Stephanie Coontz Quotes

The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages.

Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.

In 50 years, I don't think you're gonna look back at 2006 and say, 'The good old days.'

I don't want to be one of those people saying, 'Remember when things were better?'

I don't have a great nostalgia for the past.

The good old days are now.

Nostalgia is, 'Hey, remember the other mall that used to be there?'

I don't have to wait to realize the good old days.

We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

The good old times—all times when old are good.

Events have moved on, yet some people still keep talking about the past.

Even while I protest the assembly-line production of our food, our songs, our language, and eventually our souls, I know that it was a rare home that baked good bread in the old days. Mother’s cooking was with rare exceptions poor, that good unpasteurized milk touched only by flies and bits of manure crawled with bacteria, the healthy old-time life was riddled with aches, sudden death from unknown causes, and that sweet local speech I mourn was the child of illiteracy and ignorance. It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better.

Too much looking backward ... is bad for progress.

Happy memories … need to be put in context. I have interviewed many white people who have fond memories of their lives in the 1950s and early 1960s. The ones who never cross examined these memories to get at the complexities were the ones most hostile to the Civil Rights and the Women’s Movements, which they saw as destroying the harmonious world they remembered.

I do miss England. Well, I miss the idea of England, I think. But I haven't been back for years. I probably just miss the past.

If I had one wish, I would say to be born in the '30s and be young in the '50s and '60s. It hurts my racing heart when I see things so far from what it was back then. I envy those guys so much.

Long time ago when we were fab, back when income tax was all we had.

A lot of people are really hung on the past - they can't get past that - but you've gotta get past that if you want any future.

Chasing after the past is not going to lead you to the future you want.

A lot of times we look at the past as something that was really great, but we ignore things that have actually gotten better since then.

You can't go back and alter the past.

Either people cling to the past and refuse to advance their ways, or they're always looking to future and not appreciating what's in front of them right now.

I think nostalgia used purely for the sake of emotional reminiscing is extremely boring.

One cannot afford to be nostalgic about the past and cling onto it.