Selected memory quotes

1. I bet the worst part about dying is the part where your whole life passes before you.

2. Who ran to help me when I fell, And would some pretty story tell, Or kiss the place to make it well? My mother.

3. It is also possible within this lifetime to enhance the power of the mind, enabling one to reaccess memories from previous lives. Such recollection tends to be more accessible during meditative experiences in the dream state. Once one has accessed memories of previous lives in the dream state, one gradually recalls them in the waking state.

4. How rich art is; if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never without food for thought or truly lonely, never alone.

5. Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays, For she and I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways.

6. No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

7. I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys.

8. 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.

9. I used to suffer particularly because the poor animals must endure so much pain and want. The sight of an old, limping horse being dragged along by one man while another man struck him with a stick he was being driven to the Colmar slaughterhouse - haunted me for weeks.

10. There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.

11. Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories - and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.

12. Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.

13. I turned vegetarian after 9/11. A friend of mine came back from New York and said that he couldn't stand the smell of burnt flesh. It immediately reminded me of a barbecue.

14. For us military men, it is impossible to forget.

15. We do not have the right to forget that reactionary imperialism exists and its forces actively operate in the world, that they encourage the arms race and that they try to restore the spirit of the Cold War.

16. No matter how long we exist, we have our memories. Points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems.

17. To understand a man, you must know his memories. The same is true of a nation.

18. I watched them from the window, thy children at their play, And I thought of all my own dear friends, who were far, oh, far away, And childish loves, and childish cares, and a child's own buoyant gladness Came gushing back again to me with a soft and solemn sadness; And feelings frozen up full long, and thoughts of long ago, Seemed to be thawing at my heart with a warm and sudden flow.

19. Keep some souvenirs of your past, or how will you ever prove it wasn't all a dream?

20. Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to.

21. Just when I nearly had the answer, I forgot the question.

22. Only by not forgetting the past can we be the master of the future.

23. Nobody would say the cowshed was heaven and nobody would say the inhuman torture of so many victims be called a revolution of the proletariat. ... A museum should be established to remind China of the follies and disasters that had fallen from 1966 to 1976. We cannot forget what had happened and history should not repeat itself.

24. It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.

25. Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.

26. There's a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn't a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.

27. All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent. After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood.

28. My earliest memory is of feeling different. My parents told me that I wasn't like other children.

29. You know I'm finished with the old chess because it's all just a lot of book and memorization you know.

30. The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.

31. The highway is alive tonight But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light With the ghost of old Tom Joad.

32. Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

33. I revere the memory of Mr. F. as an estimable man and most indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle; it was not ecstasy but it was comfort.

34. Our whole past experience is continually in our consciousness, though most of it sunk to a great depth of dimness. I think of consciousness as a bottomless lake, whose waters seem transparent, yet into which we can clearly see but a little way.

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

36. My blessed California, you are so wise. You render death abstract, efficient, clean. Your afterlife is only real estate, And in his kingdom Death must stay unseen.

37. As a child, I was more afraid of tetanus shots than, for example, Dracula.

38. It began probably when I was about five years old, putting on my mother's lipstick.

39. The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once.

40. Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

41. 4: We must repeat!

42. Another old friend gone!

43. Forever goes quick.

44. At Harvey House ...

45. Thus King Dolor's reign passed, year after year, long and prosperous. Whether he was happy - 'as happy as a king' - is a question no human being can decide. But I think he was, because he had the power of making everybody about him happy, and did it too; also because he was his godmother's godson, and could shut himself up with her whenever he liked, in that quiet little room in view of the Beautiful Mountains, which nobody else ever saw or cared to see. They were too far off, and the city lay so low. But there they were, all the time. No change ever came to them; and I think, at any day throughout his long reign, the King would sooner have lost his crown than have lost sight of the Beautiful Mountains. ~ Ch 10

46. They all stand straight and swing to the side No heads, but they feet still glide Take a step back, twist and dive I even seen Kurt Cobain get live

47. My favorite color is red, like the blood shed from Kurt Cobain's head, when he shot himself dead

48. I admit, I was fascinated by Adolf Hitler. He was a pleasant boss and a fatherly friend.

49. Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

50. I think that there are few people in one's life that you never really feel that they're gone. I have to remind myself that she isn't around.

51. But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.

52. If I could remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist.

53. There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.

54. Posterity will talk of Washington as the founder of a great empire, when my name shall be lost in the vortex of revolution.

55. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

56. I bet the worst part about dying is the part where your whole life passes before you.

57. It is also possible within this lifetime to enhance the power of the mind, enabling one to reaccess memories from previous lives. Such recollection tends to be more accessible during meditative experiences in the dream state. Once one has accessed memories of previous lives in the dream state, one gradually recalls them in the waking state.

58. Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid.

59. And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

60. I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse.

61. It's easy to forget you are in debt to the tune of ?10, and to a woman who never forgets anything. Crikey, she can even tell you which Coronation Street character was the first one to have their brain removed (Footnote: And not have it replaced by acting talent unfortunately.)

62. MRR: Davey, tell the story about the time you guys played with SNFLL. Davey: Well, we have a couple of stories about that... When we played with SNFU, Geoff and I and our friend Smiff... Mark was there too, Adam had already left, for reasons unmentionable. We were standing at the table selling stuff, and there was this big girl... She was really tall, about 100 feet tall and...She wasn't fat or anyting- she was just BIG. She had this big smile and bright red lipstick and a short blond flat-top - a bleach-ed blond haircut like the girl in Rocky IV, or whatever. Mark: Like Susan Powter. Davey: Yeah, like her! 'Stop the Insanity!' So, she kept coming up to the SNFU table and checking out stuff and saying, 'Anything free?' and she'd smile. We'd say, 'No' and she'd make this grimace, pout, roll her eyes and walk away. She kept coming up and doing that and at one point, I was drinking Jolt and I had let somebody else drink out of it. There was lipstick on it when she gave it back to me. I said to Dave (SNFU's manager) after I drank from it, 'That's the closest thing I've come to a kiss in a long time.' And, so, he says, 'Aw, Davey, you just got to exert yourself.' So the big girl comes back and takes these two SNFU stickers off the table and tapes them to her breasts, which were kind of large. Dave says, 'Don't make me go there, 'cause I will.' She says, 'Well what if i run?' and Dave says, 'Well, me and Davey will have to catch you and tear them off. Won't that be fun?' I was just sitting there, so Dave says, 'I'll tell you what. If you give my friend Davey here a little kiss I'll let you have those two stickers for free.' She says, 'Okay,' and then he asked, 'How about you, Dave?', 'Uh, okay.' - I thought I was just gonna get a little smooch... Geoff: So Davey puckers up and the girl takes her hand, puts it behind Davey's head, and this 80 foot tongue shoots out of her mouth and goes down Davey's throat! Davey: I was shocked, I was crying, I couldn't breathe. Ohhh- it was horrible. Geoff: My eyes popped out of my head about three feet. Davey: It was traumatizing. Mark: And later on when she saw you what did she say? Oh, 'I'll see YOU later.' Davey: I'm a fucking idiot.

63. In our family we had a well-to-do aunt who always gave us magnificent Christmas presents. She was so much part of the family that we even included her in our prayers at bedtime... I suppose I must have been nine or ten years old at the time. Suddenly Aunt Anna's Christmas presents were lying there too, and among them a parcel with 'Forsner's on it. So of course I instantly knew it contained a projector. For a couple of years I'd been consumed with a passionate longing to own one, but had been considered too small for such a present... I was incredibly excited. Because my father was a clergyman we never got our presents on Christmas Eve, like other Swedish children do. We got them on Christmas Day... Well, you can imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be my older brother - he's four years older than myself - who got the projector - and I was given a teddy bear. It was one of my life's bitterest disappointments. After all, my brother wasn't a scrap interested in cinematography. But both of us had masses of lead soldiers. So on Boxing Day I bought the projector off him for half my army and he beat me hollow in every war ever afterwars. But I'd got the projector, anyway.

64. They were gunning the motorcycles. There were these little backfires. There was one noise like that. I thought it was a backfire. Then next I saw Connally grabbing his arms and saying 'no, no, no, no, no,' with his fist beating. Then Jack turned and I turned. All I remember was a blue-gray building up ahead. Then Jack turned back so neatly, his last expression was so neat... you know that wonderful expression he had when they'd ask him a question about one of the ten million pieces they have in a rocket, just before he'd answer. He looked puzzled, then he slumped forward. He was holding out his hand ... I could see a piece of his skull coming off. It was flesh-colored, not white-he was holding out his hand ... I can see this perfectly clean piece detaching itself from his head. Then he slumped in my lap, his blood and his brains were in my lap ... Then Clint Hill [the Secret Service man], he loved us, he made my life so easy, he was the first man in the car ... We all lay down in the car ... And I kept saying, Jack, Jack, Jack, and someone was yelling 'he's dead, he's dead.' All the ride to the hospital I kept bending over him, saying 'Jack, Jack, can you hear me, I love you, Jack.'

65. The first time I saw Peter what made the impression was the visual content of what he and Dudley Moore were doing. It was Not Only, But Also..., and Pete and Dud were dressed up as nuns and were bouncing up and down on a trampoline. I rolled off my seat. I thought I'd ever seen anything so hilarious or so surreal or so... well... beautiful. I spent the next four or five years trying to emulate that sort of visual surprise. ~ Terry Jones

66. Woman: Do come along quick, there's a house on fire. Fire Chief: A house on fire? Just a moment, lady - what's the address? Woman: Grimshaw Street. Fire Chief: Grimshaw Street - Grimshaw ... now wait a minute, I know it as well as can be, and I just can't place it. Woman: Oh come along, it's only just round... Fire Chief: No, no, no - don't tell me, let me try and think of it for myself. Grimshaw St-... oh, isn't that annoying, I could walk straight to it, and I can't think of it.

67. When the generation that has known war is still alive, it is well that they should be given chapter and verse with regard to some of the best-known cries, catchwords, and exhortations by which they were so greatly influenced. As a warning, therefore, this collection is made. It constitutes only the exposure of a few samples. To cover the whole ground would be impossible.

68. I guess the only jewels of my life were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire

69. There are places I remember All my life though some have changed Some forever not for better Some have gone and some remain

70. In einem kurzen Weilchen, meine Herren, sehen wir uns ohnehin alle wieder. Das ist das Los aller Menschen. Es lebe Deutschland. Es lebe Argentinien. Es lebe Osterreich. : Ich werde sie nicht vergessen.

71. Because I have seen hell, death and the devil, because I had to watch the madness of destruction, because I was one of the many horses pulling the wagon and couldn't escape left or right because of the will of the driver, I now feel called upon and have the desire, to tell what happened.

72. It would be difficult Bland thought, to forget Hercule Poirot, and this not entirely for complimentary reasons.

73. Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience or feeling an old emotion?

74. His face was blue, on his fingers Flecks of green. 'This is my father', I thought.

75. My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six.

76. My only true friend here in the prison among the defendants is Albert Speer. He is a great architect and has a great genius for organization. When I came to Berlin in 1943 to take charge of the navy, there was a housing shortage. The navy assigned me a poor-looking house in Dahlem. I phoned my friend Speer and told him I needed a house. He said he would do his best. Next day he phoned and said my wife should come over to inspect the house he had for me. It was a beautiful manor house, on a hill, with two wide windows on either side and great gardens all around it. It was two stories high, with a fine broad staircase connecting the two floors. Often in the evenings Speer and his wife would visit me and my wife, and we would return the visits. Speer would bring along pianists and violinists, who were perfect. We would spend many a musical evening together.

77. When America ceases to remember his greatness, America will no longer be great.

78. As all the perfumes of the vanished day Rise from the earth still moistened with the dew So from my chastened soul beneath thy ray Old love is born anew.

79. I keep seeing the Backstreet Boys on TV and all their fans and I'm thinking, I was one of those girls when I was little. Ohmigod.

80. Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

81. Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.

82. To what a degree the same past can leave different marks- and especially admit of different interpretations.

83. Three hundred men hastened forth, wearing gold torques, defending the land - and there was slaughter. Though they were slain they slew, and they shall be honoured to the end of the world; and of all us kinsmen who went, alas, but for one man none escaped.

84. 'I may not be walking with you all the way, or even much of the way, as I walk with you now. Don't be angry with me if I am not there in person, alive and well, when you need me. I would like nothing more than to be with you always. Do not feel sorry for me if I am gone. When we were together, I loved you deeply and you gave me so much happiness I can never repay you. Camera, wherever I am when you feel sick at heart and weary of life, or when you stumble and fall and don't know if you can get up again, think of me. I will be watching and smiling and cheering you on.'

85. Behind every man now alive stand 30 ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living.

86. Die Erinnerung wirkt wie das Sammlungsglas in der Camera obscura: Sie zieht alles zusammen und bringt dadurch ein viel schoneres Bild hervor, als sein Original ist.

87. I heard the sighing of the reeds At noontide and at evening, And some old dream I had forgotten I seemed to be remembering.

88. Emmy's exquisite youth and her virginal air, Eyes and teeth in the flash of a musical smile, Come to me out of the past, and I see her there As I saw her once for a while.

89. They pass upon their old, tremulous feet, Creeping with little satchels down the street, And they remember, many years ago, Passing that way in silks. They wander, slow And solitary, through the city ways, And they alone remember those old days Men have forgotten.

90. In those early amorphous years of life, when memory had only just begun, when life was full of Beginnings and no Ends, and everything was Forever ...'

91. The legacy of heroes - the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.

92. Posterity is a most limited assembly. Those gentlemen who reach posterity are not much more numerous than the planets.

93. Like all great travellers I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.

94. I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget.

95. Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him.

96. 640K ought to be enough for anybody.

97. People say, 'Bill, quit talking about Kennedy, man. It was a long time ago. Just let it go, all right? It's a long time ago, just forget it.' I'm like, 'All right, then don't bring up Jesus to me. As long as we're talking shelf life here :'

98. Today, we are all saddened by the loss of Brooke Astor, a quintessential New Yorker and one of the great philanthropists of our time. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers were the beneficiaries of Mrs Astor's good will and kind nature, many unaware of the origins of the donations. Her contributions reached a wide variety of causes; The New York Public Library, and the entire city, would not be what they are today without her gracious support.

99. I have lost my beloved mother, and New York and the world have lost a great lady. She was one of a kind in every way. Her tombstone will be inscribed with the words she specifically asked for: 'I had a wonderful life.'

100. The difference between mind and brain is that brain deals only with memorized, subjective, special-case experiences and objective experiments, while mind extracts and employs the generalized principles and integrates and interrelates their effective employment. Brain deals exclusively with the physical, and mind exclusively with the metaphysical.