#retrospective

What was I supposed to do then I wondered. Was there even a supposed-to for this kind of situation? A situation when when I looked at my receding past everything seemed retrospectively marked by an extreme order and predictability yet all moments since seemed to obey, and promised to continue obeying, their own set of stochastic, undisclosed, and undiscoverable laws. Where I was fully aware of the pitfalls and folly of a finely-tuned narcissism but still the known universe seemed to bend and bend inexorably inward and towards me where it awaited my next move, supremely ready to react accordingly. And how I knew that decisions I would soon make or defer would have near-Sophoclean import and yet nonetheless it all seemed oddly irrelevant. ↗

— Sergio De La Pava

#future #life #past #retrospective #uncertainly

I don't know if this is the kind of retrospective analysis that people are fond of applying to their work or actions, but it feels like I knew I was going to be famous and I knew that an element of that would be traumatic, so that if I could make myself something big and otherworldly, it would be a kind of defence. ↗

— Russell Brand

#analysis #applying #big #could #defence

The failure of the United Nations - My failure is maybe, in retrospective, that I was not enough aggressive with the members of the Security Council. ↗

— Boutros Boutros-Ghali

#council #enough #failure #i #maybe

The problem is when you are writing something in retrospective, it needs a lot of courage not to change, or you will forget a certain reality, and you will just take in consideration your view today. ↗

— Boutros Boutros-Ghali

#change #consideration #courage #forget #just

I've been asked to do a retrospective since I was about 28 and I always thought that was a bit odd. It's great to look forward as an artist because in the future the possibilities are infinite; you look back and it's all fixed so it's a scary thing. ↗

— Damien Hirst

#always #artist #asked #back #because

All religions have periods in their history which are looked back to with retrospective fear and trembling as eras of persecution, and each religion has its own book of martyrs. ↗

— Richard Le Gallienne

#book #each #eras #fear #history

It is a simple but sometimes forgotten truth that the greatest enemy to present joy and high hopes is the cultivation of retrospective bitterness. ↗

— Robert Menzies

#cultivation #enemy #forgotten #greatest #high

The retrospective glance is a relatively easy gesture for us to make. ↗

— George Crumb

#gesture #glance #make #relatively #retrospective

I get anxious about a lot of things, that's the trouble. I get anxious about everything. I just can't stop thinking about things all the time. And here's the really destructive part - it's always retrospective. I waste time thinking of what I should have said or done. ↗

— Hugh Laurie

#always #anxious #destructive #done #everything

Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospective: it has to be shattered before being ascertained. ↗

— Vladimir Nabokov

#before #being #complacency #exists #mind