2,914 Quotes About Memory

I see a cathedral, for instance, one that’s stood for centuries and I marvel and I wonder... How many people passed through the doors? What did they pray for? How many wars did they wish to see ended? How many christenings, weddings, and funerals? Same thing with a record, I guess. Who bought it? Did they ever make love while it was playing? How many times did they read the notes in the cover? Did a song on the album change their life? I suppose it's odd to think about things like that.

Perhaps one day someone from a distant land will listen to this story of mine. Isn't this what lies behind the desire to be inscribed in the pages of a book? Isn't it just for the sake of this delight that sultans and viziers proffer bags of gold to have their histories written?

And what happens when all the threads of the tapestry have been traveled? Do you then go over them again and again in an attempt to relive the best parts? Because nothing will be like that first experience. Nothing.

Time is relative. In human life, time is experience. The faster you archive a significant experience to your memory, the more you live in the same clock time. In physics, experience is represented by the distance traveled, and this entire thing is called the Relativity of Time. I want to age and die through archiving my experiences, not watching my biological clock. Please don't waste my clock time with mediocrity and egotism, let me use it towards serving to others.

Faith keeps our ships moving, while empathy and the memories of our experiences lead to wisdom.

I have lain long here in your mind, longer than any nightmare has before me. I have sunk my roots into your worst imaginings and feasted on your memories. I know you, child.

When you’re dying, even your unhappiest memories can induce a sort of fondness, as if delight is not confined to the good times, but is woven through your days like a skein of gold thread.

You have to remember that I was a bright but simple fellow from Canada who seldom, if ever, met another writer, and then only a so-called literary type that occasionally sold a story and meanwhile worked in an office for a living.

We all have our youthful follies, embarassing to recall -- but people somehow find it hard to dismiss as a youthful folly anything that has happened to be a financial success.