Quotes About Memories

Painful memories didn't just ease back in-they shoved the door open hard, all of them and all at once

My great-grandfather, Dad often told us, saved his best wines for special occasions. He was killed when the Nazis invaded Paris. The Nazis ended up drinking his wine. Lesson: you never wait. When I was growing up, we used only the good plates. We used the best linens. We drank out of Waterford crystal. When my father died, his wine cellar was nearly empty.

Some things we pack away, stick in the back of the closet, never expect to see again ? but we can't quite make ourselves discard them. Like dreams, I guess.

The house had the stale smell of a grandparent. When you're a kid, the smell gives you the creeps; when you're an adult, you want to bottle it and let it out with a cup of cocoa on a bad day.

Mrs. Friedman lived in a happy snow globe of AP History.

The pain flooded in again. It was always there, of course. Through the shaking hands and slapping of the backs, the grief stayed by his side, tapping Griffin on the shoulder, whispering in his ear, reminding him that they were partners for life.

Someone once told Hester that memories hurt, the good ones most of all. As she got older, Hester realized just how true that was.

The young family who'd moved into the Miller home had gotten rid of the Millers' trademark overflowing flower boxes. The new owners of the Davis place had ripped out those wonderful shrubs Bob Davis had worked on every weekend. It all reminded Myron of an invading army ripping down the flags of the conquered.

When Myron was ten years old, his father had taken him and his younger brother, Brad, to a game. Brad was five at the time. Dad had secured

On the radio a rock group called the Motels were repeatedly singing the ingenious line Take the L out of lover, and it's over. Deep. Literal, but still deep. The Motels. Whatever happened to them?

Some things we pack away, stick in the back of the closet, never expect to see again—but we can't quite make ourselves discard them. Like

I don't remember how big the balloons were. I was a kid then. Everything looks bigger when you're a kid.

For the first eighteen years of my life, I have zero memories that aren't entangled in you. We shared a womb; then we shared a room. There was, in fact, nothing we did not share. I told you everything. Everything. There is nothing I kept from you. There is nothing I was embarrassed or ashamed to tell you because I knew you'd still love me. For everyone else, there is a bit of a facade. There has to be. But with you and me, there was none. I

The artwork of children always broke Grace's heart. The pieces were like snapshots, a moment that is forever gone, a life-post, never to be repeated. Their artistic abilities will mature and change. The innocence will be gone, captured only in fingerpaint or coloring out of the lines, in uneven handwriting.

Eban Trainor shut his eyes for a moment. "I can't see how this matters anymore. We should let him rest in peace." "I'm not asking out of some kind of prurient interest." The

Philip had been betrothed to Ruth for over forty years, but some nights he still thought about Sophie more than he cared to admit. The sliding door. The road not taken. The big what-if. The good one he'd let get away.

This neighborhood felt like a part of her. It felt as though some of her DNA was in the blue clapboards and off-white Cape Cods and cracked pavement and small patches of lawn, like she'd been beamed away à la Star Trek but a few of her particles got left behind. Part of her would always be at Thanksgiving at Uncle Tommy and Aunt Eileen's, sitting at the "kids' table," which was a Ping-Pong table with a king-size sheet doubling as a tablecloth.

That made Rudy's eyes widen. "So? What was that, twenty years ago?" "Seventeen." "Long time ago. In a place like Atlantic City, it's a lifetime." Boy, did that make sense. You live in dog years here. Everything ages faster. And

Mom squeezed her daughter's hand. "Don't make me face what I don't need to face," she said. "It's over. You can't change the past. But see, you can shape it with your memories. I get to choose which ones I keep, not you." Kat

My best childhood memories all revolve around being on the golf course, mostly with my father. We rarely spoke as we strolled. We didn't have to. Somehow my father and golf were able to convey life lessons to me—patience, failure, humility, dedication, sportsmanship, practice, small improvements, missteps, mental error, fate, doing everything right and still not getting the desired result—without words.

Emily tried a smile, but it just wasn't happening. "Well, well, well," she said when they were alone. "If it isn't the good one I let get away.

He hadn't been inside this six-story pachyderm in seventeen years, but if this stomach lining could talk.… He let the smile hit his face. Why not? Why the hell not? He had tortured himself long enough.

Janice Matley. As quickly as the name had formed in his mind, Eric pushed it away. No use thinking about that now. Dead was dead. No comeback. No reprieve. Nothing. Eric

That cuckoo saved your life once," Myron said. "Yeah, but you remember how," she countered. Myron did. A dark alley. Win's doctored bullets. Brain matter tossed about like parade confetti. Classic Win. Effective but excessive. Like squashing a bug with a wrecking ball. Esperanza