Retrospection Quotes

“As a historical novelist, there are few jobs more retrospective.”

“You carry the message you've been seeking, but realization of it is found in healthy retrospection, not among the wilderness of chaotic noise.”

“The aftermath of someone’s death is vertiginous, a murky, shimmering mass; to look at it head-on is to see only the fog of emotion. One must approach it sideways, entering it by way of an exhumation of facts and retrospections . . .”

“We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection... We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it... We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely.”

“I exist here, now. I'm not much interested in the future. Or, more precisely put, I do not believe in the future. To exaggerate a little, I have no faith that I will still exist tomorrow or the day after. What is more, I absolutely detest retrospection. That dislike is balances only by my desire to make my way back home as quickly as possible.”

“Anais Nin responds to the age-old question of why some people are compelled to write:We... write to heighten our own awareness of life, we write to lure and enchant and console others, we write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth, we write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely. We write as the birds sing. As the primitive dance their rituals. If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write.Now, please read that one more time. But this time, substitute the word “live” for the word “write” and there you have it—the point that’s always been right there in front of our nose.”

“Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from, the more you wish they'd never happened.”

“Silence speaks volumes, especially is you're quietly listening.”

“Great ideas emerges from useless fragments of thoughts.”