you can't go home again

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

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," New York Times (retrieved 5 Nov 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," Time (retrieved 5 Nov 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," Telegraph (UK) (retrieved 5 Nov 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.

• genie is out of the bottle
• there's no point crying over spilt milk
• what's done is done
• yesterday is gone