Nostalgic Quotes

“We were together. I forget the rest.”
― Walt Whitman

“Once you embrace your value, talents and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you.”
― Rob Liano

“Nostalgia is an illness
for those who haven't realized
that today
is tomorrow's nostalgia.”
― Zeena Schreck

“I love how summer just wraps it’s arms around you like a warm blanket.”
― Kellie Elmore

“for those memories are now
just like these little kittens
I hold in my hands

those can be kissed
and treasured
but not held too tightly.”
― Sanober Khan, Turquoise Silence

“Growing up, I always had a soldier mentality. As a kid I wanted to be a soldier, a fighter pilot, a covert agent, professions that require a great deal of bravery and risk and putting oneself in grave danger in order to complete the mission. Even though I did not become all those things, and unless my predisposition, in its youngest years, already had me leaning towards them, the interest that was there still shaped my philosophies. To this day I honor risk and sacrifice for the good of others - my views on life and love are heavily influenced by this.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Some stories are rooted in adventure, some in strife. Others are born of the heart, and the horrors and the joys locked therein are often immeasurable, and make us truly wonder what became of those children we once were.”
― David E. Hilton, Kings of Colorado

“Write me a story where there is no ending, Kitt.”
― Rebecca Ross, Ruthless Vows

“The really big news of the eighties is the stampede to regurgitate mildly camouflaged musical styles of previous decades, in ever-shrinking cycles of 'nostalgia.
(It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice—there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia. When you compute the length of time between The Event and The Nostalgia For The Event, the span seems to be about a year less in each cycle. Eventually within the next quarter of a century, the nostalgia cycles will be so close together that people will not be able to take a step without being nostalgic for the one they just took. At that point, everything stops. Death by Nostalgia.)”
― Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

“A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and murk. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rainwater, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly I was nostalgic for something I'd never knew.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Wendell was no sooner gazing at the silver sewing needles than he was brushing away a tear.
"They are like my father's," he said wonderingly. "I remember the flicker of them in the darkness as we all sat together by the ghealach fire, with the trees surrounding us. He would bring them everywhere, even the Hunt of the Frostveiling---that is the first hunt of autumn, the largest of the year, when even the queen and her children roam through the wilds with spears and swords, riding our best---oh, I don't know what you would call them in your language. They are a kind of faerie fox, black and golden together, which grow larger than horses. My brothers and sisters and I would crowd round the fire to watch him weave nets from brambles and spidersilk. And all the moorbeasts and hag-headed deer would cower at the sight of those nets, though they barely blinked at the whistle of our arrows." He fell silent, gazing at them with his eyes gone very green.
"Well," I said, predictably at a loss for an answer to this, "I hope they are of use to you. Only keep them away from any garments of mine."
He took my hand, and then, before I knew what he was doing, lifted it to his mouth. I felt the briefest brush of his lips against my skin, and then he had released me and was back to exclaiming over his gifts. I turned and went into the kitchen in an aimless haste, looking for something to do, anything that might distract me from the warmth that had trailed up my arm like an errant summer breeze”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“I remember when I was very young how, in the big living room of the house in San Francisco, my mother's photograph, which stood all by itself on the mantelpiece, seemed to rule the room. It was as though her photograph proved her spirit dominated that air and controlled us all. I remember the shadows gathering in the far corners of the room, in which I never felt at home, and my father washed in the gold light which spilled down on him from the tall lamp which stood beside his easy chair.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“I got to reminiscing about the past. I thought of all the things I might have said and done, which I hadn't said or done.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“I sensed the unsettling aura, the stillness giving way to silent pandemonium of a crowd that could no longer be seen—the nights of posh black-tie parties, laughter and scandal, champagne and cigarettes long since gone.”
― Pamela Hamilton, Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale

“I rubbed some salt into the turnip and then pickled it in wild grape juice."
"Wild grape juice!"
"The scent, the sweetness...
It surely is wild grapes!"
"Once the turnips were pickled, I sliced them...
... and put some ground Japanese walnuts on top."
"So the paste on the top is walnuts! "
"Hmm, slightly bitter, with a rich taste that's also sweet..."
"It's wonderful! "
"Its bringing tears to my eyes..."
"This flavor makes us recall the things we had long forgotten about...
That mountain where I chased after the rabbits... that river where I went fishing for carp...
It's the taste of the homeland of all the Japanese people..."
"There are three kinds of sweetness in it too! The sweetness of the wild grapes, the walnuts and the turnip..."
"The trio of flavors is wonderful...
... but I'm very impressed that you remembered that turnips taste better with fat or oil!!”
― Tetsu Kariya, Vegetables

“I make my way into the kitchen and peek into the oven, where the chicken sits on a bed of onions and carrots, the skin puffing up and sputtering as it turns a deep golden brown. Roast chicken was one of my favorite meals growing up and a dish my mom often made on Sunday night, along with her famous crispy roasted potatoes. Libby liked her roast chicken flavored with lots of lemon and a little garlic, but I preferred mine with lots of garlic, no lemon, and a little bit of paprika under the skin. In an unusual meeting of the minds, that's how my mom preferred it too, so that's how she made it most often. I loved that Sunday night dinner. I loved how it made me feel closer to her for once.”
― Dana Bate, A Second Bite at the Apple

“Before Chiara's eyes, a cottage sprang from the ground, with a pale blue door and windows with painted doves.
"Oh, my!" Chia exclaimed.
Inside, the cottage was sparsely furnished, with four wooden chairs covered in blue cotton cushions, a table with hearts carved along the edges, an oven that smelled like chocolate and cherries, and a harpsichord in the corner by the window. But it was everything Chiara could have dreamt of. A home of her own.
"This spot is one of my favorites," Agata narrated. "Absolutely lovely. Look there, you've a view of the Silver Brook, and in the mornings the moon crickets sing most beautifully."
Chiara inhaled. All the smells she had loved most from home---the wild grass, the pine cones from the trees, the fresh loaves Papa baked before dawn, the musty parchment from Ily's music paper. They flooded her nostrils all at once, as if she'd brought them with her.”
― Elizabeth Lim, When You Wish Upon a Star

“This is not the sound I grew up with. Not the sound I am accustomed to. I don’t want to wake up to the noise of bulldozers. Birds used to wake me up in the morning with their cherubic songs. Where are they now?”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Our Nepal, Our Pride

“چشمهایم را میبندم و آرزو میکنم....شیوه ای ما را.....پرتاب کند ایران، میان آن همه نوازش و نیکویی.”
― نهال تجدد

“I've asked you so many Golub words over the years." She looked up at him. Her eyes glistened. "But what's the Golub word for 'love'?"
"Love," he repeated. "Th-there's more than one word for love. There's friendship love---silan. Gratitude love---baya. Nostalgic love---ruman. There's... there are forty words for love."
"What if, hypothetically, you feel all those ways about someone?"
"Hypothetically?"
"No." She held his gaze. "Actually not hypothetically at all."
Looking into her eyes, Raf found himself unable to speak.
"I... I started working on that mural randomly. I didn't even plan it out properly. What did it matter? Not like anyone's given a crap about that mural since the storm came through. And what did I end up creating? The dolphins we swam with," she said. "The sandcastles we made together. Everything on there... Do you see it, Raf?"
There was Main Street---the movie theater. Tilted Tales, where they sat for hours on end reading comics. The entire street was there, but it was both of these locations that shone with a sheen of glitter. He took it all in.
"It's us," he said slowly. "You painted our places. Our favorite memories."
"I love you, Raf." Her voice quivered. "Silan---the friendship one. Baya, the gratitude one. Ruman. Nostalgia for what we were. All of it. I love you in all the ways I know.”
― Aisha Saeed, Forty Words for Love

“La trataron como si fuese un frágil objeto de cristal: como si pudiera hacerse añicos entre sus manos si aplicaban demasiada presión.

Y la trataron así por tanto tiempo que, incluso, llegó a creerlo. Llegó a creer que se rompería si la presionaban demasiado.”
― Antonia Guzmán, Incandescente

“The Reaping by Stewart Stafford

Paint a nostalgic landscape today,
A harvest gifted once in this way,
Stranger's yields come to pass,
Only that season's memory lasts.

A fallow field to revisit in time,
Golden reaping of a private mind,
As gleaners, newcomers gather,
Reminiscence thickens to slather.

As the body grows old like the land,
With crop circles on backs of hands,
In solstice, your seed does replenish,
Past where scars of life can blemish.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Listening to some songs makes us nostalgic. All the past memories flood our mind, and we begin to miss our hometown achingly.”
― Avijeet Das

“I have never returned to this lost paradise. Sometimes I am struck with the sudden desire to go to the Gare de lest, board the Orient Express, and retrace the route between Innsbruck and Plumeshof. As I so often saw other more or less close friends of the Welser family do, I fantasize about showing up without warning in the pretty meadow surrounded by fir trees and making the climb to the house while thinking only of Aunt Heidi, who has long since gone the to join her two older sons and their father in heaven. I would concentrate on her so strongly that I would eventually see her again on the doorstep, hastily drying her flour-covered hands in her apron; her opal eyes would brighten when she saw me. She would spread her arms while joyfully shouting: "Franziska!" and I would run to her calling back, "Aunt Heidi, Aunt Heidi!" Kurt's Kurt's contagious laughter would echo in the distance. Lilo, smiling, would be hanging out the laundry. A lifetime of love would still be stretching out before them. A delicious aroma of pancakes would be drifting in the air ... The large earthenware oven, the eiderdown quilts, the painted wooden chairs with a little heart carved in them like the shutters ... nothing would have changed.”
― Françoise Hardy, The Despair of Monkeys and Other Trifles: A Memoir by Françoise Hardy

“หากพวกเราเป็นออสตราโลพิเธคัสก็คงจะดีสินะ
ไม่สมปกปิดซ่อน ไม่ถูกครอบงำโดยเรื่องที่กำหนดไว้แล้ว ท้องหิวก็กัดกินใบไม้ในทุ่งหญ้า หากหลงรักก็เพียงแค่ร่วมหลับนอน หลับใหลให้รุ่งสางเดินทางมาถึง ไม่ทำร้ายกันด้วยถ้อยคำที่ไม่สมบูรณ์แบบ”
― มิจิโกะ อาโอยามะ

“Idea: A Napster for borrowed nostalgia. It's a place you go to where you can download others' memories.”
― Jarod Kintz, A Memoir of Memories and Memes

“Nostalgia feels as a sadness because it’s heavy. Thoughts bring moments, and these moments bring weight. It’s not ever truly sadness, but bittersweet. It’s like our hearts calling back to times that moved us, moments that linger. Even with its weight, there’s a quaint beauty in that pull towards what used to be.”
― Dominic Riccitello

“We move in moments, yet the moment doesn’t move. We move in the moment and that moment pauses. We reflect in years to come. The scent, the touch, the taste, the feeling that moment brought. That is nostalgia building, a memory forming. When we stop, we appreciate because we don’t always have what we want. We don’t always have what’s best, but we can reflect and appreciate what we had in that moment.”
― Dominic Riccitello

“Sometimes I still think of you. It’s usually when the night’s chilly and nostalgia sets in. We remember moments to create bittersweet realities of past adventures which weren’t so. It wasn’t nice, it wasn’t fun, it was anxiety ridden and my mind created false memories to help sole the situation. It doesn’t help, it hurts, and that’s the reality you must remember when your mind gets the best of you.”
― Dominic Riccitello

“Nostalgia hits because it was real. It was pure innocence of a moment. It wasn’t trying, it wasn’t based on ego. Nostalgic moments are times of existence when nothing truly mattered. It was you, your thoughts and yourself in a second. It’s a feeling of purity in a moment so truthful to your own being. That’s why it mattered enough to make an impact.”
― Dominic Riccitello