They're always looking forward to going places they're just coming back from, or regretting doing things they haven't yet done. They say hello when they mean goodbye.
Interpretation
People often romanticize the past or worry about the future, overlooking the present moment.
This quote by Martin Amis highlights the tendency of individuals to long for experiences they've already had or to dwell on actions they have yet to undertake, suggesting a disconnect from the present. It illustrates how people often express themselves in contradictory ways, saying 'hello' as a means of acknowledging new beginnings while actually signifying 'goodbye' to the past, thus revealing the complexities of human emotions and relationships.
In practice
In a motivational speech about mindfulness, one can use this quote to emphasize the importance of living in the moment.
Oh Christ, the exhaustion of not knowing anything. It's so tiring and hard on the nerves. It really takes it out of you, not knowing anything. You're given comedy and miss all the jokes. Every hour you get weaker. Sometimes, as I sit alone in my flat in London and stare at the window, I think how dismal it is, how heavy, to watch the rain and not know why it falls.
Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark - spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It's passing, yet I'm the one who's doing all the moving.
You know how it is when two souls meet in a burst of ecstatic volubility, with hearts tickling to hear and to tell, to know everything, to reveal everything, the shared reverence for the other's otherness, a feeling of solitude radiantly snapped by full *contact* - all that?
All my adult life I have been searching for the right adjective to describe my father's peculiarly aggressive comic style. I recently settled on 'defamatory.'
Love is an abstract noun, something nebulous. And yet love turns out to be the only part of us that is solid, as the world turns upside down and the screen goes black.
Jane was my wicked stepmother: she was generous, affectionate and resourceful; she salvaged my schooling and I owe her an unknowable debt for that. One flaw: sometimes, early on, she would tell me things designed to make me think less of my mother, and I would wave her away, saying, Jane, this just backfires and makes me think less of you.
Do you truly believe that life is fair, Senor de la Vega? -No, maestro, but I plan to do everything in my power to make it so.
You may try your experiment for a week and see how you like it. I think by Saturday night you will find that all play and no work is as bad as all work and no play
I think anybody who goes away finds you appreciate home more when you return.
Time and tragedy have forced her to grow too quickly, at least for my taste, into a young woman who stitches bleeding wounds and knows our mother can hear only so much.
Your life is right now! It's not later! It's not in that time of retirement. It's not when the lover gets here. It's not when you've moved into the new house. It's not when you get the better job. Your life is right now. It will always be right now. You might as well decide to start enjoying your life right now, because it's not ever going to get better than right now-until it gets better right now!
My mother wanted me to join the Indian army, as the army was seen as a decent and respectable career to have. I shocked my mother by telling her that I wanted to be a writer.
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