Memory
Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. From the television show The Wonder Years
A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen. Edward de Bono
Every man's memory is his private literature. Aldous Huxley
God gave us memories that we might have roses in December. J.M. Barrie, Courage, 1922
Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food. Austin O'Malley
Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things. Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal
We do not remember days; we remember moments. Cesare Pavese, The Burning Brand
There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory. Josh Billings
Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us. Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest"
It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life. P.D. James
And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses - would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories? Rainer Maria Rilke
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Pleasure is the flower that passes; remembrance, the lasting perfume. Jean de Boufflers
One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
Emily Dickinson, "Time and Eternity"
I have memories - but only a fool stores his past in the future. David Gerrold
A happy childhood can't be cured. Mine'll hang around my neck like a rainbow, that's all, instead of a noose. Hortense Calisher, Queenie, 1971
Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door. Saul Bellow
Memory itself is an internal rumour. George Santayana, The Life of Reason
A childhood is what anyone wants to remember of it. It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction. Carol Shields
It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment - but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer? Lord Byron
What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen. Cynthia Ozick
The past is never dead, it is not even past. William Faulkner
The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them. Friedrich Nietzsche
Leftovers in their less visible form are called memories. Stored in the refrigerator of the mind and the cupboard of the heart. Thomas Fuller
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
T.S. Eliot
Memory is what tells a man that his wife's birthday was yesterday. Mario Rocco
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.
Thomas Campbell, Hallowed Ground
In memory's telephoto lens, far objects are magnified. John Updike
Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember. Seneca
Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth. Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses
I am a miser of my memories of you
And will not spend them.
Witter Bynner, "Coins"
The man with a clear conscience probably has a poor memory. Author Unknown
The sense of smell can be extraordinarily evocative, bringing back pictures as sharp as photographs of scenes that had left the conscious mind. Thalassa Cruso, To Everything There is a Season, 1973
The two offices of memory are collection and distribution. Samuel Johnson
The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant. Salvador Dali
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it. Michel de Montaigne
The faintest waft is sometimes enough to induce feelings of hunger or anticipation, or to transport you back through time and space to a long-forgotten moment in your childhood. It can overwhelm you in an instant or simply tease you, creeping into your consciousness slowly and evaporating almost the moment it is detected. Stephen Lacey, Scent in Your Garden, 1991
She glances at the photo, and the pilot light of memory flickers in her eyes. Frank Deford
The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time. Friedrich Nietzsche
Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories. From the movie An Affair to Remember
It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time. Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin. Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
I'm always fascinated by the way memory diffuses fact. Diane Sawyer
To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward. Margaret Fairless Barber, The Roadmendera