Quotes About Memory

I have a good memory. But I would be interested in memory even if I had a bad memory, because I believe that memory is our soul. If we lose our memory completely, we are without a soul.

But pain may be a gift to us. Remember, after all, that pain is one of the ways we register in memory the things that vanish, that are taken away. We fix them in our minds forever by yearning, by pain, by crying out. Pain, the pain that seems unbearable at the time, is memory's first imprinting step, the cornerstone of the temple we erect inside us in memory of the dead. Pain is part of memory, and memory is a God-given gift.

We no longer see the evolution of the nervous system, but that of a certain individual. The role of the memory is very important but... not as important as we believe. Most of the important things that we do don't depend on memory. To hear, to see, to touch, to feel happiness and pain; these are functions which are independent of memory; it is an a priori thing. Thus, for me, what memory does is to modify that a priori thing, and this it does in a very profound way.

Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention; there are many books that owe their success to two things; good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them

I love Nashville, but I miss the Gulf Coast, the wetlands, and the Delta of Lower Alabama every day. Magnolia Springs is a sweet little town in reality, but, in my heart, it is a kind of mythological oasis. I relive the memory every time I cross the Magnolia River. My memory is probably not accurate, but it's a wonderful memory. So Magnolia Springs lives in my heart as a beautiful, cool, watery place.

While the repression of a memory is a psychological process, the suppression of feeling is accomplished by deadening a part of the body or reducing its motility so that feeling is diminished. The repression of the memory is dependent upon and related to the suppression of feeling, for as long as the feeling persists, the memory remains vivid. Suppression entails the development of chronic muscular tension in those areas of the body where the feeling would be experienced. In the case of sexual feeling, this tension is found in and about the abdomen and pelvis

Memory is a part of the present. It builds us up inside; it knits our bones to our muscles and keeps our hearts pumping. It is memory that reminds our bodies to work, and memory that reminds our spirits to work to: it keeps us who we are.~Candle

Loss brings pain. Yes. But pain triggers memory. And memory is a kind of new birth, within each of us. And it is that new birth after long pain, that resurrection - in memory - that, to our surprise, perhaps, comforts us.

Hope is a memory that desires, the memory is a memory that has enjoyed.

We only really remember things for five years. After that, what we remember, what's actually etched in our brain is our memory of the thing, not the thing itself. And five years after that, what's left is our memory of the memory.

Images flicker, each one bringing its own sorrow or its own smile. Sometimes both. At the very worst, an impenetrable and sightless black and at best, a happiness so bright that it hurts the eyes to see, coming and going on some unseen projector perpetually turned by an invisible hand. One, then another. The hollow click of the shutter. Now stop. Freeze this frame. Pluck it down and hold it close and be damned by what you see. Henri always said: the price of a memory is the memory if the sorrow it brings.

And then in the FBI report it says that Hillary Clinton can't remember her exit interview from the FBI because of her concussion because she didn't have a memory. But she was acting as secretary of state at the time which means we had a secretary of state who was acting who doesn't have a memory of what she was doing.

There's something about being able to literally consume a work of art - then to divide all that pleasure of it - because it's a memory. A great wine for me is a memory, it's an extraordinary experience.

I don't know what's my first real memory. When you're little, you're always looking forward to days that are special, like Christmas, birthdays, the Fourth of July, and family gatherings. But I can't pinpoint my earliest memory.

RAM: This gives guys a way of deciding whose computer has the biggest, studliest memory. That's important, because the more memory a computer has, the faster it can produce error messages.

This kind of forgetting does not erase memory, it lays the emotion surrounding the memory to rest.

Several sorts of memory exist in us; body and mind each possesses one peculiar to itself. Nostalgia, for instance, is a malady of the physical memory.

Memory says, 'I did that.' Pride replies, 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yields.

Sometimes I wanted to take a memory - one perfect memory - curl up in it, and go to sleep.

Memory is a tenuous thing. . . . flickering glimpses, blue and white, like ancient, decomposing 16mm film. Happiness escapes me there, where faces are vague and yesterday seems to come tied up in ribbons of pain. Happiness? I look for it intead in today, where memory is something I can still touch, still rely on. I find it in the smiles of new friends, the hope blossoming inside. My happiest memories have no place in the past; they are those I have yet to create.

To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.

I've met quite a number of people in my career, but I do have an extraordinary memory. And even though they may drift into the periphery of my memory, I can bring them right back when I need them.

All was shattered, and all but memory lost, and one memory above all others, of him who brought the Shadow and the Breaking of the World. And him they named Dragon.

Absolutely, I think that is where a scent is so powerful because it harnesses our memory and our memory is a very emotional place. I do like the smell of excitement.

He smiles in my memory. A curled lip. Straight teeth. Light in his eyes. Laughing, teasing, more alive in memory than I m in reality. It was him or me. I chose me. But I feel dead too.

What you think of as they past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now. When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace -- and you do so now. The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind. When the future comes, it comes as the Now. When you think about the future, you do it now. Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is "borrowed" from the Now.

Memory plays tricks. Memory is another word for story, and nothing is more unreliable.

The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was... The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

We have everywhere an absence of memory. Architects sometimes talk of building with context and continuity in mind, religious leaders call it tradition, social workers say it's a sense of community, but it is memory we have banished from our cities. We have speed and power, but no place. Travel, but no destination. Convenience, but no ease.

Memory in Greek mythology is the mother of the muses, and it is so for me. Both personal and societal memory move me strongly, and that is one of the sources of my writing.

Our life is a hope which is continually converting itself into memory and memory in its turn begets hope.

In the Eucharistic Sacrifice the Church venerates the memory of Mary the ever Virgin Mother of God and the memory of Saint Joseph, because he fed Him whom the faithful must eat as the Bread of Life

Of her own experience she had no memory of the thing happening; but in her instinct, which was the experience of all mothers of wolves, there lurked a memory of fathers that had eaten their new-born and helpless progeny.

Truman Capote famously claimed to have nearly absolute recall of dialogue and used his prodigious memory as an excuse never to take notes or use a tape recorder, but I suspect his memory claims were just a useful cover to invent dialogue whole cloth.

The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost are and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten.

We don't all see the same way at all. Even if I'm sitting looking at you, there is always the memory of you as well. And a memory is now. So someone who's never met you before is seeing a different person. That's bound to be the case. We all see something different. I assume most people don't look very hard at anything.

When you bounce your eyes away from a sexual image, immediately pull from your memory a pure image. Maybe a wedding picture, or a vacation experience with your family, or your buddies. There are thousands of positive images you can pull from your memory within seconds to replace the sexual images you're tempted with.

I've often tried to describe how memory works. I've suggested this to students, and told them to close their eyes and try to remember what I look like. Then I ask them if they remember what I look like. But when you open your eyes you will be surprised how different what you thought I looked like is to what I actually look like. Because the imagination is a different raw material from actual vision. Memory is very different from the thing itself.

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.

The only moment ever available to you is the present moment. Everything else is memory or imagination.

Be a collector of good ideas, but don't trust your memory. The best collecting place for all of the ideas and information that comes your way is your journal.

A past may chase you if you try to escape from it... but once you confront it, it's just an old memory inside you. There's nothing to be afraid of.

The senses at first let in particular Ideas, and furnish the yet empty Cabinet: And the Mind by degrees growing familiar with some of them, they are lodged in the Memory, and Names got to them.

My earliest memory of architecture, I was perhaps 6 or 7 years old, was of my aunt building a house in mosul in the north of iraq. The architect was a close friend of my father's and he used to come to our house with the drawings and models. I remember seeing the model in our living room and I think it triggered something, as I was completely intrigued by it.

In the past 3-4 years I've developed a habit of keeping numerous small cassette recorders in my house and in a bag with me so that I'm able to commit to tape memory song ideas on a constant basis.

Some people have this really clear memory of making that decision, and I don't. My earliest memories of being involved with drama or acting were in elementary school. My sister and I got dropped off at an after-school improvisation class, a time-killer for kids while parents were doing the groceries. I'm 6 years old, and I remember running amok and playing these games.

Memory and hope constantly incite us to the extensions of the self which play so large a part in our daily life.

Everyone has their dates. For me, it's 1991. I can place every memory of my life either before or after this date. It's the year I became an adult. My mother died, and I created my company shortly thereafter. I definitely would not have done it if she hadn't passed away.