Streams of Silver (Forgotten Realms: The Icewind Dale, #2; Legend of Drizzt, #5)

by R.A. Salvatore

Nostalgia is possibly the greatest of the lies that we all tell ourselves. It is the glossing of the past to fit the sensibilities of the present. For some, it brings a measure of comfort, a sense of self and of source, but others, I fear, take these altered memories too far, and because of that, paralyze themselves to the realities about them.

How many people long for that “past, simpler, and better world,” I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?

So many people, particularly humans who have passed the middle of their expected lives, continue to look back for their paradise, continue to claim that the world was a far better place when they were young.