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2a5e3e4 The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared. pain memories share Lois Lowry
b3140af Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason. exercise bravery courage memories depression future reason living strength life love medication loved-ones eating food Andrew Solomon
4546411 I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. moving-on memories future past homelessness belonging leaving attachment uncertainty roots home reminiscence memory Beryl Markham
327c22f There are memories that time does not erase... Forever does not make loss forgettable, only bearable. time memories sacrifice Cassandra Clare
91c2792 There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well. time memories sadness Nicholas Sparks
2195457 It scares me how hard it is to remember life before you. I can't even make the comparisons anymore, because my memories of that time have all the depth of a photograph. It seems foolish to play games of better and worse. It's simply a matter of is and is no longer. memories love David Levithan
9b7cce4 Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. We're so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about everyday, too many new things we have to learn. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone. memories letting-go life-lessons life love not-letting-go haruki murakami
75b8349 People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. memories Haruki Murakami
44a6307 Sharing tales of those we've lost is how we keep from really losing them. memories tales share lose remember Mitch Albom
0480343 I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can't help re-living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the whole year. memories fyodor-dostoyevsky white-nights dreamer Fyodor Dostoyevsky
f77324d Forgetting isn't enough. You can paddle away from the memories and think they are gone. But they will keep floating back, again and again and agian. They circle you, like sharks. Until, unless, something, someone? Can do more than just cover the wound. memories Sara Zarr
010df02 Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer--both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. memories fear dreams nightmares horror Bram Stoker
fcdccba Experience had taught me that even the most precious memories fade with the passage of time. memories Nicholas Sparks
943a646 Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other's bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love - think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them! memories Christopher Isherwood
e4b24ab There's something about a place you've been with someone you love. It takes on a meaning in your mind. It becomes more than a place. It becomes a distillation of what you felt for each other. The moments you spend in a place with someone... they become part of its bricks and mortar. Part of its soul. memories love shadowhunters soul Cassandra Clare
22f78a9 "Remember that you own what happened to you. If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been raised thinking that if you told the truth about what really went on in your family, a long bony white finger would emerge from a cloud and point to you, while a chilling voice thundered, "We *told* you not to tell." But that was then. Just put down on paper everything you can remember now about your parents and siblings and relatives and neighbors, and we will deal with libel later on." memories writing advice getting-started memoir remembering childhood incest memory Anne Lamott
8dcb6e0 In the short term, it would make me happy to go play outside. In the long term, it would make me happier to do well at school and become successful. But in the VERY long term, I know which will make better memories. memories long-term regrets Bill Watterson
46687fe Unhappy memories are persistent. They're specific, and it's the details that refuse to leave us alone. Though a happy memory may stay with you just as long as one that makes you miserable, what you remember softens over time. What you recall is simply that you were happy, not necessarily the individual moments that brought about your joy memories inspirational Cameron Dokey
f4adcb8 If this continues, if this goes on, then when I die, your memories of me will be my greatest accomplishment. You memories will be my most lasting impressions. lovers memories David Levithan
42808c7 The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you've got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You've got to stop. You haven't really been anywhere until you've got back home. memories travelling Terry Pratchett
05aa739 People leave traces of themselves where they feel most comfortable, most worthwhile. memories love nostalgia Haruki Murakami
46f592c Will. For a moment her heart hesitated. She remembered when Will had died, her agony, the long nights alone, reaching across the bed every morning when she woke up, for years expecting to find him there, and only slowly growing accustomed to the fact that side of the bed would always be empty. The moments when she had found something funny and turned to share the joke with him, only to be shocked anew that he was not there. The worst moments, when, sitting alone at breakfast, she had realized that she had forgotten the precise blue of his eyes or the depth of his laugh; that, like the sound of Jem's violin music, they had faded into the distance where memories are silent. loneliness loss memories love tessa-gray will-herondale Cassandra Clare
88d6113 Books are like flypaper, memories cling to the printed pages better than anything else. memories Cornelia Funke
b75d1ee I'd love to know how Dad saw me when I was 6. I'd love to know a hundred things. When a parent dies, a filing cabinet full of all the fascinating stuff also ceases to exist. I never imagined how hungry I'd be one day to look inside it. grief memories parents David Mitchell
de0731d There are edges around the black and every now and then a flash of color streaks out of the gray. But I can never really grasp any of the slivers of memories that emerge. memories sadness traumatic remember memory-loss remembering ptsd trauma Katie McGarry
cbe18fd And gradually his memory slipped a little, as memories do, even those with so much love attached to them; as if there is an unconscious healing process within the mind which mends up in spite of our desperate determination never to forget. loss memories love Colleen McCullough
3b81ce7 I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys: the smells of summer, the part of town I loved, a certain evening sky, Marie's dresses and the way she laughed. memories Albert Camus
24ebf87 These are the quicksilver moments of my childhood I cannot remember entirely. Irresistible and emblematic, I can recall them only in fragments and shivers of the heart. memories heart Pat Conroy
aa911f4 For Someone Awakening To The Trauma of His or Her Past: For everything under the sun there is a time. This is the season of your awkward harvesting, When the pain takes you where you would rather not go, Through the white curtain of yesterdays to a place You had forgotten you knew from the inside out; And a time when that bitter tree was planted That has grown always invisibly beside you And whose branches your awakened hands Now long to disentangle from your heart. You are coming to see how your looking often darkened When you should have felt safe enough to fall toward love, How deep down your eyes were always owned by something That faced them through a dark fester of thorns Converting whoever came into a further figure of the wrong; You could only see what touched you as already torn. Now the act of seeing begins your work of mourning. And your memory is ready to show you everything, Having waited all these years for you to return and know. Only you know where the casket of pain is interred. You will have to scrape through all the layers of covering And according to your readiness, everything will open. May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide Who can accompany you through the fear and grief Until your heart has wept its way to your true self. As your tears fall over that wounded place, May they wash away your hurt and free your heart. May your forgiveness still the hunger of the wound So that for the first time you can walk away from that place, Reunited with your banished heart, now healed and freed, And feel the clear, free air bless your new face. memories past-trauma trauma John O'Donohue
35c789c "I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O' Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Don't worry about doing it well yet, though. Just get it down." memories writing encouragement child young memoir childhood writers Anne Lamott
e26e7be You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you. memories life-experience Stephen King
e2c8fd9 You will remember this when all else fades, this moment, here, together, by this well. There will be certain days, and certain nights, you'll feel my presence near you, hear my voice. You'll think you have imagined it and yet, inside you, you will catch an answering cry. On April evenings, when the rain has ceased, your heart will shake, you'll weep for nothing, pine for what's not there. For you, this life will never be enough, there will forever be an emptiness, where once the god was all in all in you. memories languor longing John Banville
a40ac07 "Commander Tool Belt" Jason said. "Bad Boy Supreme" Piper said. "Chef Leo the Tofu Taco Expert." They laughed and told stories about Leo valdez, their best friend. They stayed on the roof until dawn rose, and Piper started to believe they could have a fresh start. It might even be possible to tell a new story in which Leo was still out there. Somewhere..." memories heartbreaking piper-mclean jason-grace leo-valdez Rick Riordan
63d36af I'm 65 years old. Everyday the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time. memories future past silk-spectre watchmen Alan Moore
e45532c My heart's with you, Bill, no matter how it turns out. My heart is with all of them, and I think that, even if we forget each other, we'll remember in our dreams. memories sad Stephen King
b7686c0 When my husband died, people kept telling me not to cry. People kept trying to help me to forget. But I didn't want to forget... So I realize, that if it's hard for me, how much harder it must be for you. memories inspirational-life remembering Katherine Paterson
c232494 You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building. Damage has been done to your city. You say, ''It happened overnight.'' But of course it didn't. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all you know, the place closed down moments after the last time you walked out the door. (Ten months ago? Six years? Fifteen? You can't remember, can you?) And there have been five stores in that spot before the travel agency. Five different neighborhoods coming and going between then and now, other people's other cities. Or 15, 25, 100 neighborhoods. Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing. loss individuality memories change mom-and-pop-stores retail modern-society transience neighborhoods new-york-city consumerism Colson Whitehead
85e21ed Sitting on the floor, I'd replay the past in my head. Funny, that's all I did, day after day after day for half a year, and I never tired of it. What I'd been through seemed so vast, with so many facets. Vast, but real, very real, which was why the experience persisted in towering before me, like a monument lit up at night. And the thing was, it was a monument to me. memories past real surreal remembering Haruki Murakami
7353f6e The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only seen as children always do I believe when we go back to them memories Charles Dickens
3d96c6b What was our life like? I almost don't remember now. Though I remember , the space of time it occupied. And I remember it fondly. marriage memories memory nostalgia Richard Ford
66d16b9 Do you remember how you felt at seventeen? I do and I don't (...) Imagine you came from outer space and someone showed you a butterfly and a caterpillar. Would you ever put the two of them together? That's me and my memories. memories Douglas Coupland
ec29ca0 It's not easy remembering the good times. memories past humor love remembered Cecelia Ahern
ad5d774 But she knew that no matter what beauty lay behind, it must remain there. No one could go forward with a load of aching memories. memories beauty past Margaret Mitchell
286e433 Dreams are composed of many things, my son. Of images and hopes, of fears and memories. Memories of the past, and memories of the future... memories Neil Gaiman
1986ad3 "The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rockstar and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion." memories legacy scars John Green
3bd0214 Time had not faded my memories (as I had prayed to God it might), nor had it healed my wounds as it is said always to do. I began each day with the hope that the next day would be better, my recollections a little less pointed, but I would awake to the same pain, as if a black lamp were burning eternally inside me, radiating darkness. pain memories depression Orhan Pamuk
e04a87f Souls and memories can do strange things during trance. memories dreams strange Bram Stoker
664682b Desiree. It's like falling in love every night and having your heart broken every morning... Having more memory is just a way of distorting a greater amount of the past. memories lost-love Craig Clevenger
b36ffaa For better or for worse, music is the language of memory. It is also the language of love. relationships memories romance music Jodi Picoult
9d481d8 Aching familiar in a way that made me wish I was still eight. Eight was before death or divorce or heartbreak. Eight was just eight. Hot dogs and peanut butter, mosquito bites and splinters, bikes and boogie boards. Tangled hair, sunburned shoulders, Judy Blume, in bed by nine thirty. memories eight childhood-memories nostalgia Jenny Han
ca38b3f After all, isn't the purpose of the novel, or of a museum, for that matter, to relate our memories with such sincerity as to transform individual happiness into a happiness all can share? memories museums novels sincerity Orhan Pamuk
6b24971 How can days and happenings and moments so good become so quickly ugly, and for no reason, for no real reason? Just - change. With nothing causing it. memories nostalgia Philip K. Dick
49561d8 It was growing dark on this long southern evening, and suddenly, at the exact point her finger had indicated, the moon lifted a forehead of stunning gold above the horizon, lifted straight out of filigreed, light-intoxicated clouds that lay on the skyline in attendant veils. Behind us, the sun was setting in a simultaneous congruent withdrawal and the river turned to flame in a quiet duel of gold....The new gold of moon astonishing and ascendant, he depleted gold of sunset extinguishing itself in the long westward slide, it was the old dance of days in the Carolina marshes, the breathtaking death of days before the eyes of children, until the sun vanished, its final signature a ribbon of bullion strung across the tops of water oaks. memories nature moon south-carolina sunset sun twilight childhood Pat Conroy
75b5927 Until then we're going to keep making memories like this, moments when we're the only two people in the whole world. And when we get scared or lonely or confused, we'll pull out these memories and wrap them around us and they'll make us feel safe. And strong. loneliness memories strength safe encouragement scared Laurie Halse Anderson
8a465c0 For they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say? --some days, some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people; they came back in the middle of St. James's Park on a fine morning--indeed they did. memories nostalgia Virginia Woolf
6d760bd Who are we without our memories? memories life truth la-vie Marta Acosta
f71452c Writing from memory like this, I often feel a pang of dread. What if I've forgotten the most important thing? What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all the the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning into mud? memories writing memory nostalgia Haruki Murakami
da42e4c ...it seemed to me that the entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened into one another. We were able to pass from one room to the next only by exercising out memories and imaginations, but most of us, in our laziness, rarely exercised these capacities, and forever remained in the same room memories life-coaching Orhan Pamuk
ab112d8 Nay! Alas for us all! And for all that walk in the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed [...] for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, and the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Lothlorien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor grow stale. memories loyalty memory J.R.R. Tolkien
583114c I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time. time memories dying Will Schwalbe
7fce798 "A question wells up inside me, a question so big it blocks my throat and makes it hard to breathe. Somehow I swallow it back, finally choosing another. memories murakami Haruki Murakami
7cbc7d3 The termites of reduction have always gnawed away at life: even the greatest love ends up as a skeleton of feeble memories. memories love Milan Kundera
04d01f6 In art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we were asked to endure... pain memories faith hope grace-and-favor grace creator artist memory creation Madeleine L'Engle
592aa3d Time goes on, and your life is still there, and you have to live it. After a while you remember the good things more often than the bad. Then, gradually, the empty silent parts of you fill up with sounds of talking and laughter again, and the jagged edges of sadness are softened by memories. time memories life Lois Lowry
a605749 I'd forgotten about it, and now I forgot it again. There are things that have to be forgotten if you want to go on living. memories past living forgotten Jim Thompson
ca7b7d8 There were so many of these moments that could never be captured accurately, even in the camcorder, only in the heart. memories moments reminiscence Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
3514dfa Sometimes I would see them not as mementos of the blissful hours but as the tangible precious debris of the storm raging in my soul. memories Orhan Pamuk
9cbdaa4 All the people we loved, who have died, are still alive in the past. The only thing that really separates us is time. It's a matter of perspective. That's what separates optimism and pessimism. memories optimism Diana Palmer
8fdf3b6 The power of things inheres in the memories they gather up inside them, and also in the vicissitudes of our imagination, and our memory -- of this there is no doubt. memories things memory Orhan Pamuk
6b85892 The death of a parent, he wrote, 'despite our preparation, indeed, despite our age, dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions that surprise us and that may cut free memories and feelings that we had thought gone to ground long ago... memories death preparation parents Joan Didion
7ad5cbf He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a long while at her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the future. Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine; the frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it. loss memories tranquility dreamy touching L.M. Montgomery
c5058a8 During the day, memories could be held at bay, but at night, dreams became the devil's own accomplices. memories princes wales nightmares Sharon Kay Penman
d8f467a And I can promise you something, because it was a thing I saw many years later - a vision in the book thief herself - that as she knelt next to Hans Hubermann, she watched him stand and play the accordion. He stood and strapped it on in the alps of broken houses and played the accordion with kindness silver eyes and even a cigarette slouched on his lips. The bellows breathed and the tall man played for Liesel Meminger one last time as the sky was slowly taken away from her. memories Markus Zusak
e77802b Songs and smells will bring you back to a moment in time more than anything else. It's amazing how much can be conjured with a few notes of a song or a solitary whiff of a room. memories songs love Emily Giffin
618363b The Old Days, the Lost Days -- in the half-closed eyes of memory (and in fact) they never marched across a calendar; they huddled round a burning log, leaned on a certain table, or listened to those certain songs. memories past reminiscence Beryl Markham
4440d30 "Yeah, you're right about having entire rooms full of film and photos... in that Sydney Mines house I have a darkroom, I have boxes of film and home movie footage... I have a few projectors, I have piles of Kodachrome slides... I like photographs. The world is always running away from society and the only way to keep the stuff that's happened in the past is by taking photographs, I can keep memories of things alive with photographs," Alecto responded. "People say that a time machine can't be invented, but they've already invented a device that can stop time, cameras are the world's first time machines... The steel mill, the coal mines, the train tracks, the smog in the sky, I've been able to rescue it on super-8 and Kodachrome, and no one can remediate those photographs, I can keep them as long as I want to." memories industrial polaroid steel-mill kodak coal-mine darkroom kodachrome cape-breton super-8 nova-scotia photograph smog photo digital coal pollution train capture film nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
99e1f0f She smiles, and her eyes look as if they can see back into her memory, into all the things that have gone into making a person what they are. memories past melancholy oblivion remembering memory Lois Lowry
64327cb It's just this: that there are places we all come from-deep-rooty-common places- that makes us who we are. And we disdain them or treat them lightly at our peril. We turn our backs on them at the risk of self-contempt. There is a sense in which we need to go home again-and can go home again. Not to recover home, no. But to sanctify memory. memories Robert Fulghum
8cf4713 Very soon she'll join all the others who know the secret and will not tell it. Or cannot. Or try and fail because they do not know enough. They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, high-pitched laughter. The way they walk and talk and scream or try to kill (themselves or you) if you laugh back at them. Yes, they've got to be watched. For the time comes when they try to kill, then disappear. But others are waiting to take their places, it's a long, long line. She's one of them. I too can wait--for the day when she is only a memory to be avoided, locked away, and like all memories a legend. Or a lie ... lies memories Jean Rhys
ba83b25 I want to live my life, carrying my memories with me. Even if those memories are painful, even if those memories do nothing but hurt me, even if I wish I could forget those memories... As long as I keep carrying them with me, and don't run away from them... Someday, I believe I will get to the point where I'm not oppressed by those memories. That's what I want to believe. I'd like to think that there's not a single memory that I have which would be okay to forget. memories positive life Natsuki Takaya
851381a "For our own part, we learned a great deal about the techniques of love, and because we didn't know the words to denote what we saw, we had to make up our own. That was why we spoke of "yodeling in the canyon" and "tying the tube," of "groaning in the pit," "slipping the turtle's head," and "chewing the stinkweed." Years later, when we lost our own virginities, we resorted in our panic to pantomiming Lux's gyrations on the roof so long ago; and even now, if we were to be honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that it is always that pale wraith we make love to, always her feet snagged in the gutter, always her single blooming hand steadying itself against the chimney, no matter what our present lovers' feet and hands are doing." memories virgins virginity sex-education Jeffrey Eugenides
de5ccc6 There were differences between memories and dreams. He had only dreams of things he had wanted to do, while Lespere had memories of things done and accomplished. memories Ray Bradbury
ce6fb8a The information. Every bit that of information that was ever in your brain. But the information is not the mind Jenna. That we've never accomplished before. What we've done with you is groundbreaking. We cracked the code. The mind is an energy that the brain produces. Think of a glass ball twirling on your fingertip. If it falls, it shatters into a million pieces. All the parts of a ball are still there, but it will never twirl with that force on your fingertip again. The brain is the same way. mind memories brain information pieces Mary E. Pearson
73f2bf5 I know that happy things and fun things eventually come to an end. But things that are scary and sad come to an end, too. They always do. Even if you can't always believe that...please don't give up. Live. I want you to live. Even if you make a mistake. Even if you take the long way. It's still okay. Just please...please, live. Don't give up on pushing forward. Please. At least don't give up on that. Even if I'm not by your side, it's still okay. It's okay. memories positive life fruits-basket tohru-honda Natsuki Takaya
d87de50 You know, sometimes it's nice to just have someone to blame, even if it has to be yourself, even if it doesn't make sense. experiences feelings memories difficulty challenges forgetting forgiveness mistakes regret Lois Lowry
04151cb The sudden loss of her father was like living with a wound that would never heal, yet her memories of him were fading more and more every day. loss memories death daughter father Frank Beddor
c03d68f The feelings resembled memories; but memories of what? Apparently one can remember things that have never happened. memories Leo Tolstoy
515f804 Leave old pains alone. When they cease coming to call, do not invite them back. pain memories honesty truth invite ponder summon pains remember reminiscence memory Robin Hobb
aee8537 I didn't mind what she called me, what anybody called me. But this was the room I had to live in. It was all I had in the way of a home. In it was everything that was mine, that had any association for me, any past, anything that took the place of a family. Not much: a few books, pictures, radio, chessmen, old letters, stuff like that. Nothing. Such as they were, they had all my memories. memories past carmen-sternwood chessmen old-letters pictures the-hobart-arms so-noir-it-hurts philip-marlowe home radio Raymond Chandler
5868731 What matters is at the end of life, when you're about to pass into oblivion, that you've at least scratched 'Kilroy was here,' on the last wall of the universe. memories making-your-mark mementos notice oblivion William Faulkner
77d2b56 In the West we cling to the past like limpets. In Haiti the present is the axis of all life. As in Africa, past and future are but distant measures of the present, and memories are as meaningless as promises. present memories past west promises Wade Davis
efe1690 They thought more before nine a.m. than most people thought all month. I remember once declining cherry pie at dinner, and Rand cocked his head and said, 'Ahh! Iconoclast. Disdains the easy, symbolic patriotism.' And when I tried to laugh it off and said, well, I didn't like cherry cobbler either, Marybeth touched Rand's arm: 'Because of the divorce. All those comfort foods, the desserts a family eats together, those are just bad memories for Nick.' It was silly but incredibly sweet, these people spending so much energy trying to figure me out. The answer: I don't like cherries. irony thoughts memories funny over-thinking broken-home cherry-pie the-mind iconoclast psychologist divorce childhood-memories simplicity ironic patriotism logic childhood symbolism psychology Gillian Flynn
a2e3f5c "Listen, listen!" I interrupted her. "Forgive me if I tell you something else.... I tell you what, I can't help coming here to-morrow, I am a dreamer; I have so little real life that I look upon such moments as this now, as so rare, that I cannot help going over such moments again in my dreams. I shall be dreaming of you all night, a whole week, a whole year. I shall certainly come here to-morrow, just here to this place, just at the same hour, and I shall be happy remembering today. This place is dear to me already. I have already two or three such places in Petersburg. I once shed tears over memories ... like you.... Who knows, perhaps you were weeping ten minutes ago over some memory.... But, forgive me, I have forgotten myself again; perhaps you have once been particularly happy here...." memories dreams happiness Fyodor Dostoyevsky
b00b555 The voices may propel you to warble along, or to dance, they may inspire you to seduction or insurrection or inspection or merely to watching a little less television. The voices of Barrett Rude Jr. and the Subtle Distinctions lead nowhere, though, if not back to your own neighborhood. To the street where you live. To things you left behind. And that's what you need, what you needed all along. memories liner-notes Jonathan Lethem
76ac7ec Tell the story, gather the events, repeat them. Pattern is a matter of upkeep. Otherwise the weave relaxes back to threads picked up by birds to make their nests. Repeat, or the story will fall and all the king's horses and all the king's men. . . . Repeat, and cradle the pieces carefully, or events will scatter like marbles on a wooden floor. memories truth Ann-Marie MacDonald
f94a711 The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify(by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling. Taip buna miskuose, jie visada atrodo pazistami, kadai prarasti, isbluke lyg seniai mirusio giminaicio veidas, tartum sena svajone, tarsi nuotrupa pamirstos dainos, plaukiancios virs vandens, o labiau uz viska - tarsi auksines praejusios vaikystes amzinybes ar preejusios brandos, ir visa, kas gyva, visa, kas mire, visa sirdgela, istikusi pries milijona metu, ir debesys, plaukiantys tau virs galvos, liudija savo vienisu artimumu si jausma. memories feelings-of-overwhelm reflections woods Jack Kerouac
698ea15 I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now. I stayed up all night, anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life, to rediscover happiness I had known as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden. These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past. memories past life ishmael-beah Ishmael Beah
f8afc19 Who can ever affirm, or deny that the houses which have sheltered us as children, or as adults, and our predecessors too, do not have embedded in their walls, one with the dust and cobwebs, one with the overlay of fresh wallpaper and paint, the imprint of what-has-been, the suffering, the joy? memories houses Daphne du Maurier
a1ba6f9 I took up space. I was a collection of cells and memories, awkward limbs and clumsy fashion crimes; I was the repository of my parents' expectations and evidence of their disappointments memories living life parents disappointment expectations memory Robin Wasserman
3baf9b0 Walk with me, memory to memory, the shared path, the mutual view. Walk with me. The past lies in wait. It is not behind. It seems to be in front. How else could it trip me as as I start to run? loss memories past love trip nostalgia Jeanette Winterson
e8e046a She ordered a martini and encouraged me to, but said she couldn't drink it with her medication. She just liked seeing it in front of her, like the old days, all set to do its little magic. memories life siblings nostalgia Richard Ford
89c5a10 She knew enough to recognize that memories were crowding in, and there was nothing he could do. They wouldn't let him speak. She would never know what scenes were driving that turmoil. war memories robbie Ian McEwan
cfd7b22 Bouncing on beds, I remember from childhood, is a great depression reliever. memories depression stress-reliever Robert M. Pirsig
5ccfaca Even now that he is gone I have him still, in the richness of my memories. I've lived my life again just telling it to you. memories quote richness Arthur Golden
8efcf19 Staring out to sea, I finally forced myself to stop thinking of her as someone still somewhere, if only in memory, still obscurely alive, breathing, doing, moving, but as a shovelful of ashes already scattered; as a broken link, a biological dead end, an eternal withdrawal from reality, a once complex object that now dwindled, dwindled, left nothing behind except a l like a fallen speck of soot on a blank sheet of paper. memories death-of-a-loved-one John Fowles
61b73f0 It's just that...without the memories, it's all meaningless. memories Lois Lowry
ced89d5 When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for when you come back, while new places offer up new thoughts, new possibilities. Exploring the world is one the best ways of exploring the mind, and walking travels both terrains. travel memories nature wandering novelty exploration walking Rebecca Solnit
0beb634 How many times have I gone back to the border of memory and peered into the darkness beyond? But it is not only memories that hover on the border. There are all sorts of phantasmagoria that inhabit that realm. The nightmares of a lonely child. Fairy tales appropriated by a mind hungry for a story. The fantasies of an imaginative little girl anxious to explain to herself the inexplicable. Whatever story I may have discovered on the frontier of forgetting, I do not pretend to myself that is the truth. memories truth Diane Setterfield
1f971c0 For a long time, she sat and saw. She had seen her brother die with one eye open, on still in a dream. She had said goodbye to her mother and imagined her lonely wait for a train back home to oblivion. A woman of wire had laid herself down, her scream traveling the street, till it fell sideways like a rolling coin starved of momentum. A young man was hung by a rope made of Stalingrad snow. She had watched a bomber pilot die in a metal case. She had seen a Jewish man who had twice given her the most beautiful pages of her life marched to a concentration camp. And at the center of all of it, she saw the Fuhrer shouting his words and passing them around. Those images were the world, and it stewed in her as she sat with the lovely books and their manicured titles. It brewed in her as she eyed the pages full to the brims of their bellies with paragraphs and words. words memories death good-bye hitler Markus Zusak
c44cc75 ... I believe in some sense much akin to the belief of faith, that I noticed, felt, or underwent what I describe--but it may be that the only reason childhood memories act on us so strongly is that, being the most remote we possess, they are the worst remembered and so offer the least resistance to that process by which we mold them nearer and nearer to an ideal which is fundamentally artistic, or at least nonfactual; so it may be that some of these events I describe never occurred at all, but only should have, and that others had not the shades and flavors--for example, of jealousy or antiquity or shame--that I have later unconsciously chosen to give them... memories unreliable-narrator memory Gene Wolfe
cf52ad1 There are things without explanation, moments when life will become arranged in such odd ways that you imagine a whole vocabulary of meaning inside them. The breakfast smell struck me like that. memories love Sue Monk Kidd
b33a883 The memory of the pain did not destroy the reality of the pleasure; grief did not obliterate joy. pain memories joy reality inspirational past-and-present memory pleasure Orson Scott Card
3d892a5 Not very long ago I was driving with my husband on the back roads of Grey County, which is to the north and east of Huron County. We passed a country store standing empty at a crossroads. It had old-fashioned store windows, with long narrow panes. Out in front there was a stand for gas pumps which weren't there anymore. Close beside it was a mound of sumac trees and strangling vines, into which all kinds of junk had been thrown. The sumacs jogged my memory and I looked back at the store. It seemed to me that I had been here once, and the the scene was connected with some disappointment or dismay. I knew that I had never driven this way before in my adult life and I did not think I could have come here as a child. It was too far from home. Most of our drives out of town where to my grandparents'house in Blyth--they had retired there after they sold the farm. And once a summer we drove to the lake at Goderich. But even as I was saying this to my husband I remembered the disappointment. Ice cream. Then I remembered everything--the trip my father and I had made to Muskoka in 1941, when my mother was already there, selling furs at the Pine Tree Hotel north of Gravehurst. memories jog-your-memory childhood nostalgia Alice Munro
81b645c We recognize that you've used substances to try to regain your lost balance, to try to feel the way you did before the need arose to use addictive drugs or alcohol. We know that you use substances to alter your mood, to cover up your sadness, to ease your heartbreak, to lighten your stress load, to blur your painful memories, to escape your hurtful reality, or to make your unbearable days or nights bearable. pain live memories sadness heartbreak life holistic-rehab holistic-treatment-center holistic-therapy holistic-treatment holistic-health dependency non-12-step passages-ventura pax-prentiss substance-abuse passages-malibu addiction-cure addiction-treatment-center alcohol-abuse chris-prentiss drug-abuse heartache survival Chris Prentiss
0915958 Photos're better than nothing, but things're better than photos 'cause the things themselves were part of what was there. memories momentos David Mitchell
905dc36 "Yes. I remember." His voice had deepened. Mina did, too, every conversation they'd had over breakfast, and it made her heart ache. Such a strange thing... She suddenly couldn't laugh anymore." memories Meljean Brook
213bd41 But this I have lived five thousand years to learn. Power is as cold as forgotten ashes. Only my love can keep alive the memory of my daughter, the stories of Ray, Arturo, Yaksha, and most of all the grace of Krishna. memories love creatures-of-forever the-last-vampire thirst christopher-pike grace power Christopher Pike
610ce95 "Your childhood," said Yackle coaxingly, as if she could smell his thoughts. As if she could sniff out those passages he hadn't chosen to retail at drink parties. Her words lulled him. The past, even a bitter past, is usually more pungent than the present, or at least better organized in the mind." words history thoughts memories past memory Gregory Maguire
8fe8366 Three children lay on the rocks at the water's edge. A dark-haired girl, two boys, slightly older. This image is caught forever in my memory, like some fragile creature preserved in amber. memories quote preserved fragile quotes childhood nostalgia Juliet Marillier
9d74e3a One day, I will look up and all the people I know will be dead or abroad. memories life Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
55c9b93 The mind is like an object that picks up dust. The object doesn't know, any more than the mind does, why what clings to it clings. mind memories memory James Baldwin
9d3c7ca If you help them (the crew) create good memories, they'll forget all the bad stuff memories teamwork Geoff Dyer
1f6bdbc He sometimes asked himself a question about life. Which are truer, the happy memories, or the unhappy ones? He decided, eventually, that the question was unanswerable. memories life truth unanswerable unhappy-memories the-only-story julian-barnes memory Julian Barnes
05cdf62 She would never truly be her own woman if she allowed fear and old memories to dictate where she would or would not go. memories independence Mercedes Lackey
c6ec676 It's a funny thing about names, how they become a part of someone. names individuality memories remembrance Lois Lowry
f057bb9 He was asking for memories, too young himself to know that memories were only memories of memories. memories Alan Hollinghurst
5915692 The way you remember or dream about your loved ones - the ones who are gone - you can't stop their endings from jumping ahead of the rest of their stories. You don't get to choose the chronology of what you dream, or the order of events in which you remember someone. In your mind - in your dreams, in your memories - sometimes the story begins with the epilogue. thoughts relationships memories friends inspiration family death life love end memory nostalgia John Irving
7a08f11 Depression years come back to me now as the happy times, even though we were all struggling. We were happy and didn't know it. memories Fannie Flagg
b02ecd8 Our relationship could now thrive only in my head, and to discuss it with a mother intent--admittedly in my own best interest--on challenging it with reality might do it irreparable harm. thoughts relationships memories Mohsin Hamid
0713d83 Sometimes, the things that are the most real only happen in one's imagination, Oscar, she said. We only remember what never really happened. memories Carlos Ruiz Zafón
210cf04 Quien de verdad quiera conservar en la memoria lo sucedido, no debe entregarse a los recuerdos. El recuerdo humano es un proceso demasiado agradable como para retener el pasado; es lo contrario de lo que pretende ser. Porque el recuerdo puede mas, mucho mas: realiza con tenacidad el milagro de concertar la paz con el tiempo ido, en la que se volatiliza cualquier asomo de rencor y el blando velo de la nostalgia se deposita sobre todo lo que se percibio como duro y acerado. Las personas felices tienen mala memoria y hermosos recuerdos. memories reflexions nostalgia Thomas Brussig
bee5d53 Sjecaj me se s ruzom - rekao joj je. memories remembrance Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
2f8a6cb I suppose if we forgot stuff we'll never know we forgot it, because we won't remember memories remember remembering Pete Hautman
e3c4a23 The dead live in our memories. live memories reality life ghosts Pete Hautman
e3496ff "One thing that tells me a company is in trouble is when they tell me how good they were in the past. Same with countries. You don't want to forget your identity. I am glad that you were great in the fourteenth century, but that was then and this is now. When memories exceed dreams, the end is near. The hallmark of a truly successful organization is the willingness to abandon what made it successful and start fresh." In societies that have more memories than dreams, too many people are spending too many days looking backward. They see dignity, affirmation, and self-worth not by mining the present but by chewing on the past. And even that is usually not a real past but an imagined and adorned past. Indeed, such societies focus all their imagination on making that imagined past even more beautiful than it ever was, and then they cling to it..., rather than imagining a better future and acting on that." memories past identity Thomas L. Friedman
b1e8f12 Is deja vu actually the specter of false timelines that never happened but did, casting their shadows upon reality? time memories reality science-fictionce timelines time-travel Blake Crouch
9ee2332 Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. memories John Irving
4c47a18 Time could heal, but it wouldn't make wrongs go away. Time came back like a reminder. Time folded with memory. In a moment, everything could fold itself up, and time stand still. time memories karen-tei-yamashita tropic-of-orange memory Karen Tei Yamashita
4debef6 And all love that had overtaken her would have to be a memory, a truck on the interstate roaring up from the left, a thing she must let pass. memories Lorrie Moore
62d220f I like attics. They're as peaceful as God's church. Alone and apart, but a body can hear everything. The past stacked up like forgotten memories, but with a small effort, brought down and enjoyed again. memories gordian-nathaniel-pierce two-ghosts-for-sister-rachel Kim Harrison
7211c72 Now, obviously, all old people seem cool whenever we see black-and-white images of their younger selves. It's human nature to inject every old picture with positive abstractions. We can't help ourselves. We all do it. We want those things to be true, because we all hope future generations will have the same thoughts when they come across forgotten photographs of us. memories photographs nostalgia Chuck Klosterman
c08f47b "<>" memories death sadness life dela i-heart-you-you-haunt-me lisa-schroeder funeral goodbye black colors misery Lisa Schroeder
ed6b4c6 What if memories were just memories, without any consolatory or persecutory power? Would they exist at all, or was it always emotional pressure that summoned images from what was potentially all of experience so far? memories past patrick-melrose Edward St. Aubyn
a84e55b I blinked and the images were gone. But I remembered how the laugh and the howl and the splash would ripple and echo in the stillness of our lake, and I wondered if ripples and echoes like those ever fully die away, if somewhere in the woods my father's joyful yelps still bounced quietly off the trees. Silly thought, but there you go. memories nature harlan-coben tell-no-one vacation father Harlan Coben