Ned Vizzini Quotes

Another life, if it were not better than this, would be less a promise than a threat.

The past isn't real because it's history, and the future isn't because it hasn't happened yet. I like it, it hints at virtual reality, which I think is how we sort of feel about life sometimes.

We are often wrong about the past, but at least with the past you can change your thinking. We can't do that with the future.

No one ever thinks about what the hell is going to happen 25 years from now.

Even people capable of living in the past don't really know what the future holds.

Don't think of what's past!" said she. "I am not going to think outside of now. Why should we! Who knows what tomorrow has in store?

...can I tell you something...? I don't think you're in love with the past. I think you're scared of the future.

How hard it is to project oneself into the future. We are always prone to think of the conditions which are with us today as being permanent conditions.

I know what I'm thinking bout, I think. Nothing. And as much of it as I can.

I used to think that I wouldn't change anything from my past, because doing so would inevitably affect who I am now. But considering my current state, I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to go back in time to fix things.

I am always thinking 'What am I doing here? Is this the way I am supposed to feel?'

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

I look out the window again, taking slow, deep breaths into a body too tense to move. And as I stare out at the land, I think that this, if nothing else, is compelling evidence for my parents’ God, that our world is so massive that it is completely out of our control, that we cannot possibly be as large as we feel. -Tris Prior

I'm nostalgic and I do think about a "what if."

We know the past but cannot control it. We control the future but cannot know it.

I love exploring the past lives, just because I think it adds so much dimension to a personality.

The past is so often unknowable not because it is befogged now but because it was befogged then, too, back when it was still the present. If we had been there listening, we still might not have been able to determine exactly what Stanton said. All we know for sure is that everyone was weeping, and the room was full.

Travelling to past lives is like making a hole in the floor and letting the flames of the fire in the apartment below scorch and burn the present

How do I create something out of nothing? And how do I create my own life? I think it is by questioning, and saying to myself that there are no absolute truths.

Sometimes I imagine myself looking back on right now and I think like where will I be standing when I look back Will right now look like the beginning of a great life or... or what

I think the meaning of life is life itself. We don't necessarily want to know what it is, but we want to live it. Hopefully, we'll go out fast without knowing it.

One should be an enigma not just to others but to oneself too. I study myself. When I'm tired of that I light a cigar to pass the time, and think: God only knows what the good Lord really meant with me, or what He meant to make of me.

I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question.

One friend said, "Donnie Darko movie was weird!" And I thought, "Hmm. I don't think we're as good of friends as I thought." It's not like I disliked him for it; it just meant we weren't on the same page I thought we were. Because I can't imagine watching that film and not being moved to tears.

I know who I am, how I was. I don't want to know how I will be because nobody knows that.