Quotes About Memory

It's clear that the largest things are contained in the smallest. There can be no doubt about it. At this very moment, as I write, there's a planetary configuration on this table, the entire Cosmos, if you like: a thermometer, a coin, an aluminium spoon and a porcelain cup. A key, a mobile phone, a piece of paper and a pen. And one of my grey hairs, whose atoms preserve the memory of the origins of life, of the cosmic Catastrophe that gave the world its beginning.

He learned how to forget, and forgetting brought him relief.

We live in a state of siege. If one takes a close look at each fragment of a moment, one might choke with terror. Within our bodies disintegration inexorably advances; soon we shall fall sick and die. Our loved ones will leave us, the memory of them will dissolve in the tumult; nothing will remain. Just a few clothes in the wardrobe and someone in a photograph, no longer recognized. The most precious memories will dissipate. Everything will sink into darkness and vanish.

He also gave her the name of his illness, but in Polish, so she had no idea what it was, because she just didn't know the Polish name for it. "Do you remember our promise?" he wrote.

Every body part deserves to be remembered. Every human body deserves to last. It is an outrage that it's so fragile, so delicate. It is an outrage that it's permitted to disintegrate underground, or given the mercy of flames, burned like trash.

Darling: the popular form of address used in speaking to a person of the opposite sex whose name you cannot at the moment recall

immortality is that's the telling of stories in the remember.

Every act of perception, is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.

Such power, so much death in one place at one time. Never to be forgotten.

But always there was that dark thought -- Vietnam

Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.

The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.

There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.

Llorar de amor, de hastío, de alegría. Llorar de frac, de flato, de flacura. Llorar improvisando, de memoria. ¡Llorar todo el insomnio y todo el día!

If one could not bear the memory of the dead, then they must be shut out of memory. There was no other action anyone could take against the bafflement of grief.

Je craignais de perdre ce que j'avais enfoui dans ma mémoire, tel un bibliothécaire qui refouterait un incendie.

Il nous faut remplacer les mourants, et les mourants savent qu'ils ne valent que pour ce qu'ils ont transmis.

Les guerres sont d'immenses machines à fabriquer des âmes errantes.

Un buon libro lascia al lettore l'impressione di leggere qualcosa della propria esperienza personale. Quando la letteratura è al suo apice ci sembra che d'improvviso ricordiamo qualcosa d'importante che sapevamo ma abbiamo scordato.

Los pueblos que se apoyan sobre tumbas gloriosas son los que mejor se preparan para el porvenir",

Indeed, one of the most frightening consequences of the Holocaust may well be that rather than serving as a warning to preserve humanity at all cost, it has provided a license to privilege physical survival over moral existence.

This pine tree by the rock Must have its memories too: After a thousand years, See how its branches Lean towards the ground.

Why haven't I Thought of this before? This body, Remembering yours, Is the keepsake you left.

I've traveled That dark path to the world Which comes down from this mountain Just to see you One last time.