“I got started in Oklahoma. That's where I was born. Population down there is one-third Indians, one-third Negroes and one-third white people.”
Nostalgic feeling
Nostalgic Quotes — page 41 of 136
“Growing up during World War II certainly affected my whole view of life, but I hardly know how, it goes so deep. What's hard to explain now is that, though we were never invaded, and bombed only once and ineffectively on the coast of Oregon, everybody in the country was in that war. Everything we did was influenced by it - eating, traveling, dressing, thinking - everything in daily life.”
“The majority of poems one outgrows and outlives, as one outgrows and outlives the majority of human passions.”
“We were both young when I first saw you. I close my eyes and the flashback starts. I'm standin' there on a balcony in summer air.”
“I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.”
“He smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams.”
“That great Cathedral space which was childhood.”
“That's a nice song,' said young Sam, and Vimes remembered that he was hearing it for the first time. It's an old soldiers' song,' he said. Really, sarge? But it's about angels.' Yes, thought Vimes, and it's amazing what bits those angels cause to rise up as the song progresses. It's a real soldiers' song: sentimental, with dirty bits. As I recall, they used to sing it after battles,’ he said. 'I've seen old men cry when they sing it,’ he added. Why? It sounds cheerful.' They were remembering who they were not singing it with, thought Vimes. You'll learn. I know you will.”
“My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.”
“Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.”
“One is always at home in one's past.”
“Markets are interested in profits and profits only; service, quality, and general affluence are different functions altogether. The universal, democratic prosperity that Americans now look back to with such nostalgia was achieved only by a colossal reigning in of markets, by the gargantuan effort of mass, popular organizations like labor unions and of the people themselves, working through a series of democratically elected governments not daunted by the myths of the market.”
“I had literary interests my whole life. I decided at the age of five I was going to be a writer. So I had done a great deal of reading. I suppose I was more at home in Greenwich Village than, say, any of classmates from Warsaw High School. But in any case, it was an overwhelming experience for me. It took me some time to begin to assimilate it.”
“I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.”
“Pretty Polynesian baby over the sea, I remember the night, when we walked in the sands of Waikiki and I held you oh so tight.”
“When I was a kid, I was a bit of a space geek. I loved the space program and all things NASA. I would read books about our solar system; I had pictures of the Space Shuttle on my bedroom wall. And yes, I even went to Space Camp.”
“[My wife] liked to collect old encyclopedias from second-hand bookstores, and at one point we had eight of them. When I wrote my first historical novel---back in 1980, before I was online---I used them often as a research tool. For instance, I learned that the Bastille was either 90 feet high or 100 feet or 120 feet. This led me to formulate Wilson's 22nd Law: 'Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only look in one encyclopedia.'”
“When I look back at my past and the way I grew up, I grew up on communes. That was meant to be.”
“Popular in our time, unpopular in his. So runs the stereotype of rejected genius.”
“I seem to keep returning to my father in poems because his personality was so extreme, so driven. He did everything to excess.”