Do we always grind through the present, doomed to throw a gold haze of fond retrospect over the past? — Sylvia Plath Copy Share Image
Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences. — Anonymous Copy Share Image
One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful. — Sigmund Freud Copy Share Image
It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect. — Robert Louis Stevenson Copy Share Image
No endeavor that is worthwhile is simple in prospect; if it is right, it will be simple in retrospect. — Edward Teller Copy Share Image
Innovations seem inevitable in retrospect, but at the time it's an uphill battle. — Jessica Livingston Copy Share Image
I try not to go back in retrospect and say oh, I shouldn't have done this or shouldn't have done that. You… — Tim Burton Copy Share Image
I think in retrospect that all those 'alternative'modes of living were little more than exercises in arrested development. — Will Self Copy Share Image
“In retrospect this had been my omen, my message, the early snowfall, the birthday present no one else could give me.” — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Sure, I've been a victim, but in retrospect, most of it has been of my own making. I allowed it to happen. — Wayne Newton Copy Share Image
When I started writing fiction it always seemed in retrospect (I didn't realise at the time) that it was always caused by… — Jonathan Meades Copy Share Image
In retrospect, we could see that the 1950s had been a reactionary period in America of Eisenhower blandness, of virulent anticommunism, of… — Edmund White Copy Share Image
I didn't know at the time I was writing Because of Winn-Dixie where the story came from, but in retrospect I can… — Kate DiCamillo Copy Share Image
In retrospect, I think a lot of '80s fashion shoots are the ones that look the most modern. The fitness-based ones that… — Christy Turlington Copy Share Image
There is nothing like painless parting. No matter how enlightened the individuals involved in a relationship are, parting ways is always painful.… — Kabir Bedi Copy Share Image
You end up exhausted and spent, but later, in retrospect, you realize what it all was for. The parts fall into place,… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
It was in D.C., and I couldn't believe how they were just three guys, but they sounded like six guys. It was… — Rich Fulcher Copy Share Image
I've never written a book with an outline or a predetermined theme. It's only in retrospect that themes or subjects become identifiable.… — Susan Choi Copy Share Image
A graceful and blessed old age must have three elements in it: a happy retrospect, a peaceful present, and an inspiring future.… — Lyman Abbott Copy Share Image
My mother would never let me in the kitchen. I always wanted to cook, but I was never allowed to. Her view… — Ina Garten Copy Share Image
A part of that [timewrap] for me was growing up in a culture that violence had always been a part of. It… — William Gibson Copy Share Image
It is difficult to understand why statisticians commonly limit their inquiries to Averages, and do not revel in more comprehensive views. Their… — Francis Galton Copy Share Image
“...[His] past had now risen, only the pleasures of it seeming to have lost their quality. Night and day, without interruption save… — George Eliot Middlemarch Copy Share Image
Yet Irina had once tucked away, she wasn't sure when or why, that happiness is almost definitionally a condition of which you… — Lionel Shriver Copy Share Image
When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what… — Malcolm Muggeridge Copy Share Image
“Too often we only identify the crucial points in our lives in retrospect. At the time we are too absorbed in the… — Jay Rayner Copy Share Image
One of the experiences of prayer is that it seems that nothing happens. But when you start with it and look back… — Henri Nouwen Copy Share Image
Yorgos Lanthimos said, "What about if he's a bit soft?" And I said, "Yeah, I think you're right." He just comfort-eats a… — Colin Farrell Copy Share Image
The idea of childhood as a social invention, in retrospect, is hardly credible. In the Bible, in writings of the Greeks and… — David Elkind Copy Share Image
“But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One… — Kazuo Ishiguro Copy Share Image
“Time has a way of reminding us of its perishable nature in the retrospect of our reflections.” — Gary Westfal Copy Share Image
I didn't think of myself as beautiful, but, in retrospect, I guess I was. — Patricia Arquette Copy Share Image
In retrospect, our triumphs could as easily have happened to someone else; but our defeats are uniquely our own. — Mignon McLaughlin Copy Share Image
Until one looks back on one's own past one fails to realise what an extraordinary view of the world a child has. — Agatha Christie Copy Share Image
“Memory has a way of distorting the past, of making certain events seem larger and more significant in retrospect than they ever… — Tom Perrotta Copy Share Image
The Clinton administration cared a lot about the middle class and the poor. But it also cared a lot - too much,… — Timothy Noah Copy Share Image
Success is terrifying. Like happiness, it is often appreciated in retrospect. It's only later that you place it in perspective. Years from… — Julie Andrews Copy Share Image
![“A part of that [timewrap] for me was growing up in a culture that violence had always been a part of. It wasn't an aberration, though I realize that in retrospect. I grew up in the part of the U.S. where all of Cormac McCarthy's novels are set and that's a pretty violent place.” quote by William Gibson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/104/william-gibson-642_aberration_a-part-of-that-timewrap-for-me-was-growi_553449.jpg)
![“...[His] past had now risen, only the pleasures of it seeming to have lost their quality. Night and day, without interruption save of brief sleep which only wove retrospect and fear into a fantastic present, he felt the scenes of his earlier life coming between him and everything else, as…” quote by George Eliot Middlemarch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8b6/george-eliot-middlemarch-87516_life_his-past-had-now-risen-only-the-pleasure_2952048.jpg)
