#nostalgia

We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn't even know it. ↗

— Lois McMaster Bujold

#love #might-have-been #nostalgia #regret #self-reflection

I felt a pang -- a strange and inexplicable pang that I had never felt before. It was homesickness. Now, even more than I had earlier when I'd first glimpsed it, I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door, to sit down by the fireplace, to wrap my arms around myself, and to stay there forever and ever. ↗

— Alan Bradley

#dreaming #homesickness #nostalgia #dreams

It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures. ↗

— Ally Condie

#nostalgia #past

His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#flight #life #loss #nostalgia #age

As we age we begin to grasp at youthful bliss like a life raft in a sea of harsh reality. ↗

— Brad Herzog

#camp #memory #nostalgia #age

We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time. ↗

— Art Buchwald

#nostalgia #art

In every age "the good old days" were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them. ↗

— Brooks Atkinson

#age

There is a stage you reach, Deagle thinks, a time somewhere in early middle age, when your past ceases to be about yourself. Your connection to your former life is like a dream or delirium, and that person who you once were is merely a fond acquaintance, or a beloved character from a storybook. This is how memory becomes nostalgia. They are two very different things - the same way that a person is different from a photograph of a person. ↗

— Dan Chaon

#nostalgia #photograph #age

Things aren't what they used to be' is the rallying cry of small minds. When men say things used to be better, they invariably mean they were better for them, because they were young, and had all their hopes intact. The world is bound to look a darker place as you slide into the grave. ↗

— Joe Abercrombie

#nostalgia #youth #age

Nos-tal-gic,’ Akira said, as though it were a word he had been struggling to find. Then he said a word in Japanese, perhaps the Japanese for ‘nostalgic.’ ‘Nos-tal-gic. It is good to be nos-tal-gic. Very important.’ ‘Really, old fellow?’ ‘Important. Very important. Nostalgic. When we nostalgic, we remember. A world better than this world we discover when we grow. We remember and wish good world come back again. So very important. Just now, I had dream. I was boy. Mother, Father, close to me. in our house.’ He fell silent and continued to gaze across the rubble. ‘Akira,’ I said, sensing that the longer this talk went on, the greater was some danger I did not wish fully to articulate. ‘We should move on. We have much to do. ↗

— Kazuo Ishiguro

#happiness #illusions #innocence #loss #lost-innocence