“Shall we never never get rid of this Past? ... It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body.”

“The past is a distraction, a source of envy, enmity, bitterness. Only the present matters, for only in the present can we shape the future.Cut loose the past; it is dead weight.Let the Extirpation continue. Let it never end.”

“Live in the present, remember the past, and fear not the future, for it doesn't exist and never shall. There is only now.”

“Conditioned Awareness is where we live our lives in guilt over the past and anxiety over the future and never get to experience the present.”

“He says to me, Ranulph, he says... that the past will never come again, but that we must remember that the past is made of the present, and that the present is always here.”

“Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light is throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.”