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Nostalgia is denial. Denial of the painful present. The name for this denial is Golden Age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one's living in - it's a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.

— Woody Allen Midnight In Paris (2011)

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Memory

More quotes by Woody Allen

To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.

Stardust Memories (1980)

What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?

Without Feathers (1975)

Love is the answer. But while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.

Marriage? That's for life! It's like cement!

The difference between sex and death is, with death you can do it alone and nobody's going to make fun of you.

All Woody Allen quotes →

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Women and elephants never forget an injury.

Saki Reginald (1904)

Man should possess an infinite appetite for life. It should be self-evident to him, all the time, that life is superb, glorious, endlessly rich, infinitely desirable.

Colin Wilson The Philosopher's Stone (1969)

To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.

Thomas Campbell

In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important a function as recollecting.

William James The Principles of Psychology (1890)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Woody Allen (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.