Memory chooses to preserve what desire cannot hope to sustain.

In every evocation of a childhood scene, my stepfather's face is the least detailed, the most out of focus; when I think of him my memory's eyes have cataracts.

The receding perspective of my past smothers my present. Remembering is the malignancy that feasts on my now.

I can imagine her memories of the novel, or, more likely, of who she was and how she felt when reading it.

Forgetting is as integral to memory as death is to life.

I told her I was not sure I could bear living with memories, she said, Look up at the stars, look, they are not there, what you see is the memory of what once was, once upon a time.