The sadness of the past is with me always.

Amory thought how it was only the past that seemed strange and unbelievable.

… And, after all, an obsolete list. She was in love now, set for the eternal romance that was to be the synthesis of all romance, yet sad for these man and these moonlights and for the ‘thrills’ she had had – and the kisses. The past – her past, oh, what a joy! She had been exuberantly happy.

I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t repeat the past.”“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.“I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly. “She’ll see.

...I have never cared for any men as much as for these who felt the first springs when I did, and saw death ahead, and were reprieved - and who now walk the long stormy summer. It is a generation staunch by inheritance, sophisticated by fact - and rather deeply wise. More than that, what I feel about them is summed up in a line of Willa Cather's: "We possess together the precious, the incommunicable past.

I wouldn't ask too much of her,' I ventured. 'You can't change the past.''Can't change the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!

I wouldn't ask too much of her," I ventured. "You can't change the past.""Can't change 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.

It's just because I love the past that I want this house to look back on its glamourous moment of youth and beauty, and I want its stairs to creak as if to the footsteps of women with hoop skirts and men in boots and spurs. But they've made it into a blondined, rouged-up old woman of sixty.