Flashback Quotes

“You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.”
― Stephen King, It

“It is as though some old part of yourself wakes up in you, terrified, useless in the life you have, its skills and habits destructive but intact, and what is left of the present you, the person you have become, wilts and shrivels in sadness or despair: the person you have become is only a thin shell over this other, more electric and endangered self. The strongest, the least digested parts of your experience can rise up and put you back where you were when they occurred; all the rest of you stands back and weeps.”
― Peter Straub, The Throat

“She's terrified that all these sensations and images are coming out of her — but I think she's even more terrified to find out why." Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing.”
― David L. Calof

“Triggers are like little psychic explosions that crash through avoidance and bring the dissociated, avoided trauma suddenly, unexpectedly, back into consciousness.”
― Carolyn Spring

“The inability to get something out of your head is a signal that shouts, “Don’t forget to deal with this!” As long as you experience fear or pain with a memory or flashback, there is a lie attached that needs to be confronted. In each healing step, there is a truth to be gathered and a lie to discard.”
― Christina Enevoldsen

“It's time to listen to your girl. No arguing—she's smarter than you.”
― Shannon Messenger, Flashback

“Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing. So they fragment the memories into hundreds of shards, leaving only acceptable traces in their conscious minds. Rationalizations like "my childhood was rough," "he only did it to me once or twice," and "it wasn't so bad" are common, masking the fact that the abuse was devastating and chronic. But while the knowledge, body sensations, and feelings are shattered, they are not forgotten. They intrude in unexpected ways: through panic attacks and insomnia, through dreams and artwork, through seemingly inexplicable compulsions, and through the shadowy dread of the abusive parent. They live just outside of consciousness like noisy neighbors who bang on the pipes and occasionally show up at the door.”
― David L. Calof, The Couple Who Became Each Other: Stories of Healing and Transformation from a Leading Hypnotherapist

“Tonight I can smell the season the way it's usually only possible to at the very first moments of its return, before you're used to it, when you've forgotten its smell, then there it is back in the air and the flow of things shifting and resettling again.”
― Ali Smith, The Whole Story and Other Stories

“The Fitzphie pizzazz, Sophie repeated, There's no such thing.
Not what that attitude, there isn't! Keefe told her.”
― Shannon Messenger, Flashback

“Tinker considers questions to be far more valuable than answers, so it’s rare to get an actual explanation.”
Dex snorted. “Huh, I wonder what that’s like.”
“I know,” Sophie agreed. “We’re so used to everyone telling us everything we want to know the second we want to know it—how will we ever handle that kind of vagueness and mystery?”
Mr. Forkle sighed. “I suppose I walked into that one.”
― Shannon Messenger, Flashback

“Pictures ... flashed on her in sudden color, too much color, shocking color, the color that leaps out of black when lightning strikes at night.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“It takes more than going down to the video store and renting "Easy Rider" to be a rebel.”
― Dennis Hopper

“An image from one of the photographs comes back to him. He tries to push it away and focus on the present, but he sees the past.”
― Renée Knight, Disclaimer

“Toxic shame
is a
body flashback
to the moment someone
hurt you
badly
and gaslighted you
into believing
it was okay
or
well-earned.”
― Remy Alberi, The Comprehension Watch

“Much, much later. when I am back home and being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I will be enabled to see what was going on in my mind immediately after 11 August.

I am still capable of operating mechanically as a soldier in these following days. But operating mechanically as a soldier is now all I am capable of.

Martin says he is worried about me. He says I have the thousand-yard stare'.

Of course, I cannot see this stare. But by now we both have more than an idea what it means.

So, among all the soldiers here, this is nothing to be ashamed of. But as it really does just go with the territory we find ourselves in. it is just as equally not a badge of honour.

Martin is seasoned enough to never even think this. but I know of young men back home, sitting in front of war films and war games, who idolise this condition as some kind of mark of a true warrior. But from where I sit, if indeed I do have this stare, this pathetically naive thinking is a crock of shit. Because only some pathetically naive soul who had never felt this nothingness would say something so fucking dumb.

You are no longer human, with all those depths and highs and nuances of emotion that define you as a person.
There is no feeling any more, because to feel any emotion would also be to beckon the overwhelming blackness from you. My mind has now locked all this down. And without any control of this self-defence mechanism my subconscious has operated. I do not feel any more.

But when I close my eyes. I see the dead Taliban looking into this blackness. And I see the Afghan soldier's face staring into it, singing gently as he slips into another world. And I see Dave Hicks's face. shaking gently as he tries to stay awake in this one.

With this, I lift myself up, sitting foetal and hugging my knees on my sleeping mat.”
― Jake Wood, Among You: The Extraordinary True Story of a Soldier Broken By War

“Mark nodded even though she couldn't see. He'd suddenly lost any desire to talk, and his plans for a perfect day washed away with the stream. The memories. They never let him go, not even for a half hour. They always had to rush back in, bringing all the horror.”
― James Dashner, The Kill Order

“It all keeps coming back in flashes.
Churns you, burns you till it turns you into ashes.”
― Richa Pandey

“We Close In Fifteen Minutes by Stewart Stafford

Found myself the only taker,
Of a minefield guided tour,
Through no man's land life,
Every exit is now invisible.

Stardom magnified my flaws,
A broken man lost in a maze,
A deadly structure's hostage,
A hermit in denial's labyrinth.

Glimpse dwindling fragments,
In the looking glass of hubris,
Flounder in glossy quicksand,
The solutions devoured whole.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“When he unleashes on her everything falls together. Like a crick in the neck snapped into place, the boy's brain pops and is put right. It is a beautiful undoing, a beautiful becoming. He doesn't stop to think about it when the punches follow her down to the ground. He doesn't stop to notice when she goes still or when the pool of blood under her head pillows out into a great, liquid heart. He doesn't stop until he's pulled off her and he doesn't start to think again until that night, when he's back at home. For hours and hours his brain stays beautifully popped into place.”
― Carolyn Lee Adams, Ruthless

“That's the life, she said to me, as we watched a puppy chase its own tail. That's what I want to be next.
I had laughed. you would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else.
I need you, she replied.
Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper

“She smelled like fresh dough rising.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper

“Do you want to play a game?' He shuffled closer, eyes bright. Reaching into his pocket, he produced some little metal figures. Three silver foxes resting in the middle of his callused palm. Inset chips of peridot sparkled in their eyes.
...
'How do we play?'

'You throw them.' He formed a cage of his hands with the foxes inside, shook it up, and then tossed them into the grass. 'If they land standing, you get ten points. If they land on their backs, you get five points. If they land on their side, no points.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I ran anyway. And clutched his fingers as though he could drag me into a world where other kinds of games were possible. Hope lit my heart.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Even a fortune of hundreds of millions would disappear quickly in such a quest for enlightenment.”
― Dan Simmons, Flashback

“The accident was terrifying,” she recalled, pensive. “They say your life flashes before your eyes when you are on the brink of death. I can vouch for that statement, only my flashback was shorter, probably because I was younger?”
― Alexis Lawrence, O.U.R. Café

“For mysterious reasons, many authors consider it useful to provide a story about a forty-year-old man-about-town with a prologue drawn from his life as a five-year-old boy. ... There's only one letter's difference between "yarn" and "yawn," and it is often a long letter, filled with childhood memories.”
― Howard Mittelmark, How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

“He looks up and up and up to get to her face. His mama's a tall lady, and he's only seven. He's overwhelmed by red. Red heels, red nails, red lips, red hair, red eyes. So help him, the boy has always thought his mama's copper-colored eyes damn near shined red. He looks into those eyes and knows she's come home funny.”
― Carolyn Lee Adams, Ruthless

“Penance, prayer, power none is capable of killing the past.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Is it weird to try to manufacture your own life-passing-before-your-eyes thing?”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“This is no ordinary flashback; it's a surreal journey into the past with my entire body involved. It is a fleshback.”
― GLEN NESBITT, BREAK OUT OF HEAVEN