Quotes About Memory

But Peter knew that over time, even just a few months' worth, this memory would fade, like all the others—like the colors of Auntie's photograph. First the sound of Theo's voice would be lost, and then the picture itself, the details dissolving into visual static until all that remained was an empty space where his brother had been.

Why did some images stay with us that way, he wondered, arbitrary flashes of life seared into memory, while others vanished without a trace?

There was a deep heartache inside its phrases, but the feeling was expressed with such tenderness that it did not seem sad. It made him think of the way time felt, always falling into the past, becoming memory.

As long as we remember a person, they're not really gone. Their thoughts, their feelings, their memories, they become a part of us.

Before she became the Girl from Nowhere-the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years-she was just a little girl in Iowa, named Amy. Amy Harper Bellafonte.

There was something in the pages of these books that had the power to make him feel better about things, a life raft to cling to before the dark currents of memory washed him downstream again, and on brighter days, he could even see himself going on this way for some time. A small but passable life. And then, of course, the end of the world happened.

She could remember running along the same stretch of the Embankment before, with the Doctor, soon after they first met. It was strange how similar and yet how different it al seemed. The skyline was lower, yet most of the landmarks were there – the Houses of Parliament, the bridges. No Millennium Wheel, though, she thought with a smile.

Sometimes, Stukeley wondered if the captain, in spite of his considerable powers, was blessed with the memory of a goldfish.

Because freedom may be a forbidden fruit in tyrannies, but once tasted, it is unforgettable.

There is a time to study a map passionately, obsessively. To see where you've gone, where others have gone before you. To commit to memory every obstacle, every danger. Shakespeare had a term for this obsession: mappery. But there is a time, too, when you say, come dragons. I challenge you to find me.

Ser una mentirosa no es fácil. Para empezar, has de tener muy presente el hilo de todas tus mentiras. Recordar exactamente qué has dicho y a quién se los ha dicho. Porque esa primera mentira siempre te conduce a la siguiente. Nunca hay una sola mentira.

Time steals from us the capacity to be smitten, does it not? It slowly but surely washes away all your enthusiasm and deposits uncertainty in its place.

Memories are tricky; there's what you remember, and what you think you remember, the editions and redactions of memory, the corrections and amendations and blundered readings and the whole apparatus criticus of the conscious mind trying to make bread out of soup.

The past would be useful if you could use it like that, as a place where you could bury dead bodies, shovelling this convenient loss of memory into the grave to cover up their faces. That's not what the past was for, though. It was where the present went to rot down, so you could use it to grow the future. He smiled; nice piece of imagery, but it was too glib to fool anyone.

He never makes notes, he just remembers it all, like a barmaid.

Why, when he'd been a kid . . . The mail coach arrived before Corvolo had a chance to tell Poldarn the complete history of his life, which was probably just as well. Corvolo had an amazing memory and could recall trivial conversations from thirty years ago, apparently word for word. If the coach had been even a quarter of an hour late, Poldarn was sure he'd have murdered the old man.

Not even my not-finest hour. More like fifteen minutes.

It was good to know that memory could be melted down and recast if it came out flawed the first time around, just like a bell.

I think that's all the facts I can remember. If you like we can talk a bit more about metaphysics, or I can tell you some stories about my life as a soldier; you could go back and check the references, to give you an idea of the quality of my memory and powers of observation. I'd rather not, though, since you might use them to work out who I could be; somebody important who was at the same battles as I was. Purely by coincidence, you understand.

Only, I'm sure I remember you, because you were riding along down the street on a great big white horse, and people were cheering like you were somebody important.' Poldarn grinned. 'Do I look important?' 'No,' the young man said. 'But neither do a lot of important people.

After all, what is truth but the consensus of memories of reliable witnesses?

It suits here now to forget last year, but she'll never make me forget last year, not if I live to be a hundred. I didn't know much then. I know now that there's people like her who want to be friendly for what you do, not what you are.

Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.

The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness and knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.