Chang-Rae Lee Quotes

I really believe that our past can really hold us back from growth, so the best thing that we can do is MOVE ON and NOT DWELL.

I don't have time for self-pity. I don't see the point in dwelling on the past.

I don't have any romanticism about any part of my past. I think of it only inasmuch as it gave me pleasure or helped me grow psychologically. That is the only thing that interests me about yesterday. I don't believe in yesterday, by the way. You know I don't believe in yesterday. I am only interested in what I am doing now.

We're never gonna move forward if we can't let go of things, especially things that don't happen to people today.

I try to not go over things from the past. Learn your lessons and then let it go.

No looking back. Life goes one way only, and whatever opinions you hold about the past having nothing to do with anything but your own damn weakness. Nothing changes what already happened. It will always have happened. You either let it break you down or you don't.

I had drunk our great cultural Kool-Aid about regret, which is that lamenting things that occurred in the past is an absolute waste of time, that we should always look forward and not backward, and that one of the noblest and best things we can do is strive to live a life free of regrets.

It's okay to look back, just don't stare.

That's what the majority of people in the world do, they walk among the ruins of their life. Things that didn't work out, relationships that went sour, jobs that disappeared. All they can think about is their ruins, and when you focus on that you can't build a new you.

Sometime we get so addicted to murmuring about the past and blaming the past for everything that we miss our whole future. You're not going to enjoy your future, and you're not going to enjoy your right now, if all you can do is be guilty and ashamed and afraid of your past.

I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday.

I put the movie days totally behind me... It was a part of my past that I really kind of put in a little drawer and shut the door.

You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.

What happened in the past that was painful has a great deal to do with what we are today, but revisiting this painful past can contribute little or nothing to what we need to do now.

Learn from the past and let it go. Live in today.

You can't let your past hold your future hostage.

I have always wanted to live in the present and never the past.

I always think that I love doing what I'm doing at the moment. The past is over. I can't go play one of those characters again. But I can play this and I can continue to grow in what I'm doing at the moment and that's really what I'm thinking about now.

There have to be more important things going on in the world than my past.

I guess I'm living in the present more than the past.

I never get hung up on the past - the memories are too negative.

I am a big believer that whatever has gone lies in the past. You should only learn from it, and you should only look at the present and the future. That's been my father's philosophy and mine as well.

You might want to be able to close a chapter of your life, but I don't believe that you ever do completely.

You can't live in the past.

We must learn from the past, but we cannot dwell in the past.