“We go to the past to lay the blame - since the past can't argue. We go to our past selves to account for our present miseries.”

“Sometime we get so addicted to murmuring about the past and blaming the past for everything that we miss our whole future. You're not going to enjoy your future, and you're not going to enjoy your right now, if all you can do is be guilty and ashamed and afraid of your past.”

“We (Muslims) have no right, in our present misery, to boast of past glories. But we must realise that it was the negligence of the Muslims - and not any deficiency in the teachings of Islam - that caused our present decay.”

“If we let go of the past, we will never learn from our mistakes.”

“I believe the present matters --- not the past! The past must go. If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it. We see it in exaggerated terms --- a false perspective.”

“We learn in the past, but we are not the result of that. We suffered in the past, loved in the past, cried and laughed in the past, but that's of no use in the present. The present has its challenges, its good and bad side. We can neither blame nor be grateful to the past for what is happening now. Each new experience of love has nothing whatsoever to do with past experiences. It's always new.”