Mackenzie Astin Quotes

There's something to be said about being able to be retrospective about a certain age as opposed to just in it.

I think you only see experiences as defining moments with distance.

Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.

Life must be understood backwards. But it must be lived forwards.

I think sometimes you need distance to reflect.

When I look back at my life now, I'm not amazed by what I did at 16 to 21.

It's funny: 'Next Thing' was written in a time of my life when I was actually really naive and thought that I was wise.

Time and reflection change the sight little by little 'till we come to understand.

Our lives can only be lived forward and understood backwards. Living a life and understanding it occupy different dimensions.

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.

The past was always there, lived inside of you, and it helped to make you who you were. But it had to be placed in perspective. The past could not dominate the future.

As you grow older, you learn to understand life a little better.

What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started, but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed, now I'm older. Thank God for growing up.

At the age of 60, I am less experimental and more mature. I want most of all to convey my understanding of life.

Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life.

You know, now it's sinking in. It's taken me a long time to realize - and it is sinking in - how important this book is. And I have a certain distance now. I've done it such a long time ago.

Sometimes you don't understand what you're going through until you're on the other side of it.

I think I've become more modest as the years have gone on.

I suspect I was not the first 21-year-old who thought he knew more than he did. And one of the virtues of age, one of the virtues of getting married and becoming a father, is it often leads one to take a more measured approach to life.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

I don't choose to analyze what I have done and I think that is the right choice, because then I won't be spending my time creating.

There's a part of me that looks beyond everything now.

It could be seen as narcissistic to have your own museum, but for me, it's such a long time ago - I have perspective. That young man in the funny clothes - he's almost a stranger, so I can tell his story.

You see things differently at 40 than you do at 31. Especially if you got to 40 the way I did.

So, do I think I'm missing something? I really don't, and I think that comes with age.