Quotes About Memory

I am trying to describe these things not to relive them in my present boundless misery, but to sort out the portion of hell and the portion of heaven in that strange, awful, maddening world...

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta

Kai atsigr?ži ? savo jaunyst?s dienas, jos atrodo kaip nuo man?s tolstantis blankus pakartotini? skiau?i? s?kurys, kaip rytinis spie?ius sunaudot? popier?li?, matomas Amerikos ekspreso keleivio pro paskutinio vagono galin? lang?, už kurio jie s?kuriuoja.

Once a perfect little beauty in a tartan frock, with a clatter put her heavily armed foot near me upon the bench to dip her slim bare arms into me and tighten the strap of her roller skate, and I dissolved in the sun, with my book for fig leaf, as her auburn ringlets fell all over her skinned knee, and the shadow of leaves I shared pulsated and melted on her radiant limb next to my chameleonic cheek.

The years are passing, my dear, and presently nobody will know what you and I know.

Mucho después de su muerte sentía que sus pensamientos flotaban en torno a los míos.

My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three

what was the name of that hotel, you know [nose puckered], come on, you know—with those white columns and the marble swan in the lobby? Oh, you know [noisy exhalation of breath]—the hotel where you raped me. Okay, skip it. I mean, was it [almost in a whisper] The Enchanted Hunters? Oh, it was? [musingly] Was it

In the good old days, by merely twisting fat Valechka's brittle wrist (the one she had fallen upon from a bicycle) I could make her change her mind instantly;

Vladimir Nabokov

Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.

I remember once handling an automatic belonging to a fellow student, in the days (I have not spoken of them, I think, but never mind) when I toyed with the idea of enjoying his little sister, a most diaphanous nymphet with a black hair bow, and then shooting myself.

When I was a child and she was a child, my little Annabel was no nymphet to me; I was her equal, a faunlet in my own right, on that same enchanted island of time;

I leaf again and again through these miserable memories, and keep asking myself, was it then, in the glitter of that remote summer, that the rift in my life began; or was my excessive desire for that child only the first evidence of an inherent singularity?

We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night—every night, every night—the moment I feigned sleep.

Mama mea, femeie fotogenic?, a murit în modul cel mai absurd (picnic, tr?snet) când aveam trei ani ÅŸi, în afara unui nor de c?ldur? în umbra trecutului, ea n-a l?sat nici o urm? pe drumurile pustii ale amintirii peste care a apus soarele copil?riei mele.

Lei assomiglia in modo eccezionale a sua madre. Non ho mai avuto il piacere di conoscerla di persona, ma Rodrig Ivanovi? mi ha gentilmente promesso di mostrarmela in fotografia».

against the background of that black velvet which lines at night the underside of the eyelids, Marthe's face appeared as in a locket

El dolor quedó en mí, y a partir de entonces ella me hechizó, hasta que, al fin, veinticuatro años después, rompí el hechizo encarnándola en otra.

so that beautiful idea, which otherwise would have lingered on and perhaps found a wall on which to hang and blossom, had strangely faded and shrivelled in the course of the last week.

The past was safe in its cage. Why not have a look?

?i eu priveam, o priveam È™i am înÈ›eles, clar, aÈ™a cum È™tiu c? o s? mor, c? o iubisem cum nu iubisem nimic din ceea ce v?zusem sau imaginasem pe p?mânt sau sperasem s? întâlnesc altundeva. Nu mai era decât adierea slab? a violetei È™i ecoul de frunz? moart? al nimfetei peste care m? rostogolisem cu asemenea strig?te în trecut.

No me acuerdo, ¿Cómo cabe recordar lo que uno ha sido en el pasado? Quizá fuera una ostra, o un pájaro, o quizá profesor de matemáticas... De todos modos nuestra anterior vida en Rusia parece algo que hubiera ocurrido antes del principio de los tiempos, algo metafísico, o como quiera usted llamarlo. No, metafísico no es la palabra adecuada... Sí, ahora sé de qué se trata. Es como una metempsicosis.

I watched, with the stark lucidity of a future recollection (you know—trying to see things as you will remember having seen them)