Quotes About Memory

La memoria è lo specchio degli inganni

I ricordi erano causa di ferite ogni giorno più profonde.

HOW ODDLY SITUATED a man is apt to find himself at age thirty-eight! His youth belongs to the distant past. Yet the period of memory beginning with the end of youth and extending to the present has left him not a single vivid impression.

Non gli dispiaceva raccontare di sé, ma era spaventoso come l'evocazione dei ricordi servisse solo a rendere la sua esistenza sempre più ambigua e incerta. [...] la parte di ricordanze che aveva la funzione di controllo e di indagine non andava forse accumulandosi di nascosto come letame?" pp.1338-9, Yukio Mishima, Romanzi e Racconti, La casa di Kyoko, volume 1, i Meridiani

Even as he spoke, the boy appeared to have forgotten the subject, as if it was a balloon he had abandoned to the sky.

Oamenii din "?inutul Rodiei" sunt foarte înÈ›elepÈ›i; È™tiu c? exist? doar dou? roluri pentru fiinÈ›ele din aceast? lume: cei care È›in minte È™i cei care sunt È›inuÈ›i minte.

One letter that still remains very vivid in my mind was written in pencil on a piece of rice-paper in a youthful, almost careless scribble. If my memory is not mistaken, it was to the following effect, and broke off abruptly in just this fashion: "At the moment I am full of life, my whole body overflowing with youth and strength. It seems impossible that I shall be dead in three hours' time. And yet...

Come svanisce velocemente il ricordo delle azioni, a paragone con il ricordo dei sentimenti!»

If one looks down on one's old village from a distant mountain pass, whatever details of that era may have faded from memory, the significance of having lived there becomes vividly apparent.

Just as evil never dies, neither does the sentimental.

The past does not only draw us back to the past. There are certain memories of the past that have strong steel springs and, when we who live in the present touch them, they are suddenly stretched taut and then they propel us into the future.

She lives between the Vale of Kashmir & nirvana, beneath a bipolar sky. The voice speaks of an atlas & a mask, a map of Punjab, an ugly scar from college days on her abdomen, the unsaid credo, but I still can't make the voice say, Look, I'm sorry. I've been dead for a long time.

I've been here before, dreaming myself backwards, among grappling hooks of light. True to the seasons, I've lived every word spoken. Did I walk into someone's nightmare?

Go & tell your drinking buddies & psychoanalyst your neighbor has risen from the ashes. I wonder if I should tell you about the love letters hidden behind the doorjamb. This house still stands among my lavender flowers. Tell your inheritors to think of me when they smile up at the sky.

Putting my hands on. What April couldn't fix Wasn't worth the time: Egg shell & dried placenta Light as memory. Patches of fur, feathers, & bits of skin. A nest Of small deaths among anemone. A canopy edged over, shadowplaying The struggle underneath As if it never happened

Years ago you followed someone here, in love with breath kissing the nape of your neck, back when it was easy to be at least two places at once.

I stared at a tree against dusk Till it was a girl Standing beside a country road Shucking cane with her teeth. She looked up & smiled & waved. Lost in what hurts, In what tasted good, could she Ever learn there's no love In sugar?

as human beings, no matter how many tears we have to shed in order to learn a lesson, the moment the tears are dry, we forget. That's the type of beings we are.

The dog which remembers only to bark and not to bite, and is led through the streets as a lady's pet, is only a degenerate wolf.

Writing is a method for storing information through material signs.

The only modern ideology that still awards death a central role is nationalism. In its more poetic and desperate moments, nationalism promises that whoever dies for the nation will for ever live in its collective memory.

engineer genius mice that display much-improved memory and learning skills.

nationalism promises that whoever dies for the nation will for ever live in its collective memory. Yet this promise is so fuzzy that even most nationalists do not really know what to make of it.

we all know that the brain's retrieval system is amazingly efficient, except when you are trying to remember where you put your car keys.