Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!" He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
Interpretation
The past can be revisited and reshaped in our memories and actions.
This quote reflects the human longing to reclaim and change the past, illustrating the inherent belief that moments lost can still be revived in our minds and actions. The character's incredulity suggests a deep desire to confront and embrace past experiences, revealing the complex relationship people have with their history.
In practice
Discussing the importance of memories at a family gathering.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
It's clearly more important to treat one's fellow man well than to be always praying and fasting and touching one's head to a prayer mat.
Christmas is not a myth, not a tradition, not a dream. It is a glorious reality.
Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
It seems to me, then, that vulnerability and and self-disclosure are at the heart of what we understand about the nature of God. And the reason I believe gay and lesbian people are spiritual people is that we too have participated in vulnerability and self-disclosure, especially in the process of coming-out. When someone shares with you who they really, really are, it is a special offering. To do so when it risks rejection is a profound, holy gift.
I care much more about saving the lives of mothers and babies than I do about a fancy museum somewhere.
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
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