Quotes About Memory

I'm not mixed up at all. I'm only telling you what you said. What someone says and what happened are usually two different things, Rudy, especially when it comes to you. -Liesel Meminger

I climbed aboard and took it in my hand, not realizing that I would keep it and view it several thousand times over the years. I would watch the places where we intersect, and marvel at what the girl saw and how she survived. That is the best I can do- watch it fall into line with everything else I spectated during that time.

I want words at my funeral. But I guess that means you need life in your life.

Finally, in October 1945, a man with swampy eyes, feathers of hair, and a clean-shaven face walked into the shop. He approached the counter. Is there someone here by the name of Leisel Meminger? Yes, she's in the back, said Alex. He was hopeful, but he wanted to be sure. May I ask who is calling on her? Leisel came out. They hugged and cried and fell to the floor.

I guess that's the beauty of books. When they finish they don't really finish.

Yes, I'm often reminded of her, and in one of my array of pockets, I have kept her story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt - an immense leap of an attempt - to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it.

Already, I know that all of this will stay with me forever. It'll haunt me, but I also fear it will make me feel grateful. I say fear because at times I really don't want this to be a fond memory until it's over. I also fear that nothing really ends at the en. Things just keep going as long as memory can wield its ax, always finding a soft part in your mind to cut through and enter.

Do we spend most of our days trying to remember or to forget? Do we spend most of our time running towards or away from our lives?

Better that we leave the paint behind, Hans told her, than ever forget the music.

It makes me wonder, Do we spend most of our days trying to remember or forget things? Do we spend most of our time running towards or away from our lives? I don't know.

She rubbed her eyes, and after a long study of his face, she spoke Is it really you? Is it from your cheek, she thought, that I took the seed? The man nodded. His heart wobbled and he held tighter to the branches. It is.

I want to talk to him. I want to ask him about that girl and if he loved her and still misses her.

When I recollect her, I see a long list of colors, but it's the three in which I saw her in the flesh that resonate the most. Sometimes I manage to float far above those three moments. I hang suspended, until a septic truth bleeds toward clarity. That's when I see them formulate: THE COLORS RED: [rectangle] WHITE: [circle] BLACK: [swastika] They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.

Of course I told him about you, Liesel said. She was saying goodbye and she didn't even know it

I also fear that nothing really ends at the end. Things just keep going as long as memory can wield its ax, always finding a soft part in your mind to cut through and enter.

The last time I saw her was red. The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places, it was burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked across the redness.

I loved you already then.

Handfuls of frosty water can make almost anyone smile, but it cannot make them forget.

Say something enough times and you never forget it.

The Proclaimers thunder through my head. Imagine it. Imagine killing someone to the tune of two Scottish nerds wearing glasses and flattop haircuts. How will I ever listen to that song again? What will I do if it comes on the radio? I'll think of the night I murdered another man and stole his life with my own hands.

Very quickly, very suddenly, words fell through my mind. They landed on the floor of my thoughts, an in there, down there, I started to pick the words up. They were excerpts of truth gathered from inside me. Even in the night, in bed, they woke me. They painted themselves onto the ceiling. They burned themselves onto the sheets of memory laid out in my mind. When I woke up the next day, I wrote the words down , on a torn-up piece of paper. And to me, the world changed color that morning.

There was guilt for enjoying anything. Especially the joy of forgetting.

Miré, sólo unos segundos. Hacía 22 meses que no veía el mundo exterior. -¿Qué aspecto tenía? - Había estrellas. Me quemaron los ojos.

God damn, you were so beautiful, Mama.