Tom Waits Quotes

It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why, I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing.

When you begin to think about the past, you realize how much of it is lost to us.

We make too much of that long groan which underlines the past.

There's a preoccupation with memory and the operation of memory and a rather rapacious interest in history.

Never, ever forget history.

Certain experiences you never forget, no matter how old you become.

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.

People do not connect with what happened last week, let alone what happened 20 years ago.

History is the present day consideration of what went before.

We can not escape history.

History cannot be erased, although we can soothe ourselves by speculating about it.

We can't let the past be forgotten.

Why are some things remembered and others forgotten? That is the theme I want to pursue about the Second World War.

Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out.

The past has an undeniable grip on everyone, except, perhaps, amnesiacs.

Memory has always fascinated me. Think of it. You can recall at will your first day in high school, your first date, your first love.

No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.

The past is what the past is.

The only thing simple about the past is that it's not now.

The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.

The great disadvantage of getting older is to be obliged to relive the salient economic events of one's youth, with nothing learned and nothing forgotten.

It is curious to note how fragile the memory is, even for the important times in one's life. This is, moreover, what explains the fortunate fantasy of history.

Sometimes the past seems too big for the present to hold.

I exist only in the past.

There are moments in history that people should be reminded of.