you can't go home again

English

Etymology

From the novel You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938), published posthumously in 1940.

Proverb

you can't go home again

1. Past times which are fondly remembered are irrecoverably in the past and cannot be relived.
   • 1982 April 18, Anna Kisselgoff, “Dance: Judson Theater Remembered”, in New York Times‎^[1], retrieved 5 November 2018:

     The organizers of a surprisingly refreshing program called "Judson Dance Theater Reconstruction" know that you can't go home again. Instead, they have tried to re-create that home if ever so briefly—even if it was a home these same young organizers never knew.

   • 2001 June 24, George J. Church, “Jobs in an Age of Insecurity”, in Time‎^[2], retrieved 5 November 2018:

     As novelist Thomas Wolfe (1930s, not 1960s, version) declared in one of his book titles, You Can't Go Home Again—because home isn't there anymore.

   • 2009 August 12, Michael Henderson, “The Ashes: Marcus Trescothick's health is more important than England winning”, in Telegraph (UK)‎^[3], retrieved 5 November 2018:

     The Americans have a phrase for it: you can't go home again. Once you leave, that is it. […] [H]is time has come and gone, as he confessed when he retired from Test cricket three years ago. And gone means gone.

See also

• genie is out of the bottle
• not in Kansas anymore
• there's no point crying over spilt milk
• there is no there there
• what's done is done
• yesterday is gone
• you can't step in the same river twice