba's example and make that same du'a until we reach Ramadan.
"Allahumma Balighna Ramadan"
"Oh Allah let us reach Ramadan ~ Cristina Tarantino

Jack had been the love of her life and he was gone. It seemed now that there had never been bad times, though she knew that wasn't true. ~ Sara Sheridan

The forest of Tantrevalles shades a deep dank soil; somewhere under this mold lies the carcass of a snake which in better times used the name Visbhume; he no longer tippety-taps and moves and jerks to the rhythms of a propulsive inner music; and sometimes one wonders in cases like this: here is the dead thing; where has the music gone? ~ Jack Vance

It had occurred to me to follow her through into the next room, visitors or no visitors, and bring her back for a talk. But in the end I had decided in favour of waiting where I was for her return. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Sophie had come back into the room, but something in her manner had prevented me from speaking and she had gone out again. In fact, although during the following half-hour Sophie had entered and left the room several more times, for all my resolve to make my feelings known to her, I had returned to my newspaper with a strong sense of hurt and frustration. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

'Thank you' is often an admission that you needed something that wasn't being fulfilled or you couldn't do on your own, so you needed someone else. There is also guilt. We think, 'Well, too much time has gone by, and it doesn't matter,' but it does. It always matters. ~ Elizabeth Banks

Kids will remind you that, even though you've gone down a road 100 times, it's brand new for them - and that's healthy. ~ Matthew McConaughey

Sensei says funerals are not really for the dead. They are for those left behind. "The dead are long gone by the time a funeral is held," he told us. "Who would wait when the doors of Heaven are open? Only the living would be foolish enough to still hang around on earth. ~ Sandy Fussell

Any time gone by was better. ~ Jorge Manrique

Analysis goes a step farther still, and assures us that those impressions of the individual mind to which, for each one of us, experience dwindles down, are in perpetual flight; that each of them is limited by time, and that as time is infinitely divisible, each of them is infinitely divisible also; all that is actual in it being a single moment, gone while we try to apprehend it, of which it may ever be more truly said that it has ceased to be than that it is.
To such a tremulous wisp constantly reforming itself on the stream, to a single sharp impression, with a sense in it, a relic more or less fleeting, of such moments gone by, what is real in our life fines itself down. ~ Walter Pater

You really think broken children care about justice?" "Wouldn't you?" "Never really did, no. Justice is a faulty thing at the best of times, and it doesn't actually fix anything." "Would you say that if you'd gotten justice as a child?" That not-quite-smile, bitter and gone too fast. "And what would I have needed justice for?" "My life's work, and you think I won't recognize a broken child when she sits in front of me? ~ Dot Hutchison

Being in Nirvana was amazing an experience that will never happen again for me. And I look on them as some of the best and worst times of my life. But we're in this band, the Foo Fighters, making music for the love of music. We all came from bands that had disbanded, and we were drawn to each other because we missed playing - we missed getting in the van, loading our equipment, and watching it break down in the middle of a show. And that feeling hasn't gone away. There's nothing I'd rather do than make music. It's the love of my life. ~ Dave Grohl

Of course, there has been a lot of speculation over the last couple of years that our wives must have married us bearded ugly ducklings because of our fame and fortune. The fact is that none of us had much at all when we met our wives, and our long, full beards came after we married them. Our crazy uncle Si likes to joke that our gift of gab--or "hot air," as he puts it--is what helped woo our wives. Actually, our relationships were built on spiritual principles such as faith, hope, and love. Through our poverty, rugged appearances, and, at times, musty aromas, I learned that true joy doesn't come from what you have or how you look but from what kind of man you are on the inside. On my second date with Missy, I explained to her my love for hunting and fishing, which often causes me to be gone for several days and sometimes weeks at a time. I figured my admission would rule out a third date, but I was surprised when she replied, "Okay." I knew right then that Missy was a keeper, and she has become my spiritual soul mate and a wonderful mother to our three beautiful children. ~ Jase Robertson

Petri. My monkey. They boiled him."
Her voice sounded strange, even to her own ears. She'd been quiet in the town car Luke had summoned, but once it had dropped them off a block from his apartment , she couldn't seem to stop talking. Luke's grip tightened on her wrist at the words. "Yes. The dead monkey is gone, and we're very sad. I got it the first ten fucking times you mentioned it." He snapped ~ Leah Clifford

I found myself yearning for the time, no, not the time, for the life that has gone by. ~ Amitabha Bagchi

My Sabine,
I just left your room. You were so beautiful lying there sound asleep that I couldn't bear to wake you. But I'm not feeling so great and there are things I promised to tell you that I fear I may not get the chance to.
I know you had once hoped that I would be the one to pass on your letters to Maddie once you were gone. But, as it turns out, I think it is going to be me who ends up leaving the letters behind.
Be mad at me. You should. But after that try to understand that I did what I thought was best. I wanted to tell you. So many times I snuck down to your room planning on telling you everything, but I just couldn't.
Partly it was for you – yes. You needed time and I didn't want to influence your choices, even once I realised what was happening between us, even more so then. Falling in love with you only made those choices more complicated and I feared that you might choose to stay for me and then, after I was gone, change your mind. I couldn't let that happen.
Partly the choice was selfish, and for that I am sorry. For so long now people have been trying to fix me, but where they failed, you succeeded. You've given me more life in the last couple of weeks that I've had in years. Being with you, loving you, making memories with you, fearing for you, wanting to show you the beauty of life instead of the terror – it was bittersweet, but more importantly Sabine, it was real.
I know this is the part when I beg you to go on, live your lif ~ Jessica Shirvington

No reflection was to be allowed now, not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet, so deadly sad, that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank, something like then world when the deluge was gone by. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Not long before, I had stayed up late with my mother and watched Citizen Kane, and I was very taken with the idea that a person might notice in passing some bewitching stranger and remember her for the rest of his life. Someday I too might be like the old man in the movie, leaning back in my chair with a far-off look in my eyes, and saying: You know, that was sixty years ago, and I never saw that girl with the red hair again, but you know what? Not a month has gone by in all that time when I haven't thought of her. ~ Donna Tartt

For dreams, too, are ghosts, desires chased in sleep, gone by morning. ~ Libba Bray

I had a couple of movies that I was passionately involved with that I could never get made. 'Richard Pryor,' I wrote for - gosh - over a year. That was close to getting made for two-and-a-half years after that. We're still pushing it, you know. It is weird. Suddenly you wake up and it's like, 'God, five years have gone by.' ~ Bill Condon

A cloud-congested caul that is alternately red, orange, vermilion, purple. Sometimes the clouds break apart in great, slow rafts, letting through beams of innocent yellow sunlight that are bitterly nostalgic for the summer that has gone by. ~ Stephen King

I love you. Yes, you've heard that before, heard it a million times, but I don't know what else to say." He lifted a hand to my face and touched my cheek. "I need you. This last year, when you were gone, it was hell. I made up my mind that when you came back, I'd do whatever it took to get you back. No more tricks. No more tantrums. I know I didn't do a great job. Hell, you probably never noticed the difference. But I was trying. I'll keep trying. Come back home with me. Please. ~ Kelley Armstrong

Relationships are like that. Each time you fall in love with someone, you give part of your heart away. And when they're gone, they take it with them. Some people gave little pieces away too many times... Some people gave their whole heart away once... When it ends, what is left of their heart? A smaller piece? A large hole? Could you fill it up, would it heal over or grow back?
And what happens when there's nothing left to give? ~ Riley Jean

When I was a child and told my mother I didn't felt this was my planet, she thought I was schizophrenic or autistic. When later I finished a college degree and started working in different countries, she called me monster and started threatening me. Nearly 40 years later, when I was making a living from the books I wrote based on what I know, and making 6 times more money than she ever will, she apologized. I'm just not sure why or what she was apologizing for. I had already forgiven her ignorance when realizing nobody would ever believe the truth but myself. I had to go the whole way alone. Nobody was going to come with me on this very long, painful and challenging journey that humans call life but for me was much more than that, it was my mission, of changing their whole future far beyond the time when I'm gone. She was never my mother but merely the human body that gave me birth. In that sense, I am a monster, because I had no love. I had to find that too, on my own. ~ Robin Sacredfire

THREE MONTHS HAVE GONE BY without the taste of Gabriel Storm in my mouth, the scent of his skin in my nostrils, the rush of his powerful body pounding into mine. ~ Magda Alexander

Many love music but for music's sake, Many because her touches can awake Thoughts that repose within the breast half-dead, And rise to follow where she loves to lead. What various feelings come from days gone by! What tears from far-off sources dim the eye! Few, when light fingers with sweet voices play, And melodies swell, pause, and melt away, Mind how at every touch, at every tone, A spark of life hath glistened and hath gone. ~ Walter Savage Landor

There are times as an actor when you don't work for two months, sometimes three or sometimes six, and the only thing that's going to keep you sane is if you give back and live your life. I've definitely gone through that. It's like, 'Okay, I'm out of work for two months.' That's two months I can paint. ~ Olesya Rulin

There's no master plan; I'm just going with what I'm inspired to do and what I get asked to do, and luckily the things I've been the most passionate about, I've gotten to do. And a lot of times I've gone up for movies that I didn't really care that much about, and I never got that. ~ Nat Wolff

It was like being told that there was a Santa Clause and that he was every bit as awesome as you'd always thought he would be…but that he had terminal cancer and would be gone by the end of the month. My inner child just got raped by reality. ~ Adrianne Brooks

Musashi wondered how many people there were who on this night could say: "I was right. I did what I should have done. I have no regrets." For him, each resounding knell evoked a tremor of remorse. He could conjure up nothing but the things he had done wrong during the last year. Nor was it only the last year - the year before, and the year before that, all the years that had gone by had brought regrets. There had not been a single year devoid of them. Indeed, there had hardly been one day. ~ Eiji Yoshikawa

Live riotously lest not you regret the minutes, moments, hours and days of time gone by. ~ Maximillian Degenerez

The man was a mystery to Jim. Sometimes, he seemed to be the perfect Southern gentleman from days long gone. At other times, he had an air of timelessness, that of someone who had seen and experienced much. ~ Philip C. Elrod

Still there were times, as Jill whirled through her final preparations, when Emily stood watching her, wondering where the years had gone, wishing them back. ~ Barbara Delinsky

I've always seen myself as a winner, even as a kid. If I hadn't, I just might have gone down the drain a couple of times. I've got something inside of me, peasantlike and stubborn, and I'm in it 'til the end of the race. ~ Truman Capote

Every Sunday we gather in a multimillion-dollar building with millions of dollars in vehicles parked outside. We leave worship to spend thousands of dollars on lunch before returning to hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of homes. We live in luxury. Meanwhile the poor man is outside our gate. And he is hungry. In the time we gather for worship on a Sunday morning almost a thousand children elsewhere die because they have no food. If it were our kids starving, they would all be gone by the time we said our closing prayer. We certainly wouldn't ignore our kids while we sang songs and entertained ourselves, but we are content with ignoring other parents' kids. Many of them are our spiritual brothers and sisters in developing nations. They are suffering from malnutrition, deformed bodies and brains, and preventable diseases. At most, we are throwing our scraps to them while we indulge in our pleasures here. ~ David Platt

Maybe we should have gone with him," he said, a few minutes after his friend was lost to sight.
"Three of us would make four times the noise he will," Halt said.
Horace frowned, not quite understanding the equation. "Wouldn't three of us make three times the noise?"
Halt shook his head. "Will and Tug will make hardly any noise. Neither will Abelard and I. But as for you and that moving earthquake you call a horse ... " He gestured at Kicker and left the rest unsaid. ~ John Flanagan

Out of the city and over the hill,
Into the spaces where Time stands still,
Under the tall trees, touching old wood,
Taking the way where warriors once stood;
Crossing the little bridge, losing my way,
But finding a friendly place where I can stay.
Those were the days, friend, when we were strong
And strode down the road to an old marching song
When the dew on the grass was fresh every morn,
And we woke to the call of the ring-dove at dawn.
The years have gone by, and sometimes I falter,
But still I set out for a stroll or a saunter,
For the wind is as fresh as it was in my youth,
And the peach and the pear, still the sweetest of fruit,
So cast away care and come roaming with me,
Where the grass is still green and the air is still free. ~ Ruskin Bond

I look back with a mix of emotions: sadness for the people who are gone, nostalgia for times that have passed, but immense gratitude for the wonderful opportunities that came my way. ~ Dick Van Patten

It's amazing the things you realize
when you lose someone:
you get mad at yourself for not
saying the things you could've a million times,
you take for granted the days
spent doing nothing when
you could have been with them.
Anyone can be taken,
at any time in our lives,
but we always wait until they're gone to say
the things we never had the courage to before. ~ Melody Carlson

I'm not an immigrant - I was born and raised in New York. My parents are Puerto Rican, and Puerto Rico is a part of the U.S., for the people that don't know. So my whole life, I've identified as an American. There are times when I've gone to Puerto Rico, and there, I'm seen as the American cousin. ~ Elizabeth Rodriguez