When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things - not the great occasions - that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.
I did learn one great lesson from a past relationship, and that was to never talk about relationships in print again because I'd rather live my private life than read about it.
I don't linger on the fact that Dawn Fraser was a great swimmer 40 years ago. That was in the past. I did break 41 world records, but I don't live on that today.
There are thus great swathes of the past where understanding is more important and reputable than judgement, because the principal actors performed in line with the ideas and values of that time, not of ours.
I think if you look back at all those great comedies on television in the past, it's all lovable losers that gathered together - 'Taxi' and 'Cheers,' 'Seinfeld' and 'Friends.'
If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time.
People need to put my music in a perspective where they use other established artists from the past, and almost all the names I see related to my music are great musicians.
Fiction connects: past and present; the great and the small; the surface with the depths. Fiction brings out the innermost, invisible springs of life that cannot be revealed in factual narratives.
Furthermore, there is no good ethical or economic reason for asking workmen and current producers to forego all economic gain in order to increase the purchasing power of all the wealth accumulated in past years.
It's great to reminisce about good memories of my past. It was enjoyable when it was today. So learning to enjoy today has two benefits: it gives me happiness right now, and it becomes a good memory later.
I sat down with my trainers to check my past seasons and to see what could be done to keep me motivated and in good shape. I had to find a new motivation, a new momentum.
When our culture shifts, it tends to overcorrect, throwing out everything associated with an era we've moved past, rather than saving what was good and combining it with what is new.
There's nothing particularly dark in my past... I live in the light. My disposition is basically happy. I have a good life.
In the past, it was easier to believe in my own effectiveness. If I worked hard, with good colleagues and good ideas, we could make a difference. But now, I sincerely doubt that.
I think fashion is actually very good training for being in the tech world, because it's all about moving on to the next thing, looking for the next thing, not getting stuck in the past.
In ages past, there was less of a dichotomy between good literature and fun reads. In the twentieth century, I think, it split apart, so that you had serious fiction and genre fiction.
Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.
When a finished work of 20th century sculpture is placed in an 18th century garden, it is absorbed by the ideal representation of the past, thus reinforcing political and social values that are no longer with us.
Pick the day. Enjoy it - to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come... The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present - and I don't want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.
I think 'tradition' is in the past - and how can someone really 'fear' a color? A man may prefer navy to turquoise, but a self assured man could wear any color and he knows that. It's a distinction of confidence.
We need a government, not politics. Because there's too much politics. Of course there should be debate. But there seems to be so much pettiness and not enough good faith. It is civilized to agree to disagree, and this idea is slowly disintegrating. ...
