Residual Effects Quotes

I spent half my life being hurt. The leftovers of hurt are an automatic gesture, like a dog that salivates.

After the 9/11 apocalypse happened in New York City, people, particularly New Yorkers, who breathed in the ash, or saw the results of that, have a tendency to keep seeing echoes and having flashbacks to it.

History rarely repeats itself, but its echoes never go away.

Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.

I've been hit hard a few times, been hit really hard a few times, but I don't think I've ever left a memorable, lasting impression on anyone I've ever hit.

Although a system may cease to exist in the legal sense or as a structure of power, its values (or anti-values), its philosophy, its teachings remain in us. They rule our thinking, our conduct, our attitude to others. The situation is a demonic paradox: we have toppled the system but we still carry its genes.

The book says we may be through with the past but the past ain't through with us.

The past stays on you the way powdered sugar stays on your fingers. Some people can get rid of it but it’s still there, the events and things that pushed you to where you are now.

It seems like a lot of what was going on when I quit is still going on.

The past could be jettisoned . . . but seeds got carried.

Once time is lit, it will burn whether or not you're breathing it in. Even after smoke becomes air, there is the memory of smoke. I am seeing as if by the light of a match, a glimpse of my life and having it feel right.

We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.

It would be nice if life worked this way, stripping the dirt from our lives and sending us back out into the world clean. But some dirt is destined to lingered.