Retrospect Quotes

And then adds with a laugh, 'but in retrospect I think he may have been more sophisticated than we were.'

Like so many women, I was living out the unlived life of my mother, so I wouldn't be her. But the price I paid was that I distanced myself internally. I wasn't as close to her then as I nowadays, in retrospect, wish I had been.

People steal into one's consciousness and occupy what seems, in retrospect, to have been their place all along.

Self-righteousness in retrospect is easy--also cheap.

In retrospect, perhaps the biggest reason my mother was cared for but not helped for twenty years was the simplest: Her functioning was not that necessary to the world.

Innovations seem inevitable in retrospect, but at the time it's an uphill battle.

Sure, I've been a victim, but in retrospect, most of it has been of my own making. I allowed it to happen.

People always understand everything in retrospect.

And there's always retrospect to light a clearer path.

That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version.

I really tend to write in retrospect.

Everything looks more beautiful in retrospect.

I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.

Righteousness is easy in retrospect.

Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.

Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and prettier and cooler. You can laugh at anything from far enough away.

Often a retrospect delights the mind.

Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.

Perspective will come in retrospect.

There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect.

Of course, we wrote the songs accordingly and performed and recorded them that way. At that time, we really thought it was right, but you know, seen in retrospect, it made the album sound forced, and not really great.

I felt that, in retrospect, there was a time in the late Seventies, after I had a string of hits and successes, as a performer and a recording artist, that I wasn't saying anything.

The thing is I never want to be an observer, it's only in retrospect that I wish I had observed.

...stupidity is one of the two things we see most clearly in retrospect. The other is missed chances.

There is always a reason. When I look back on things that really upset me at the moment, I can always see why it happened in retrospect.

Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That's the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let's say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success.

In retrospect, I'm really shocked at how far I put my heart out there on the line with 'Prima Donna'. I seem to have this knack for being able to accomplish that.

I do think stories are one of the best tools for communicating across any number of cultures. But I also think there are wildly successful leaders who are introverted, disciplined, lead via spreadsheets and goals, and might not "appear" to be a great leader...but in retrospect, made a massive impact.

I was stuck in the feeling that one did not--was not justified in being alive unless one was fulfilling other people's dreams, whether they were contractual dreams or the public's dreams, or fulfilling my own dreams and illusions about what I thought I was supposed to be, which, in retrospect, turned out to not be what I am.

So this is why I write. Because most times, your life isn’t funny the first time through. Most times, you can hardly stand it. That’s why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. And writing makes you look back. Because since you can’t control life, at least you can control your version.

Do we always grind through the present, doomed to throw a gold haze of fond retrospect over the past?

I didn't know at the time I was writing Because of Winn-Dixie where the story came from, but in retrospect I can see that it was a response to a terribly harsh winter here in Minnesota.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.

I think the time in between albums, as much as it was not anticipated, it was much-needed, and very helpful, very useful. I've done nothing but hone my craft, and get better, and learn, and gather information in the process. So I'm grateful for it in retrospect.

In retrospect, I think that I've been given quite a few scripts over the years that had dark elements to them but most of them took place in the countryside with a haunted house. I think I've probably had that script about six to 10 times over the past few years. Or it was something to do with the supernatural.

Christian history looks glorious in retrospect; but it is made up of constant hard choices and unattractive tasks, accepted under the pressure of the Will of God.

The complicated thing about friends is that sometimes they are totally wrong about us and sometimes they are totally right and it's almost always only in retrospect that we know which is which.

You end up exhausted and spent, but later, in retrospect, you realize what it all was for. The parts fall into place, and you can see the whole picture and finally understand the role each individual part plays. The dawn comes, the sky grows light, and the colors and shapes of the roofs of houses, which you could only glimpse vaguely before, come into focus.

It is difficult to understand why statisticians commonly limit their inquiries to Averages, and do not revel in more comprehensive views. Their souls seem as dull to the charm of variety as that of the native of one of our flat English counties, whose retrospect of Switzerland was that, if its mountains could be thrown into its lakes, two nuisances would be got rid of at once.

It is often interesting, in retrospect, to consider the trifling causes that lead to great events. A chance encounter, a thoughtless remark - and the tortuous chain reaction of coincidence is set in motion, leading with devious inevitability to some resounding climax.

It has always struck me as the world's great fortune that the two great superpowers were the United States and the Soviet Union, who managed the Cold War with meticulous care in retrospect. Imagine the European diplomats of 1914 or 1938 armed with nuclear weapons. It is easy to believe they would not have been as cautious.

The Lord givith and the Lord takith away. I was given a lot of signs from the universe and looking at it in retrospect made me feel like God was telling me I needed to follow my dream. My granny getting in that car accident and being at that hospital when I was going there to see my girl... that whole part of the story where I go to the show and come back to the hospital... and it was almost like as soon as I found out that my granny didn't make it as soon as I got back, I also found out that my son had just come out.

My ability to notice that kind of thing, the sanctity of the bubble that you create, has not been so good in a way, in that I notice it concurrently with actually doing the thing. I always notice it in retrospect.

The last of Summer is Delight - Deterred by Retrospect. 'Tis Ecstasy's revealed Review - Enchantment's Syndicate. To meet it - nameless as it is - Without celestial Mail - Audacious as without a Knock To walk within the Veil.

Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman.

Our Navy was very largely sunk. And we were at war in no time at all. I share, in retrospect, the distress we all share at the internment of the Japanese American citizens of the United States. It was not our finest hour. But the Supreme Court had it before it at the time, and justified it and upheld it.

In retrospect, it's ridiculous that anyone saw me as a fashion icon, since all I was trying to do was to dumb down my middle-class look by messing with my hair. Throughout the eighties I was invariably half-sure and half-confident about whatever it was I wore…Still, I've always believed—still do—that the radical is far more interesting when it looks benign and ordinary on the outside.

There are plenty of dead scientists I admire, but I can't think of any living ones. This is probably because it is only in retrospect that one can see who made the important contributions.

It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.

In retrospect I can see that my desire to create abstractions has become more and more radical. Art should not be delivering a report on reality, but should be looking at what's behind something.