#memo

What you don’t know going in is that when you come out, you will be scarred for life. Whether you were in for a week, a month, or a year—even if you come home without a scratch—you are never, ever going to be the same. When I went in, I was eighteen. I thought it was all glory and you win lots of medals. You think you’re going to be the guy. Then you find out the cost is very great. Especially when you don’t see the kids you were with when you went in. Living with it can be hell. It’s like the devil presides in you. I knew what I sighed up for, yes, and I would do it again. But the reality of war—words can’t begin to describe it. ↗

— William Guarnere

#memoir #military #world-war-ii #life

I know of no trunk full of old heirlooms, no felt hats or army uniforms. There are no tarnished medals or gold watches. I've stopped dreaming of discovering the old shoe box filled with the history of our family, the documents and letters that recorded our family's arrival and the historical milestones as my grandfathers left their mark on a place. There is no journal or diary. I do not know if they knew how to read or write. I could easily dismiss their existence. Their lives seem empty and still, void of emotion. I cannot tell if they wear scars. I only know of my grandfathers as broken old men. ↗

— David Mas Masumoto

#dreams

When we remember our former selves, there is always that little figure with its long shadow stopping like an uncertain belated visitor on a lighted threshold at the far end of some impeccably narrowing corridor. ↗

— Vladimir Nabokov

#family

...the answer is not in the damn blank page - it's in the days or years before and you have to dredge it up - exhume the past again ... ↗

— John Geddes

#experience #memories #past #writing-craft #writing-process

Ah, me, if this is love, then how it torments. ↗

— Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

#memories-of-my-melancholy-whores #love

My father spoke with his hands. He was deaf. His voice was in his hands. And his hands contained his memories. ↗

— Myron Uhlberg

#father #memories #parents #love

I think about my mother singing after lunch on a Summer afternoon, twirling in blue dress across the floor of her dressing room ↗

— Audrey Niffenegger

#happiness #loss #love #memory #mother

Do you remember what we just did? Please tell me you remember what we just did." She briefly toyed with the idea of lying and saying no, just to see the look on his face, but she'd had enough of having her brain played with – it wouldn't be too sporting to do the same to him. "Yes, I remember, and don't you think for one minute that just because you had me on my back screaming I was 'yours'," she waved four fingers in quotation marks in front of his face, "that it gives you any kind of ownership over me, because it doesn't." He looked annoyed, then relieved, then he laughed. "Yeah, whatever, baby. ↗

— Dianna Hardy

#humour #making-love #memory #ownership #pueblo-and-amy

It was like watching a movie being played on the blank screen of his mind; the only difference was that he did not get bored, no matter how many times he watched it. ↗

— Faraaz Kazi

#memories #sad-love #love

And gradually his memory slipped a little, as memories do, even those with so much love attached to them; as if there is an unconscious healing process within the mind which mends up in spite of our desperate determination never to forget. ↗

— Colleen McCullough

#loss #love #memories #love