Most writers tend to get worse rather than better. I'm determined to be one that gets better.
Edmund WhiteRead
When we are young... we often experience things in the present with a nostalgia-in-advance, but we seldom guess what we will truly prize years from now.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights how our youthful experiences are often viewed with a premature sense of nostalgia, making it difficult to recognize what will truly hold value in the future.
Edmund White's quote reflects on the tendency of young people to experience life with a sense of nostalgia even while they are actively living it, suggesting a longing for moments that may not hold as much importance later on. It emphasizes the idea that what we treasure in our future selves may be different from our current perceptions, prompting a reconsideration of how we value our experiences.
Themes
NostalgiaYouthValueExperienceFuture
In practice
Example use cases
During a graduation speech, to emphasize the importance of appreciating youth while also preparing for the future.
More from Edmund White
All quotes βI've always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.
Edmund WhiteRead
In a memoir, your main contract with the reader is to tell the truth, no matter how bizarre.
Edmund WhiteRead
If bigots oppose gay marriage so vehemently, it must be because marriage is a defining institution for them; gays will never be fully accepted until they can marry and adopt, like anyone else.
Edmund WhiteRead
I was never an assimilationist. I always thought gays had some special mission.
Edmund WhiteRead
The Stonewall riots were a key moment for gay people. Throughout modern history, gays had thought of themselves as something like a mental illness or maybe a sin or a crime. Gay liberation allowed us to make the leap to being a 'minority group,' which made life much easier.
Edmund WhiteRead
Similar quotes
We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
Etty HillesumRead
You can Light Up the Whole World by Giving without any Expectation Back.
Wayne DyerRead
If you get a call to go to a certain place in the middle of the night to pick up stolen goods, and it turns out the stolen goods don't show up but the cops show up, I think you're going to have a very weak story saying, 'Well, I got swindled here.'
Charles KrauthammerRead
He is a good man who can receive a gift well.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
A man who graduated high in his class at Yale Law School and made partnership in a top law firm would be celebrated. A man who invested wisely would be admired, but a woman who accomplishes this is treated with suspicion.
Barbra StreisandRead
Feel the energy of your inner body. Immediately mental noise slows down or ceases. Feel it in your hands, your feet, your abdomen, your chest. Feel the life that you are, the life that animates the body. The body then becomes a doorway, so to speak, into a deeper sense of aliveness underneath the fluctuating emotions and underneath your thinking.
Eckhart TolleRead