Quotes About Memory

I do think about how different my life might have been had my mother not died so young, but I try not to delve into it too deeply, as it's like 'Sliding Doors,' isn't it? You just don't know.

As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like claiming to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off.

Let us lose none of their humble words, let us note their slightest gestures, and tell me, tell me that we will think of them together, now and later, when we realise the misery of the times and the magnitude of their sacrifice.

Maybe I should say that memory interests me a great deal, because I think we all tell stories of our lives to ourselves as well as to other people. Well, women do, anyway. Women do this a lot. And I think when men get older, they do this too, but maybe in slightly different terms.

Given how majestically slim she always was, it's a little odd to admit that I can remember bellowing that Whitney Houston was The Heavyweight Champion of the World! on the MTV News floor back in the '90s.

I'd say my best memory was climbing Mt. Fuji, and the worst memory was... trying to fit my feet into the free giveaway slippers at Japanese schools.

It's become a cliche to say that a piece of drama is about 'the nature of truth.' But 'Rectify' so openly plays with the slippery nature of memory that the label directly applies.

I'm old enough to remember when 'Law and Order' was once the Republican campaign slogan.

My favorite memory about 'Baywatch' is the music. That was my favorite part. It was, like, my calling. And to watch everyone run in slow motion.

I do think the past changes at a slower rate. It sits a little more still for its portrait.

Because our ancestors lived in social groups that changed slowly, because they encountered the same people throughout their lives, they could keep almost every social detail they needed to know in their heads.

I read slowly, I watch movies slowly, because I retain everything.

The first time I ever saw a horror movie, I think I was in middle school, and we watched 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' and 'It' at a slumber party.

How curious that such an outsize man, in physique as well as personality, should be remembered today mainly for giving his name to a small fish. For the 19th century, Bismarck was no herring but a leviathan. Between 1862 and 1890, he created Germany, seeing off first the Austrian empire and then France.

I enjoy coming to Scotland, and my favourite memory has to be my first Open at Carnoustie. Coming over from a small town and playing in something so big to golf and y'all.

We learn to think of history as something that has already happened, to other people. Our own moment, filled as it is with minutiae destined to be forgotten, always looks smaller in comparison.

On the whole, books are indeed less finite than ourselves. Even the worst among them outlast their authors - mainly because they occupy a smaller amount of physical space than those who penned them. Often they sit on the shelves absorbing dust long after the writer himself has turned into a handful of dust.

I'm no scientist, but I'll dare extrapolate and say that it's pretty obvious that the more you struggle to recall something, the smarter you are!

When smashing monuments, save the pedestals - they always come in handy.

My new favourite smell is new baby smell. It makes me so happy. If someone could bottle that, I'd love to have it.

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

Sometimes smell can take you back to places.

I bought Jayne Mansfield's mansion in L.A. after her death. I had met her in England and remembered her perfume. When I moved in, I could smell her, and I saw her apparition.

When the guys come back in from the spacewalk, there really is a distinct smell of space; it's something I will never forget.