# meaning of "you can never go home again"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 13, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345 "2005-12-13T01:10:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ShortBus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@ShortBus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShortBus)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/1 "2005-12-13T01:10:59Z")
I never really understood this quote. Does anyone have better insight? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/2 "2005-12-13T01:13:14Z")
I always took it to mean that things and you change, and that you can never recapture the feelings you had in the past. It will always seem different. Either that, or your parents have moved without leaving a forwarding address. šŸ˜ƒ ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/3 "2005-12-13T01:17:38Z")
Once you have grown up, and been out into the wide world, ā€œhomeā€ will not be the same place it was when you left. So much so that it will no longer be ā€œhomeā€ to you any more than any other place you live. Incidentally, _Look Homeward Angel_ was once the most popular gift for college freshmen. And no, the preceding is not true at all. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/4 "2005-12-13T01:20:09Z")
ā€œThe stranger who comes home does not make himself at home but makes home itself strange.ā€ ā€“ Rainer Maria Rilke ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/5 "2005-12-13T01:24:59Z")
Read the book. Thomas Wolf - 1940 ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/6 "2005-12-13T02:34:50Z")
**Spartydog** , I support you totally in recommending the book. But Iā€™m going to nitpick only about the copyright date which was 1929. (The author was dead before 1940.) If you liked the book that much, you might want to visit Ashville, N.C. which is the real setting for the book. The house that served as the boarding house in _Look Homeward Angel_ was his own motherā€™s boarding house. It still stands and is open to the public. There is a short walk to the place where the ā€œstone carvingā€ business was supposed to be. The boarding house is on the same street as the Radisson parking lot downtown. Characters in the book were modelled after his own family and there are books available at the Thomas Wolfe Center behind the boarding house that compare the two. (Many other interesting things there too.) The hook is coming again. **Silenus** answered the question well. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/7 "2005-12-13T02:53:17Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > **Spartydog** , I support you totally in recommending the book. But Iā€™m going to nitpick only about the copyright date which was 1929. (The author was dead before 1940.) > > If you liked the book that much, you might want to visit Ashville, N.C. which is the real setting for the book. The house that served as the boarding house in _Look Homeward Angel_ was his own motherā€™s boarding house. It still stands and is open to the public. There is a short walk to the place where the ā€œstone carvingā€ business was supposed to be. The boarding house is on the same street as the Radisson parking lot downtown. > > Characters in the book were modelled after his own family and there are books available at the Thomas Wolfe Center behind the boarding house that compare the two. (Many other interesting things there too.) > > The hook is coming again. **Silenus** answered the question well. My humble apologies. Knowing the author I Googled his name and the bibliography. 1940 came up, which must have been the year for a particular publisher. Just goes to show, you canā€™t believe everything you read on the internet! Nonetheless, it is a book that I read many years ago and consider one of the most important books I have ever read. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/8 "2005-12-13T03:38:16Z")
It means: > [@](#): > > Life is change > How it differs from the rocks ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/9 "2005-12-13T04:22:02Z")
Iā€™ve seen their ways too often for my liking ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/10 "2005-12-13T09:30:41Z")
I moved away from Ireland 8 years ago and can never ā€œgo back homeā€ as it does not exist anymore as the Ireland that I left in 1997. This is what I understand by the phrase. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/11 "2005-12-13T09:47:46Z")
no really donā€™t. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/12 "2005-12-13T16:18:58Z")
As Edward Abbey wrote in A Foolā€™s Progress ā€œHome is where, when you have to go there, you probably shouldnā€™t.ā€ ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/13 "2005-12-13T16:27:13Z")
I really understand this phrase! I returned recently to the ā€œhomeā€ where I grew up. I hadnā€™t been there in over 15 years. Everything was different. I was in the same physical location, but I wasnā€™t ā€œhome.ā€ The phrase ā€œyou canā€™t go home againā€ means that you can return to a particular hunk of land, but the old home simply doesnā€™t exist anymore so thereā€™s no way to return to it. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/14 "2005-12-13T22:11:42Z")
And as T.S. Eliot wrote: > [@](#): > > We shall not cease from exploration > And the end of all our exploring > Will be to arrive where we started > And know the place for the first time. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/15 "2005-12-14T00:28:46Z")
Thomas Wolfeā€™s _You Canā€™t Go Home Again_ was published in 1940, indeed posthumously. I think there was some confusion over which title was being referred to. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/16 "2005-12-14T02:31:57Z")
I didnā€™t read Wolfeā€™s book but I have a slightly different interpretation than what has been said here. Itā€™s not home that has changed, itā€™s _you_. You return to a place hoping to recapture that part of your life, but you have moved on and that part of your life was not waiting around for you to recapture it. My 20th high school reunion party was just down the street from the school, and they opened it up for us for a tour. I went in. It was the first time I had been back since graduation day. It was maybe a coat of paint away from being just as it had been 20 years earlier. But it wasnā€™t quite how I remembered it. The biggest difference was that I wasnā€™t a teenager anymore, so I just saw it completely differently. I had expected to be a teenager again when I walked through the doors, but it just didnā€™t happen. A similar story can be found in Anthony Bourdainā€™s _A Cookā€™s Tour_ where, in his 40ā€™s, he persuaded his brother to join him in returning to the French countryside of their youth, to recapture some of those lost years. Some things had changed, to be sure, but the author seemed to find himself sitting there in the cold eating oysters wondering what was it that he thought was so great about this when he was 10. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/17 "2005-12-14T02:43:08Z")
[QUOTE=CookingWithGas] Itā€™s not home that has changed, itā€™s _you_. You return to a place hoping to recapture that part of your life, but you have moved on and that part of your life was not waiting around for you to recapture itā€¦/QUOTE]I think both you and place changed. I donā€™t know who said it but, ā€œA man cannot step into the same stream twice.ā€ and its opposite, "The same man cannot step into the stream twice. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/18 "2005-12-14T02:46:50Z")
Wikipedia to the rescue. It was [Heraclitus.](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heraclitus) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/19 "2005-12-14T03:22:40Z")
And it was L.P. Hartley who said, ā€œThe past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.ā€ ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2005, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345/20 "2005-12-14T05:09:10Z")
> [@ShortBus](#): > > I never really understood this quote. Does anyone have better insight? The way I look at it, itā€™s like when you leave, you and all your friends have a picture in your mind of how things were. You go back a couple of times trying to recapture that picture in your mind. One day, you look at the picture and are like ā€œwho the fuck are these peopleā€. The movie Garden State gives a good example of the strangeness of returning to a place you havenā€™t been to in awhile and seeing everything as familiar yet alien. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-you-can-never-go-home-again/335345.md?page=2)