2,914 Quotes About Memory

Truth is often something we rewrite in our heads over time. We have a memory of a certain day, perhaps, or a particular event, but sometimes it is only that we've seen a photo of it. Our brain has constructed an entire narrative around a single image. It's quite remarkable. One snapshot can conjure up a whole sequence of events that may or may not have taken place. Smells can often trigger the same process in the unconscious mind. Sounds, too.

If you do not cease loving me, you will see me, you will feel me, you will hear me everywhere. My form will be before your eyes because it will remain engraved on your mind; my voice will echo in your ear because it will remain in your heart’s memory: my spirit will again reveal itself to your spirit because your soul understands me and knows me completely.

Memory implies that there is some static time and place you can go back to, whereas if you relive it by trying to put yourself back in that context, its more nuanced, less black and white. More traumatic, but also more exciting. When I knew I had to write about things that would be painful, I put off doing it for ages. But then eventually the fear of not doing it becomes greater than the fear of doing it.

Life outraces memory.

De eerste keren kunnen een plaatsje kiezen, voor eerste keren is het hele geheugen nog vrij, maar voor tweede en derde keren is het geheugen een stoel waar al iemand op heeft plaatsgenomen. De plaats is vergeven, er zit al een herinnering.

We're not built to recall every detail of every day. We're built to forget.

She felt a pang of déjà vu so strong it exerted a physical pressure around her chest.She knew this place. The memory was as vivid as if she'd been there, and yet somehow Elodie knew that it was a location she'd visited only in her mind.-- Part I: The Satchel > Chapter I

She felt a pang of déjà vu so strong it exerted a physical pressure around her chest.She knew this place. The memory was as vivid as if she'd been there, and yet somehow Elodie knew that it was a location she'd visited only in her mind.-- Part One: The Satchel > Chapter One

When people photograph an object, they often put a pack of cigarettes next to it to give the viewer a sense of the object’s actual size, but the pack of cigarettes next to the images in my memory expanded and contracted, depending on my mood at the time. Like the objects and events in constant flux, or perhaps in opposition to them, what should have been a fixed yardstick inside the framework of my memory seemed instead to be in perpetual motion.