{ "type": "topic", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia", "heading": "Quotes about nostalgia", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia.md", "quotes_count": 49, "authors_count": 43, "parent": { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past", "heading": "Quotes about the past" }, "children": [], "quotes": [ { "id": "a32c8457-2e3b-49f7-84ed-7bf8396c5250", "slug": "theres-nothing-like", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz/a-fraction-of-the-whole/theres-nothing-like", "text": "There's nothing like a nostalgia trip to make you feel alien from both your past and your present. You also see what's static in you, what you hadn't the courage or strength to change, and all your old fears, the ones you still carry. The disappointment of your failure is palpable. It's terrible to go around bumping into yourself like that.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Steve Toltz", "slug": "steve-toltz", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz" }, "book": { "title": "A Fraction Of The Whole", "slug": "a-fraction-of-the-whole", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz/a-fraction-of-the-whole" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Toltz#Five", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:11" }, { "id": "7330886f-7b24-4650-959f-ddf49c42ed9c", "slug": "nostalgia-settled-on-my-shoulders", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helon-habila/oil-on-water/nostalgia-settled-on-my-shoulders", "text": "Nostalgia settled on my shoulders like the arm of a long-lost friend, urging me to look back and listen; it had been years since I heard such morning sounds, such silence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helon Habila", "slug": "helon-habila", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helon-habila" }, "book": { "title": "Oil on Water", "slug": "oil-on-water", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helon-habila/oil-on-water" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "silence", "slug": "silence-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/silence-2" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helon_Habila#Oil_on_Water_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:59" }, { "id": "f14f56f9-b73b-4fb4-9fcb-f398805e584b", "slug": "last-night-i-dreamt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daphne-du-maurier/rebecca/last-night-i-dreamt", "text": "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Daphne du Maurier", "slug": "daphne-du-maurier", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daphne-du-maurier" }, "book": { "title": "Rebecca", "slug": "rebecca", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daphne-du-maurier/rebecca" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" }, { "name": "dreams", "slug": "dreams", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dreams" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daphne_du_Maurier#Rebecca_(1938)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:47" }, { "id": "364c9d1f-1a1c-4303-b906-11850d9653e8", "slug": "when-i-say", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ana-castillo/the-mixquiahuala-letters/when-i-say", "text": "When i say ours was a love affair, it is an expression of nostalgia and melancholy for the depth of our empathy. (p39)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ana Castillo", "slug": "ana-castillo", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ana-castillo" }, "book": { "title": "The Mixquiahuala Letters", "slug": "the-mixquiahuala-letters", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ana-castillo/the-mixquiahuala-letters" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "empathy", "slug": "empathy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/empathy" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ana_Castillo#The_Mixquiahuala_Letters_(1986)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:45" }, { "id": "51d1cf06-98d3-4d1f-8dbb-f440325096ad", "slug": "the-good-old", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-perry/the-vastalimi-gambit/the-good-old", "text": "The good old days always seemed better in distant memory than they had actually been at the time.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Steve Perry", "slug": "steve-perry", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-perry" }, "book": { "title": "The Vastalimi Gambit", "slug": "the-vastalimi-gambit", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-perry/the-vastalimi-gambit" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "memory", "slug": "memory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/memory" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Perry_(author)#The_Vastalimi_Gambit_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:29" }, { "id": "cb35fe8a-3240-435f-a30a-49698772180f", "slug": "my-troubles-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/anna-sewell/black-beauty/my-troubles-are", "text": "My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my old friends under the apple trees.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Anna Sewell", "slug": "anna-sewell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/anna-sewell" }, "book": { "title": "Black Beauty", "slug": "black-beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/anna-sewell/black-beauty" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 247, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "home", "slug": "home", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/home" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anna_Sewell#Black_Beauty_(1877)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:13" }, { "id": "25b72bed-2bd8-4ea4-9b63-61a1ce3c1a98", "slug": "i-knew-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger/arabian-sands/i-knew-that", "text": "I knew that I had made my last journey in the Empty Quarter and that a phase in my life was ended. Here in the desert I had found all that I asked; I knew that I should never find it again. But it was not only this personal sorrow that distressed me. I realized that the Bedu with whom I had lived and travelled, and in whose company I had found contentment, were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe. I shall always remember how often I was humbled by those illiterate herdsmen who possessed, in so much greater measure than I, generosity and courage, endurance, patience, and light-hearted gallantry. Among no other people have I felt the same sense of personal inferiority.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Wilfred Thesiger", "slug": "wilfred-thesiger", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger" }, "book": { "title": "Arabian Sands", "slug": "arabian-sands", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger/arabian-sands" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 310, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" }, { "name": "materialism", "slug": "materialism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/materialism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilfred_Thesiger#Arabian_Sands_(1959)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:03" }, { "id": "b016bd5c-6e11-4620-a113-0da7240f1cdf", "slug": "i-craved-for", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger/arabian-sands/i-craved-for", "text": "I craved for the past, resented the present, and dreaded the future.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Wilfred Thesiger", "slug": "wilfred-thesiger", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger" }, "book": { "title": "Arabian Sands", "slug": "arabian-sands", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger/arabian-sands" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 20, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the future", "slug": "the-future", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future" }, { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "the present", "slug": "the-present", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-present" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilfred_Thesiger#Arabian_Sands_(1959)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:02" }, { "id": "478a46ab-ab6d-4e7b-93ec-c80271f37e8c", "slug": "i-yearned-for", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/osamu-dazai/schoolgirl/i-yearned-for", "text": "I yearned for everything long gone.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Osamu Dazai", "slug": "osamu-dazai", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/osamu-dazai" }, "book": { "title": "Schoolgirl", "slug": "schoolgirl", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/osamu-dazai/schoolgirl" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "longing", "slug": "longing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/longing" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Osamu_Dazai#Schoolgirl", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:25" }, { "id": "30cf1367-6efe-418e-b75d-b8f0f91b3071", "slug": "spare-me-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-finney/from-time-to-time/spare-me-the", "text": "“Spare me the nostalgia.” “I hate that word. You know who uses it mostly? Time patriots. Same people who live in the best country in the world. Must be the best because that’s where they live. And they live in the best of times; has to be best because it’s their lifetime. You even suggest there just might have been better times than here and now, and it’s ‘nostalgia, nostalgia.’ Don’t even know what the word means. Means overly sentimental, for crysakes.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jack Finney", "slug": "jack-finney", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-finney" }, "book": { "title": "From Time to Time", "slug": "from-time-to-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-finney/from-time-to-time" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 58, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jack_Finney#From_Time_to_Time_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:06" }, { "id": "da9b38cc-04d0-4029-8911-1eb474194112", "slug": "how-can-i-feel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/pierce-brown/morning-star/how-can-i-feel", "text": "How can I feel so melancholy for so terrible a past? Maybe it's just the nature of us, ever wishing for things that were and could be rather than things that are and will be.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Pierce Brown", "slug": "pierce-brown", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/pierce-brown" }, "book": { "title": "Morning Star", "slug": "morning-star", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/pierce-brown/morning-star" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pierce_Brown#Morning_Star_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:59" }, { "id": "e143c350-1ff0-472c-bfe9-407e7115a55a", "slug": "romance-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/susan-howatch/the-wheel-of-fortune/romance-is-the", "text": "Romance is the opiate of the dissatisfied, it anaesthesises them from the pain of their disordered second-rate lives [...] If romance is the opiate of the dissatisfied then surely nostalgia is the opiate of the disillusioned, for those who see all their dreams come true and find themselves living in a nightmare.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Susan Howatch", "slug": "susan-howatch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/susan-howatch" }, "book": { "title": "The Wheel Of Fortune", "slug": "the-wheel-of-fortune", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/susan-howatch/the-wheel-of-fortune" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "disappointment", "slug": "disappointment", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/disappointment" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_Howatch#Part_1:_Robert", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:45" }, { "id": "a3885811-a3dc-4827-82c0-c9a5a17dc4d6", "slug": "no-one-ever", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds/century-rain/no-one-ever", "text": "No one ever took music away from me, but I’m damned if it ever sounds quite as good as it used to when I was twenty.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Alastair Reynolds", "slug": "alastair-reynolds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds" }, "book": { "title": "Century Rain", "slug": "century-rain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds/century-rain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 555, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "youth", "slug": "youth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/youth" }, { "name": "music", "slug": "music", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/music" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds#Century_Rain_(2004)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:39" }, { "id": "e2ce14f2-3faa-4720-b22d-4f1eb1f1314d", "slug": "the-past-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tony-judt/ill-fares-the-land/the-past-was", "text": "The past was neither as good nor as bad as we suppose: it was just different. If we tell ourselves nostalgic stories, we shall never engage the problems that face us in the present—and the same is true if we fondly suppose that our own world is better in every way. The past really is another country: we cannot go back. However, there is something worse than idealizing the past—or presenting it to ourselves and our children as a chamber of horrors: forgetting it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Tony Judt", "slug": "tony-judt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tony-judt" }, "book": { "title": "Ill Fares The Land", "slug": "ill-fares-the-land", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tony-judt/ill-fares-the-land" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tony_Judt#Ill_Fares_the_Land_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:31" }, { "id": "d5d74006-3d85-4dd8-89d6-70b7e6ed5b54", "slug": "a-few-old", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tanith-lee/vazkor-son-of-vazkor/a-few-old", "text": "A few old men began to say there had been a winter like this when they were warriors, and that it was a year of catastrophe and disappointment. But old men will ever spin this wheel. The summers were always hotter and the winters colder in the days of their strength, and the air thick with epic drama and portent.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Tanith Lee", "slug": "tanith-lee", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tanith-lee" }, "book": { "title": "Vazkor, Son of Vazkor", "slug": "vazkor-son-of-vazkor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tanith-lee/vazkor-son-of-vazkor" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 41, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "old age", "slug": "old-age", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/old-age" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tanith_Lee#Vazkor,_Son_of_Vazkor_(1978)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:20" }, { "id": "ef119365-8c49-40c7-82fe-357164f83630", "slug": "i-know-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alberto-manguel/a-history-of-reading/i-know-that", "text": "I know that something dies when i give up my books, and that my memory keeps going back to them with mournful nostalgia.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Alberto Manguel", "slug": "alberto-manguel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alberto-manguel" }, "book": { "title": "A History of Reading", "slug": "a-history-of-reading", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alberto-manguel/a-history-of-reading" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reading", "slug": "reading", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alberto_Manguel#A_History_of_Reading_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:09" }, { "id": "904654d6-b850-4bdd-b7ea-72213fef5aea", "slug": "i-got-to-missing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-powers/medusas-web/i-got-to-missing", "text": "“I got to missing her, the way things used to be here, the past. The past,” she repeated. “It’s always out there, isn’t it? I hate now. I hate that whenever you look at a clock, it shows a different time. What’s the use of knowing what time it is, if it’s always changing? And it’s always later!”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Tim Powers", "slug": "tim-powers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-powers" }, "book": { "title": "Medusa's Web", "slug": "medusas-web", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-powers/medusas-web" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 99, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" }, { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tim_Powers#Medusa's_Web_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:39" }, { "id": "812fc149-d02e-4b66-b71f-f2253a4ee425", "slug": "it-struck-duffy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-powers/the-drawing-of-the-dark/it-struck-duffy", "text": "It struck Duffy that a touch of hysteria had sharpened the good fellowship tonight, as if the night wind whistling under the eaves carried some pollen of impermanence, making everyone nostalgic for things they hadn’t yet lost.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Tim Powers", "slug": "tim-powers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-powers" }, "book": { "title": "The Drawing Of The Dark", "slug": "the-drawing-of-the-dark", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tim-powers/the-drawing-of-the-dark" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 86, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tim_Powers#The_Drawing_of_the_Dark_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:37" }, { "id": "0b33b9d9-acfe-4f86-bb23-f4c14ce75e45", "slug": "the-future-dream", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheldon-vanauken/a-severe-mercy/the-future-dream", "text": "The future dream charms us because of its timelessness; and I think most of the charm we see in the \"good old days\" is no less an illusion of timelessness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sheldon Vanauken", "slug": "sheldon-vanauken", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheldon-vanauken" }, "book": { "title": "A Severe Mercy", "slug": "a-severe-mercy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheldon-vanauken/a-severe-mercy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Severe_Mercy#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:25" }, { "id": "a3b0d2ec-b0fb-4540-9f26-3ad0f8472fea", "slug": "a-classic-unspoken", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/embassytown/a-classic-unspoken", "text": "A classic unspoken agreement among escapees from a small town: don’t look back, don’t be each other’s anchors, no nostalgia. I wasn’t expecting any of them to return.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "China Miéville", "slug": "china-mieville", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville" }, "book": { "title": "Embassytown", "slug": "embassytown", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/embassytown" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 53, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville#Embassytown_(2011)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:52" }, { "id": "74a51a47-710e-4ffb-ab58-167c71ed9570", "slug": "this-was-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/kraken/this-was-the", "text": "This was the remnant of honour, nostalgic for spurious legendary times.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "China Miéville", "slug": "china-mieville", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville" }, "book": { "title": "Kraken", "slug": "kraken", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/kraken" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 421, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "honour", "slug": "honour", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/honour" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville#Kraken:_An_Anatomy_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:52" }, { "id": "47942fc1-2ee2-4493-a6fd-181382ecad7a", "slug": "but-you-always", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/the-way-of-kings/but-you-always", "text": "But you always find people telling stories about supposedly better days. You watch. A man joins a new team of soldiers, and the first thing he’ll do is talk about how wonderful his old team was. We remember the good times and the bad ones, forgetting that most times are neither good nor bad. They just are.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brandon Sanderson", "slug": "brandon-sanderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson" }, "book": { "title": "The Way of Kings", "slug": "the-way-of-kings", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/the-way-of-kings" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 315, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#The_Way_of_Kings_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:35" }, { "id": "0d303278-c12a-47c7-b99d-48bd7147ef0c", "slug": "stories-and-legends", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/the-way-of-kings/stories-and-legends", "text": "“Stories and legends, Teft,” Kaladin said. “We want to believe that there were better men once. That makes us think it could be that way again. But people don’t change. They are corrupt now. They were corrupt then.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brandon Sanderson", "slug": "brandon-sanderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson" }, "book": { "title": "The Way of Kings", "slug": "the-way-of-kings", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/the-way-of-kings" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 832, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#The_Way_of_Kings_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:35" }, { "id": "3c226331-c24b-4518-9daa-129776464767", "slug": "youve-been-competing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/timescoop/youve-been-competing", "text": "You’ve been competing against the past, and that’s a contest no one can win because the past has all the advantages. We’ve forgotten all its fiddling little drawbacks: the lice, the skin infections, the disgusting personal habits and the rest of it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Brunner", "slug": "john-brunner", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner" }, "book": { "title": "Timescoop", "slug": "timescoop", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/timescoop" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 116, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Brunner#Timescoop_(1969)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:11" }, { "id": "0a7bd857-ab3f-4d54-a835-772feafa99e8", "slug": "i-know-it-seems", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/in-the-days-of-the-comet/i-know-it-seems", "text": "I know it seems incredible, that already some of the younger men are beginning to doubt the greatness of the Change our world has undergone, but read — read the newspapers of that time. Every age becomes mitigated and a little ennobled in our minds as it recedes into the past. It is the part of those who like myself have stories of that time as well, to supply, by a scrupulous spiritual realism, some antidote to that glamour.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "In the Days of the Comet", "slug": "in-the-days-of-the-comet", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/in-the-days-of-the-comet" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "history", "slug": "history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history" }, { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/In_the_Days_of_the_Comet#Dust_in_the_Shadows", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:54" }, { "id": "b3475bea-6a2f-411d-8c71-cfa70a30ce96", "slug": "when-i-remember", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-chabon/the-mysteries-of-pittsburgh/when-i-remember", "text": "When I remember that dizzy summer, that dull, stupid, lovely, dire summer, it seems that in those days I ate my lunches, smelled another's skin, noticed a shade of yellow, even simply sat, with greater lust and hopefulness;and that I lusted with greater faith, hoped with greater abandon. The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments. No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Chabon", "slug": "michael-chabon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-chabon" }, "book": { "title": "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh", "slug": "the-mysteries-of-pittsburgh", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-chabon/the-mysteries-of-pittsburgh" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "memory", "slug": "memory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/memory" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Mysteries_of_Pittsburgh#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:32" }, { "id": "e23d364a-da8b-41e4-8e8f-bf95b61f35c6", "slug": "rodriguez-remained-dubious", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/settling-accounts-return-engagement/rodriguez-remained-dubious", "text": "Rodriguez remained dubious. Everybody who was an old-timer at this, that, or the other thing always went on and on about how tough things had been before all these new fellows came in. Talk was cheap. Talk was also commonly nonsense.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Harry Turtledove", "slug": "harry-turtledove", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove" }, "book": { "title": "Settling Accounts: Return Engagement", "slug": "settling-accounts-return-engagement", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/settling-accounts-return-engagement" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 558, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove#Settling_Accounts:_Return_Engagement_(2004)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:53" }, { "id": "e4fa73f4-1a33-4d02-8f8c-681f3d706e66", "slug": "its-not-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/the-great-war-walk-in-hell/its-not-the", "text": "“It’s not the way it was any more,” he said, half to himself. “Nothing is the way it was anymore.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Harry Turtledove", "slug": "harry-turtledove", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove" }, "book": { "title": "The Great War: Walk in Hell", "slug": "the-great-war-walk-in-hell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/the-great-war-walk-in-hell" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 422, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "change", "slug": "change", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove#The_Great_War:_Walk_in_Hell_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:49" }, { "id": "f6c879fd-1666-470c-aab6-11b422b344ce", "slug": "hed-turned-fifty-seven", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/how-few-remain/hed-turned-fifty-seven", "text": "He’d turned fifty-seven earlier in the year, and the past had a way of looking better and the present worse the older he got.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Harry Turtledove", "slug": "harry-turtledove", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove" }, "book": { "title": "How Few Remain", "slug": "how-few-remain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/how-few-remain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 29, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "old age", "slug": "old-age", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/old-age" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove#How_Few_Remain_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:47" }, { "id": "d0cab4e9-4d14-4dc8-8536-41f6c7953262", "slug": "people-have-changed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-sower/people-have-changed", "text": "People have changed the climate of the world. Now they’re waiting for the old days to come back’", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Octavia E. Butler", "slug": "octavia-e-butler", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler" }, "book": { "title": "Parable of the Sower", "slug": "parable-of-the-sower", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-sower" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 57, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "ecology", "slug": "ecology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Octavia_Butler#Parable_of_the_Sower_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:10" }, { "id": "fb465a93-36ab-430b-9ff9-2c92e72d3e2c", "slug": "anyone-who-loves", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-brin/glory-season/anyone-who-loves", "text": "Anyone who loves nature, as I do, cries out at the havoc being spread by humans, all over the globe. The pressures of city life can be appalling, as are the moral ambiguities that plague us, both at home and via yammering media. The temptation to seek uncomplicated certainty sends some rushing off to ashrams and crystal therapy, while many dive into the shelter of fundamentalism, and other folk yearn for better, “simpler” times. Certain popular writers urgently prescribe returning to ancient, nobler ways. Ancient, nobler ways. It is a lovely image . . . and pretty much a lie. John Perlin, in his book A Forest Journey, tells how each prior culture, from tribal to pastoral to urban, wreaked calamities upon its own people and environment. I have been to Easter Island and seen the desert its native peoples wrought there. The greater harm we do today is due to our vast power and numbers, not something intrinsically vile about modern humankind. Technology produces more food and comfort and lets fewer babies die. “Returning to older ways” would restore some balance all right, but entail a holocaust of untold proportion, followed by resumption of a kind of grinding misery never experienced by those who now wistfully toss off medieval fantasies and neolithic romances. A way of life that was nasty, brutish, and nearly always catastrophic for women. That is not to say the pastoral image doesn’t offer hope. By extolling nature and a lifestyle closer to the Earth, some writers may be helping to create the very sort of wisdom they imagine to have existed in the past. Someday, truly idyllic pastoral cultures may be deliberately designed with the goal of providing placid and just happiness for all, while retaining enough technology to keep existence decent. But to get there the path lies forward, not by diving into a dark, dank, miserable past. There is but one path to the gracious, ecologically sound, serene pastoralism sought by so many. That route passes, ironically, through successful consummation of this, our first and last chance, our scientific age.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Brin", "slug": "david-brin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-brin" }, "book": { "title": "Glory Season", "slug": "glory-season", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-brin/glory-season" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 563, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "ecology", "slug": "ecology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology" }, { "name": "technology", "slug": "technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Brin#Glory_Season_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:45" }, { "id": "7fdfa67e-0fd2-4ca4-a635-5418333e9fb5", "slug": "nostalgias-nice-enough", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins/fierce-invalids-home-from-hot-climates/nostalgias-nice-enough", "text": "Nostalgia's nice enough in little bitty doses, it puts personal peach fuzz on the hard ass of history.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Tom Robbins", "slug": "tom-robbins", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins" }, "book": { "title": "Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates", "slug": "fierce-invalids-home-from-hot-climates", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins/fierce-invalids-home-from-hot-climates" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Robbins#Fierce_Invalids_Home_from_Hot_Climates_(2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:39" }, { "id": "e963c832-452c-48d9-936d-db74235146e8", "slug": "in-america-nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-hughes/nothing-if-not-critical/in-america-nostalgia", "text": "In America, nostalgia for things is apt to set in before they go.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert Hughes", "slug": "robert-hughes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-hughes" }, "book": { "title": "Nothing If Not Critical", "slug": "nothing-if-not-critical", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-hughes/nothing-if-not-critical" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "America", "slug": "america", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/america" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Hughes#Nothing_If_Not_Critical_(1991)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:38" }, { "id": "c3ff29b5-517e-4486-b184-305eed64b541", "slug": "the-ethereal-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster/maurice/the-ethereal-past", "text": "The ethereal past had blinded him, and the highest happiness he could dream was a return to it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "E.M. Forster", "slug": "em-forster", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster" }, "book": { "title": "Maurice", "slug": "maurice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster/maurice" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maurice_(novel)#Part_Three", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:37" }, { "id": "1da66f7a-f455-4ce6-8237-1d6ed93cf99a", "slug": "perhaps-i-should", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-final-programme/perhaps-i-should", "text": "“Perhaps I should not say so, but it occasionally crosses my mind to wonder why, in all the mystic cosmologies, even in some of the modern so-called parasciences, our own age is always described as the age of chaos and contention. A comment, my logical side argues, on why people turn to mysticism. The past age was always better.” “Childhood is the happiest time of life except when you’re a child,” said Jerry. “I understand you. True.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Moorcock", "slug": "michael-moorcock", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock" }, "book": { "title": "The Final Programme", "slug": "the-final-programme", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-final-programme" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 7, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "childhood", "slug": "childhood", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/childhood" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock#The_Final_Programme_(1968)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:36" }, { "id": "22c82593-23bd-44e4-b5d0-e65fddb3c9fc", "slug": "all-you-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany/tales-of-neveryon/all-you-are", "text": "All you are seeing is your own nostalgia for your girlhood trips up here into the hills, which were no doubt colored with the pleasantries of youth and idealism, which is—won’t you admit it?—finally just a form of ignorance.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Samuel R. Delany", "slug": "samuel-r-delany", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany" }, "book": { "title": "Tales of Neveryon", "slug": "tales-of-neveryon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany/tales-of-neveryon" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 76, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "youth", "slug": "youth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/youth" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany#Tales_of_Nev%C3%A8r%C3%BFon_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:19" }, { "id": "c4e711b1-5207-4bc9-88bc-a7d7040ff2b9", "slug": "one-could-add", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tariq-ali/winston-churchill-his-times-his-crimes/one-could-add", "text": "One could add that the manufactured love for Churchill, and the uses made of him, came to embody the nostalgia for an Empire that was long gone.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Tariq Ali", "slug": "tariq-ali", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tariq-ali" }, "book": { "title": "Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes", "slug": "winston-churchill-his-times-his-crimes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/tariq-ali/winston-churchill-his-times-his-crimes" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 6, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "propaganda", "slug": "propaganda", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/propaganda" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tariq_Ali#Winston_Churchill:_his_times,_his_crimes_(2022)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:08" }, { "id": "19b1093f-b1dc-4418-8dde-3005f88d0b52", "slug": "nostalgia-as-always", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gabriel-garcia-marquez/living-to-tell-the-tale/nostalgia-as-always", "text": "Nostalgia, as always, had wiped away bad memories and magnified the good ones.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gabriel Garcia Marquez", "slug": "gabriel-garcia-marquez", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gabriel-garcia-marquez" }, "book": { "title": "Living to Tell the Tale", "slug": "living-to-tell-the-tale", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gabriel-garcia-marquez/living-to-tell-the-tale" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "memory", "slug": "memory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/memory" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gabriel_Garc%C3%ADa_M%C3%A1rquez#Living_to_Tell_the_Tale_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:53" }, { "id": "7265b864-f973-4d4b-bece-95bad2379421", "slug": "amazing-how-quickly", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood/maddaddam/amazing-how-quickly", "text": "Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Margaret Atwood", "slug": "margaret-atwood", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood" }, "book": { "title": "MaddAddam", "slug": "maddaddam", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood/maddaddam" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood#MaddAddam_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:12" }, { "id": "5b8c3c23-06bd-4c3b-b5d1-4583b969c8d2", "slug": "it-isnt-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-mitchell/gone-with-the-wind/it-isnt-that", "text": "\"It isn't that I mind splitting logs here in the mud, but I do mind what it stands for. I do mind, very much, the loss of the beauty of the old life I loved. Scarlett, before the war, life was beautiful. There was a glamor to it, a perfection and a completeness and a symmetry to it like Grecian art. Maybe it wasn't so to everyone. I know that now. But to me, living at Twelve Oaks, there was a real beauty to living. I belonged in that life. I was a part of it. And now it is gone and I am out of place in this new life, and I am afraid. Now, I know that in the old days it was a shadow show I watched. I avoided everything which was not shadowy, people and situations which were too real, too vital. I resented their intrusion. I tried to avoid you too, Scarlett. You were too full of living and too real and I was cowardly enough to prefer shadows and dreams.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Margaret Mitchell", "slug": "margaret-mitchell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-mitchell" }, "book": { "title": "Gone with the Wind", "slug": "gone-with-the-wind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-mitchell/gone-with-the-wind" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:49" }, { "id": "cbbfd49c-eb2a-4017-8fa4-ea1641fee51f", "slug": "i-dont-trust", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise/i-dont-trust", "text": "“I don’t trust anybody’s nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It’s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence. War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.” – Murray", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Don DeLillo", "slug": "don-delillo", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo" }, "book": { "title": "White Noise", "slug": "white-noise", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "war", "slug": "war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/White_Noise_(novel)#Murray", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:38" }, { "id": "c35347a6-1c05-424b-824c-3a25469bc8e1", "slug": "even-while-i-protest", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/travels-with-charley-in-search-of-america/even-while-i-protest", "text": "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.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Steinbeck", "slug": "john-steinbeck", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck" }, "book": { "title": "Travels with Charley in Search of America", "slug": "travels-with-charley-in-search-of-america", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/travels-with-charley-in-search-of-america" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "old age", "slug": "old-age", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/old-age" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck#Travels_With_Charley:_In_Search_of_America_(1962)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:04" }, { "id": "085447cd-3628-4d8d-962b-da5ead3ab2a5", "slug": "as-people-age", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker/the-sense-of-style/as-people-age", "text": "As people age, they confuse changes in themselves with changes in the world, and changes in the world with moral decline—the illusion of the good old days.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Steven Pinker", "slug": "steven-pinker", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker" }, "book": { "title": "The Sense of Style", "slug": "the-sense-of-style", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker/the-sense-of-style" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 4, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "old age", "slug": "old-age", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/old-age" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker#The_Sense_of_Style_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:50" }, { "id": "b8ca96f8-b67a-4f0f-8925-8762dae8deee", "slug": "no-one-could", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/no-one-could", "text": "No one could complain about it, or moan for the good old days, without revealing nostalgia for a heroic age that had not actually been heroic—or, along with heroic, had also been suppressed, limited, inconvenient and dangerous. No, Nirgal had no desire for nostalgia—the meaning of life lay not in the past but in the present, not in resistance but in expression.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Mars", "slug": "blue-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 356, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Blue_Mars_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:45" }, { "id": "f43163da-50ed-4630-af52-1fbecdd761f4", "slug": "w-e-do-live", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/w-e-do-live", "text": "[W]e do live in a conceptual trough that encourages such yearning for unknown and romanticized greener pastures of other times. The future doesn't seem promising, if only because we can extrapolate some disquieting present trends into further deterioration: pollution, nationalism, environmental destruction, and aluminum bats. Therefore, we tend to take refuge in a rose-colored past […]. I do not doubt the salutary, even the essential, properties of this curiously adaptive human trait, but we must also record the down side. Legends of past golden ages become impediments when we try to negotiate our current dilemma.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Eight Little Piggies", "slug": "eight-little-piggies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 206, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Eight_Little_Piggies_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "3652b4b7-62ed-49aa-917a-3de34185d6e6", "slug": "as-we-walked", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-antonia/as-we-walked", "text": "As we walked homeward across the fields, the sun dropped and lay like a great golden globe in the low west. While it hung there, the moon rose in the east, as big as a cart-wheel, pale silver and streaked with rose colour, thin as a bubble or a ghost-moon. For five, perhaps ten minutes, the two luminaries confronted each other across the level land, resting on opposite edges of the world. In that singular light every little tree and shock of wheat, every sunflower stalk and clump of snow-on-the-mountain, drew itself up high and pointed; the very clods and furrows in the fields seemed to stand up sharply. I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes out of those fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a little boy again, and that my way could end there.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Willa Cather", "slug": "willa-cather", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather" }, "book": { "title": "My Antonia", "slug": "my-antonia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-antonia" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Willa_Cather#My_Antonia_(1918)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:03" }, { "id": "794951a5-2466-41e6-b01f-ae9d0ed743b3", "slug": "the-haze-of-nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/god-emperor-of-dune/the-haze-of-nostalgia", "text": "The haze of nostalgia covers their days among their sisters, making those days into something different than they were. That's the way today changes history. All contemporaries do not inhabit the same time. The past is always changing, but few realize it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frank Herbert", "slug": "frank-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "God Emperor of Dune", "slug": "god-emperor-of-dune", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/god-emperor-of-dune" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dune#God_Emperor_of_Dune_(1981)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:54" }, { "id": "ae159ad2-8e7c-41da-9657-9cf67e36e331", "slug": "there-was-a-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/there-was-a-time", "text": "There was a time when time did not yet exist. ... The rejection of birth is nothing but the nostalgia for this time before time.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emil Cioran", "slug": "emil-cioran", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran" }, "book": { "title": "The Trouble With Being Born", "slug": "the-trouble-with-being-born", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" }, { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" }, { "name": "birth", "slug": "birth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/birth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#The_Trouble_With_Being_Born_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:41" }, { "id": "595dd29e-a295-4584-bd2f-a8a4554fa564", "slug": "men-say-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/men-say-the", "text": "Men say the golden age is a fable; it always will be for those whose feelings and taste are depraved. People do not really regret the golden age, for they do nothing to restore it. What is needed for its restoration? One thing only, and that is an impossibility; we must love the golden age.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nostalgia", "slug": "nostalgia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nostalgia" }, { "name": "utopia", "slug": "utopia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/utopia" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_V", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:38" } ] }