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Memory Quotes
"What happens is that your wretched memory remembers the words and forgets what's behind them."
125
"I think all writing is done through memory."
102
"Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things."
90
"For we think back through our mothers if we are women."
63
"If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered."
62
"The reality that I had known no longer existed. The places that we have known belong now only to the little world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. None of them was ever more than a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; remembrance of a particular form is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years."
62
"You have a... remarkable memory.""I remember everything about you. You're the one who wasn't paying attention."
54
"Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all."
53
"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it."
52
"Rare and precious moments, how I long to live with you eternally! If only your sweetness never ceased to touch my lips, and the flutters you evoke nevermore faded away. I dream of your arm extended immeasurably to keep hold of my reaching hand. But Father Time, being a cruel master, will not grant such a wish. And so I tuck you away as cherished memories, stored in a treasure box buried in my heart. And in times of solitude, I shall bring you out to view like rainbows."
49
"Have you ever sat on a window seat, in the train of your memories while it's raining heavily? Rain has this ridiculous power of waking up all the angels and demons inside us at once, doesn't it? All of a sudden there is a war inside us, between both the sides. We can do nothing but clench our fists and watch our train derail and take a path we have never come across before. All we know at that point of time is that we are going to crash somewhere. Either our demons win or the angels, we are going to get wounded somewhere."
48
"Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them, done them, or they may only have dreamed or imagined they did so."
47
"When nothing else subsists from the past, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered...the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls...bearing resiliently, on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their essence, the immense edifice of memory."
46
"The memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama."
46
"Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders."
41
"June dawns, July noons, August evenings over, finished, done, and gone forever with only the sense of it all left here in his head. Now, a whole autumn, a white winter, a cool and greening spring to figure sums and totals of summer past. And if he should forget, the dandelion wine stood in the cellar, numbered huge for each and every day. He would go there often, stare straight into the sun until he could stare no more, then close his eyes and consider the burned spots, the fleeting scars left dancing on his warm eyelids; arranging, rearranging each fire and reflection until the pattern was clear...So thinking, he slept.And, sleeping, put an end to Summer, 1928."
41
"We know that if memory is destroyed in one part of the brain, it can be sometimes re-created on a different part of the brain. And once we can unravel that amino chain of chemicals that is responsible for memory, I see no reason why we can't unlock it and, essentially, wipe out what's there."
41
"And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die."
39
"Our feet are grape-squashed in memoriesour skins are still flushedfrom the touch of summer's lips."
38
"Rich dreams now which he was loathe to wake from. Things no longer known in the world. The cold drove him forth to mend the fire. Memory of her crossing the lawn toward the house in the early morning in a thin rose gown that clung to her breasts. He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the words and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not."
38
"Orito banishes all thoughts of Jacob de Zoet, and recalls Jacob de Zoet."
37
"When time furtively slips like sand through the fingers and our memory becomes tired and lazy, we recognize we are at war. We are at war with forgetfulness. ['The past was her best friend']"
37
"Remember why we live. Remember warmth, remember good food. Remember friends, and song, and evenings spent around the hearth."
37
"He knew very well that his memory detested him, that it did nothing but slander him; therefore he tried not to believe it and to be more lenient toward his own life. But that didn't help: he took no pleasure in looking back, and he did it as seldom as possible."
37
"There was a train that would come by our house every night, and I'd hear the whistle blow. That is the sweetest memory I have."
36
"The memories of home and of her children rose up in her imagination with a peculiar charm quite new to her, with a sort of new brilliance. That world of her own seemed quite new to her now so sweet and precious that she would not on any account spend an extra day outside it, and she made up her mind that she would certainly go back next day."
36
"She wished she could visit Mariam's grave, to sit with her awhile, leave a flower or two. But she sees now that it doesn't matter. Mariam is never very far.... Mariam is in her own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns."
35
"Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood."
35
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