Ann-Marie MacDonald Quotes

In reality there is nothing to fear in the present. Fear is projected onto the present by memory.

My guess is that fearful events are the hardest to root out. They're the ones we naturally remember the best, after all.

The things we fear the most have already happened to us.

I've always felt that if you back down from a fear, the ghost of that fear never goes away. It diminishes people.

For the first time in a long time, he didn't think of the past. And of all the things he'd lost. He thought only of the present, and what he had. And how it was so much more than he deserved. And he prayed then that he would never, ever lose it.

It is children only who enjoy the present; their elders either live on the memory of the past or the hope of the future.

... from our vantage point it is now clear that the only thing the population had to fear was fear itself.

We think very little of time present; we anticipate the future, as being too slow, and with a view to hasten it onward, we recall the past to stay it as too swiftly gone. We are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own.

Some things you cannot wish away or think away. They become part of you when you remember them.

The world is wrong. You can't put the past behind you. It's buried in you; it's turned your flesh into its own cupboard. Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you. Who did what to whom on which day? Who said that? She said what? What did he just do? Did she really say that? He said what? What did she do? Did I hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? Do you remember when you sighed?

Far too often, when we think we are frightened by mystery, the fact is that we are haunted by history.

I can face anything, except the future, and certain parts of the past and present.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable

Fear is the most damnable, damaging thing to human personality in the whole world.

A great deal of what people say, think, or do is actually motivate by fear, which of course is always linked with having your focus on the future and being out of touch with the Now. As there are no problems in the Now, there is no fear either.

Being frightened of things is worse than the things themselves.

In the West we cling to the past like limpets. In Haiti the present is the axis of all life. As in Africa, past and future are but distant measures of the present, and memories are as meaningless as promises.

I don't think about the past, I only think about the present because what I do today sets me up for the future.

We live in the moment. We're not thinking about the future right now. We're not thinking about the past, you know. We're living in this moment right here and it's a sweet moment to live in.

The past is not dead; it is not even past. People live on inner time; the moment in which a decisive thought or feeling takes place can be at any time. Timeless feelings are common to all of us.

Sometimes I think I live more closely to the past than the present.

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

I'm trying to be present, not thinking and worrying about the past or the future. That's such a waste of time, you know?

Tension means hurry, fear, doubt. Tension means a constant effort to protect, to be secure, to be safe. Tension means preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife - afraid tomorrow you will not be able to face the reality, so be prepared. Tension means the past that you have not lived really but only somehow bypassed; it hangs, it is a hangover, it surrounds you.

I'm scared of him," said Piggy, "and that's why I know him. If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's all right really, an' then when you see him again; it's like asthma an' you can't breathe.