Will Self Quotes

We all have those dreams of going back in time and seeing what it was like when our parents were younger.

Anyone who doesn't miss the past never had a mother.

I think I'm going to have to live vicariously through my daughter's rebellion because I certainly never did go through adolescence.

One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.

I'm growing old, I delight in the past.

I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely years.

I believe that without memories there is no life, and that our memories should be of happy times.

To me, my house is always recreating what I lost in youth.

My brother and I have a profound nostalgia for our youth, and I think people need to come to terms with things leaving and being gone.

I've never had any interest in retelling stories from my youth.

Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke.

He sank into the rocking chair, the same one in which Rebecca had sat during the early days of the house to give embroidery lessons, and in which Amaranta had played Chinese checkers with Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, and in which Amarana Ursula had sewn the tiny clothing for the child, and in that flash of lucidity he became aware that he was unable to bear in his soul the crushing weight of so much past.

I remember watching Romeo + Juliet when I was 14 and listening to the soundtrack. When I hear that soundtrack now, all those emotions come back. It's really beautiful when you're at a certain point in your life where most of the adventure lies ahead of you. And it's a sad thing when you feel like you've lost that. But you can get it back.

Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole world or even two; he has grown used to its disappearance and accustomed to the new scenery of another act: but suddenly the names and faces of a time long dead appear more and more often on his way, calling up series of shades and pictures kept somewhere, "just in case," in the endless catacombs of the memory, making him smile or sigh, and sometimes almost weep.

Do you remember the time darlin' when everything made more sense in the world? Oh I remember, I remember... when life made more sense... Take me back, take me back, take me way back... to when life made more sense.

Remembrance of things past.

I end not far from my going forth By picking the faded blue Of the last remaining aster flower To carry again to you.

It’s harder to talk about, but what I really, really, really want for Christmas is just this: I want to be 5 years old again for an hour. I want to laugh a lot and cry a lot. I want to be picked or rocked to sleep in someone’s arms, and carried up to be just one more time. I know what I really want for Christmas: I want my childhood back. People who think good thoughts give good gifts.

My nickname when I was young was Teddy, so people would call me Teddy Bear.

Drawn to childhood, the old man will seek it in a thousand different ways.

Someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us

I said: I must remember this, being small.

That is how you know you've left childhood behind-when you wish for time to go backward.

There were some initial instruments I had when I was young and made some trade-offs. Maybe a guitar I bought in a flea market. They weren't the greatest guitar but they would be cool to still have them. Other than that, not as a professional.