Quotes About Memory

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.

You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all... Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it we are nothing.

Memory is like fiction; or else it's fiction that's like memory. This really came home to me once I started writing fiction, that memory seemd a kind of fiction, or vice versa. Either way, no matter how hard you try to put everything neatly into shape, the context wanders this way and that, until finally the context isn't even there anymore... Warm with life, hopeless unstable.

The act of writing is for me often nothing more than the secret or conscious desire to carve words on a tombstone: to the memory of a town forever vanished, to the memory of a childhood in exile, to the memory of all those I loved and who, before I could tell them I loved them, went away.

The invention of writing will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom.

The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all. I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware of the unreality, the evanescence of the world, a fleeting image in the moving water.

As we get older it is our short term memory that fades rather than our long term memory. Perhaps we have evolved like this so that we are able to tell the younger generation about the stories and experiences that have formed us which may be important to subsequent generations if they are to thrive.I worry though, about what might happen to our minds if most of the stories we hear are about greed, war, and atrocity

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.

I could still smell her on my fur. It clung to me, a memory of another world. I was drunk with it, with the scent of her. I'd got too close. The smell of summer on her skin, the half-recalled cadence of her voice, the sensation of her fingers on my fur. Every bit of me sang with the memory of her closeness. Too close. I couldn't stay away.

There is also a particular area of sleep called slow-wave sleep. I immediately liked this idea. It turns out this part of sleep is where the brain basically gets into step with itself and gets into this one single phase of these relatively slow brain waves - around 10 Hz or so - and the whole brain 'fires all at once'. This is a brilliant bit of sleep where we consolidate memory and learning, and memory is one of my obsessions really.

I've been a foreigner for the past twenty years. I don't have roots anymore. My roots are in my memory and my writing. That's why memory is so important. Who are you but what you can remember?

There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.

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

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.

If the public photograph contributes to a memory, it is to the memory of an unknowable and total stranger.

Memory and creativity are essential to education, but if you teach memory incorrectly, it is a total waste of time, and it will inhibit learning.

At the very end, without memory we are nothing. The things you say; the way you feel; the way you act in certain situations... it's because you have a memory of something. Imagine we are building the biggest, most solid room that we could ever have. And sometimes you need to work on it, because thoughts turn into memories. Sometimes they will start to create dreams and realities, and what actually happened changes inside yourself during the years. I think that's how to preserve reality; we change it so it stays alive. The thoughts may change, but the feeling remains.

Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.

The truth is impossible to comprehend even when one is willing to tell it. For the truth resides in memory and memory is clouded with repression and a desire to embellish. The recollections of any individual are conditioned by the general truths to which he or she has tried to live. To recall an event is to interpret it, so the truth is altered by the very act of remembering. Therefore the truth, like God, does not exist - only the search for it.

The mammalian brain evolved exquisite place memory because that was essential for survival. This is why squirrels have such a good memory for where they buried their nuts.

The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.

'Moonwalking with Einstein' refers to a memory device I used when I memorized a deck of playing cards at the U.S. Memory Championship. When I competed in 2006, I set a new U.S. record by memorizing a deck of cards in one minute and 40 seconds. That record has since fallen.

I'm aware of everything - it's my job - I keep up to speed, and I have a blessed memory. The brain chemistry I have is such that my memory is wonderful. And sometimes it's helpful, and other times it ends up being frustrating.

I have more questions than answers in this world as do most poets and writers. The field of memory we exist in is absolutely encompassing and is both a question and answer. It is memory that provides the heart with impetus, fuels the brain, and propels the corn plant from seed to fruit.

I shattered that memory by going back there. Without realizing it until it was too late, I replaced that memory with the emptiness of that day.

Because computers have memories, we imagine that they must be something like our human memories, but that is simply not true. Computer memories work in a manner alien to human memories. My memory lets me recognize the faces of my friends, whereas my own computer never even recognizes me. My computer's memory stores a million phone numbers with perfect accuracy, but I have to stop and think to recall my own.

Yet this perhaps is what love does, or the memory of it; it sucks the life from the living, glorying body and leaves it, when love has gone, a shred, a simulacrum - dross, to be swept up from the factory floor, pitiful and dusty, useless... Do all men and women feel love before they die? This force, this source of light, that lies before the sun; glances off mountains and lakes, blinding and dazzling, on a Sunday afternoon; so brilliant you have to guard your soul, fold your arms to shield your heart from the very memory of it.

A good liar must have a good memory. Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory.

It wasn't the sort of kiss I'd had with him before, hungry, wanting, desperate. It wasn't the sort of kiss I'd had with anyone before. This kiss was so soft that it was like a memory of a kiss, so careful on my lips that it was like someone running his fingers along them.

With most men, scarce a link of memory holds yesterday and to-day together.

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.

Well, hey, let's just make everything into a closure, and then we'll have our general garbage collector, installed by 'use less memory'.

It must be a good thing to die conscious of having performed some real good, and to know that by this work one will live, at least in the memory of some, and will have left a good example to those that come after. A work that is good-it may not be eternal, but the thought expressed in it is, and the work itself will certainly remain in existence for a long, long time; and if afterwards others arise, they can do no better than follow in the footsteps of such predecessors and do their work in the same way.

The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of a prince, who indulged their passions and promoted their interest. Constantine gave them security, wealth, honours, and revenge; and the support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion.

The memory of that event has only just come back to me, now doubly painful: regret for a vanished past and, above all, remorse for lost opportunities. Mithra-Grandchamp is the women we were unable to love, the chances we failed to seize, the moments of happiness we allowed to drift away. Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but in which we fail to bet on the winner.

Today, recall a favorite memory, which serves as a gateway to uplifting feelings and thoughts.

I don't want to be one of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, so influential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distant memory.

You always have the memory of the bottom, and fear of the bottom. And when you start going to the bottom you panic.

You know, as you get older, the first thing you lose is memory. It seems to be happening with me.

The selective memory isn't selective enough.

Hunger is isolating; it may not and cannot be experienced vicariously. He who never felt hunger can never know its real effects, both tangible and intangible. Hunger defies imagination; it even defies memory. Hunger is felt only in the present.

Technologies first equipped the territorial body with bridges, aqueducts, railways, highways, airports, etc. Now that the most powerful technologies are becoming tiny - microtechnologies, all technologies can invade the body. These micro-machines will feed the body. Research is being conducted in order to create additional memory for instance.

I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. It is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment, when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. A moment is such a slight thing. I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve.

Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil?

And so there would always be more to remember that could no longer be seen...our history is always returning to a little patch of weeds and saplings with an old chimney sticking up by itself...and here I look ahead to the resting of my case: I love the house that belonged to the chimney, holding it bright in memory, and love the saplings and the weeds.

Neither winning nor losing means as much to me as knowing the crowd has enjoyed my match. Some players feel that winning is everything and that losing is a disaster. Not me. I want the spectators to take home a good memory.

In literature and art memory is a synonym for invention. It is the life-blood of imagination, which faints and dies when the veins are empty.