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Memory Quotes
"What happens is that your wretched memory remembers the words and forgets what's behind them."
71
"I think all writing is done through memory."
51
"For we think back through our mothers if we are women."
44
"Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things."
30
"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it."
28
"If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered."
26
"Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all."
20
"I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does."
18
"You have a... remarkable memory.""I remember everything about you. You're the one who wasn't paying attention."
16
"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."
15
"Orito banishes all thoughts of Jacob de Zoet, and recalls Jacob de Zoet."
15
"Through dreams and ideas we are seduced to go back to particular places and instances of our past. In the course of the years, these singular moments and spaces of our history very often receive then another color and dimension. Our mind tries however to tame and keep in control the phantoms of times past. If not so, our memory can be subject to an irreversible mutilation. ['The mutilated memory']"
15
"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']"
15
"Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory."
15
"A good memory is one trained to forget the trivial."
15
"Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders."
14
"The best Qualification of a Prophet is to have a good Memory."
14
"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."
14
"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."
14
"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."
13
"If I never see you again I will always carry youinsideoutsideon my fingertipsand at brain edgesand in centerscentersof what I am ofwhat remains."
13
"I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me."
12
"Remember why we live. Remember warmth, remember good food. Remember friends, and song, and evenings spent around the hearth."
12
"Memories are like mulligatawny soup in a cheap restaurant. It is best not to stir them."
11
"The Jumble Shop would be one place where we'd sometimes accumulate down in the Village. I think it might be just a place that's unknown that was right around the corner from wherever it was that we met."
11
"We will never remember anything by sitting in one place waiting for the memories to come back to us of their own accord! Memories are scattered all over the world. We must travel if we want to find them and flush them from their hiding places!"
11
"My grandmother whispering to herself, over and over, "David is in heaven now, David is in heaven now,' my mind repeating Schrodinger's Cat, Schrodinger's Cat."
11
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