2,914 Quotes About Memory

It didn’t take tragedy or war to derail a man. It took only a memory.

And so it was when anyone tried to speak: their minds would become tangled in remembrance. Words became floods of thought with no beginning or end, and would drown the speaker before he could reach the life raft of the point he was trying to make. It was impossible to remember what one meant, what, after all of the words, was intended.

Memories are small prayers to God, if we believed in that sort of thing.

Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events.

Memory loss is one way of coping with damage.

So we don't believe that life is beautiful because we don't recall it but if we get a whiff of a long-forgotten smell we are suddenly intoxicated and similarly we think we no longer love the dead because we don't remember them but if by chance we come across an old glove we burst into tears.

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.

Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened.

Already, I know that all of this will stay with me forever. It'll haunt me, but I also fear it will make me feel grateful. I say fear because at times I really don't want this to be a fond memory until it's over. I also fear that nothing really ends at the en. Things just keep going as long as memory can wield its ax, always finding a soft part in your mind to cut through and enter.