---
title: "1 Forward Look Quotes By Sven Birkerts"
description: "1 Forward Look quotes by Sven Birkerts. Plus more from Sven Birkerts and more Forward Look sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f5/sven-birkerts-25191_essence-of-life_we-never-know-do-we-if-the-future-is-jus_2177747.png"
---

> [“We never know, do we, if the future is just more of the present pushed forward, or whether the look and feel, not to mention the fundamental essence of life might not be changing”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/we-never-know-do-we-if-the-future-is-just-more-of-the-present-pushed/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f5/sven-birkerts-25191_essence-of-life_we-never-know-do-we-if-the-future-is-jus_2177747.png)

## More by Sven Birkerts

> [I read books to read myself.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/i-read-books-to-read-myself/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [ Poetry springs directly from our primal need and capacity for communication\[Poetry\] mobilizes such a concentration of devices, such an intensification of language via rhythm,… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/poetry-springs-directly-from-our-primal-need-and-capacity-for/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [“It is in adolescence that most of us grasp that life--our own life--is a problem to be solved, that a set of personal unknowns…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/it-is-in-adolescence-that-most-of-us-grasp-that-life-our-own-life-is/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [“What reading does...is keep alive the dangerous and exhilarating idea that life is not sequenced of lived moments, but a destiny.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/what-reading-does-is-keep-alive-the-dangerous-and-exhilarating-idea/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [I speak as an unregenerate reader, one who still believes that language and not technology is the true evolutionary miracle. I have not yet…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/i-speak-as-an-unregenerate-reader-one-who-still-believes-that/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [Every place, once unique, itself, is strangely shot through with radiations from every other place. ‘There’ was then; ‘here’ is now.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/every-place-once-unique-itself-is-strangely-shot-through-with/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [To achieve deep focus nowadays is also to have struck a blow against the dissipation of self; it is to have strengthened one's essential…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/to-achieve-deep-focus-nowadays-is-also-to-have-struck-a-blow-against/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [Reading, because we control it, is adaptable to our needs and rhythms. We are free to indulge our subjective associative impulse; the term I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/reading-because-we-control-it-is-adaptable-to-our-needs-and-rhythms/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [Where am I when I am involved in a book?](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/where-am-i-when-i-am-involved-in-a-book/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [“Everything in contemporary society discourages interiority. More and more of our exchanges take place via circuits, and in their very nature those interactions are…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/everything-in-contemporary-society-discourages-interiority-more-and/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [A poem is a construction of inner space. Language is to inner space as light is to material space.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/a-poem-is-a-construction-of-inner-space-language-is-to-inner-space-as/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [What reading does, ultimately, is keep alive the dangerous and exhilarating idea that life is not a sequence of lived moments, but a destiny.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/what-reading-does-ultimately-is-keep-alive-the-dangerous-and/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [“I read novels to indulge in a concentrated and directed inner activity that parallels -- and thereby tunes up, accentuates -- my own inner…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/i-read-novels-to-indulge-in-a-concentrated-and-directed-inner/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [If literature survives at all, it is as retreat for those who refuse to assimilate to American mass culture.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/if-literature-survives-at-all-it-is-as-retreat-for-those-who-refuse/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

> [The books that matter to me...are those that galvanize something inside me. I read books to read myself.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sven-birkerts/the-books-that-matter-to-me-are-those-that-galvanize-something-inside/)

[Sven Birkerts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sven-birkerts/)

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