Quotes About Memory

And while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.

when people died, they didn't go away. They were very much alive in the minds, in the hearts, in the vivid memories of those left behind. And they were not always easy to live with. Some ghosts had demands.

Their lives could not be defined by their deaths. They belonged not in perpetual pain but in the beauty of their short lives.

She'd forgotten to love, but she also forgot to hate. (about Clara's mother, who had dementia)

Beauvoir knew that almost everyone did four things, when faced with modern technology. First they created passwords. Then they forgot them. Then, on being forced to create new ones, they simplified and went with only one, which opened everything. And then they wrote it down. And hid that paper somewhere. That way they only had to remember the place, not the password

she was left with the warmth of the words from books now ash.

The memory of the heart was far stronger than whatever was kept in the mind. The question was, what did people keep in their heart?

In time, it wasn't all that long ago, but measured in events, it was an eternity.

It smelled of the past, of a time before computers, before information was "Googled" and "blogged." Before laptops and BlackBerries and all the other tools that mistook information for knowledge.

Time, it covered over everything eventually. Events, people, memory. Chiniquy had disappeared beneath Time.

She closed her eyes and felt him inside her skin. Where he was vibrant and smart and irreverent and loving. She saw his smile, heard his laugh. Felt his hands. Felt his body. Now he was gone. But he hadn't left. And she sometimes wondered if that was him, beating on her heart. And she wondered what would happen if he stopped. Every night she came here. Parked. And stared at the window. Hoping to see some sign of life.

Why were there no words that felt? Words that when you touched them you'd feel what was intended? The chasm left by the loss of Madeleine? The lump in the throat that fizzed and ached. The terror of falling asleep knowing that on waking she'd relive the loss, like Prometheus bound and tormented each day. Everything had changed. Even her grammar. Suddenly she lived in the past tense. And the singular.

Everyone we meet, every word we speak, every action taken or not taken lives in our longhouse. With us. Always. Never to be expelled or locked away.

Je me souviens,

That we could forget the good and only remember the

A memory of a fear / that has now come true.

He sat quietly for a moment, lost in what was now and forever the past. The scene he described would never be repeated. That overheard sound would never be heard again.

Armand pushed his omelette away after one bite. It was moist, with aged Comté cheese and tarragon. Just as he remembered it. Just as he liked it. But not today.

Al's mouth formed the beginning of a word. Why, perhaps. Or, what. But it died there. And Gamache saw Laurent's father pack up his home, take all his possessions, and move. To that other world. Where nine-year-old boys were killed. A world where nine-year-old boys were murdered. Armand Gamache was the moving man, the ferryman, who took him there. And once across there was no going back.

She consulted the yellowing Rolodex in her head.

I'm sorry, I don't know, I need help, I forget.

And then he remembered. And lost her again, the island drifting farther out to sea. For Robert Mongeau there would always be a before and an after. All events would henceforth be dated from Sylvie alive and Sylvie dead.

He fell silent, remembering. And then he remembered. And lost her again, the island drifting farther out to sea. For Robert Mongeau there would always be a before and an after. All events would henceforth be dated from Sylvie alive and Sylvie dead.

one day Jean-Guy Beauvoir understood that when people died, they didn't go away. They were very much alive in the minds, in the hearts, in the vivid memories of those left behind. And they were not always easy to live with. Some ghosts had demands.