I've been asked to do a retrospective since I was about 28 and I always thought that was a bit odd. It's great to look forward as an artist because in the future the possibilities are infinite; you look back and it's all fixed so it's a scary thing.
History is Philosophy teaching by example.
The retrospective glance is a relatively easy gesture for us to make.
History is philosophy teaching by examples.
You can learn a lot about the roots of your own beliefs and your own arguments by looking at history in ways that are difficult to do in the intensity of the moment now.
You've got to always go back in time if you want to move forward.
The historian is a prophet looking bzckwards.
We have to go into the past to go further and further into the future.
There's something to be said about being able to be retrospective about a certain age as opposed to just in it.
The best way to suppose what may come, is to remember what is past.
It's also not unusual for writers to look backward. Because that's your pool of resources.
Events are moving so fast and what in one moment seems impossible, the next is happening. I'm sure historians will, in time, provide theories and analysis, but for now I think most of us simply want the tide stemmed.
I really tend to write in retrospect.
Hindsight is the historian's necessary vice.
The further forward we go, the further back we have to explore in order to go forward again.
If you find great difficulty in trying to reckon with the future or even the present, I think it's intuitive to start that process by reckoning with the past.
Art is made in hindsight.
I don't really think about anything too much. I live in the present. I move on. I don't think about what happened yesterday.
We have to learn from the past.
If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.
