#memory

It is also true that memory sometimes comes to him as a voice. It is a voice that speaks inside him, and it is not necessarily his own. It speaks to him in the way a voice might tell stories to a child, and yet at times this voice makes fun of him, or calls him to attention, or curses him in no uncertain terms. At times it willfully distorts the story it is telling him, changing the facts to suit its whims, catering to the interests of drama rather than truth. Then he must speak to it in his own voice and tell it to stop, thus returning it to the silence it came from. At other times it sings to him. At still other times it whispers. And then there are the times it merely hums, or babbles, or cries out in pain. And even when it says nothing, he knows it is still there, and in the silence of this voice that says nothing, he waits for it to speak. ↗

— Paul Auster

#voice #change

Any experience deeply felt makes some men better and some men worse. When it has ended, they share nothing but the recollection of a commitment in which each was tested and to some degree found wanting. [...] The consequences of the journey change the voyager so much more than the embarking or the arrival. ↗

— Murray Kempton

#journey #memory #time-passing #change

I was asked to memorise what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner. ↗

— Aleister Crowley

#being #did #good #i #insulted

I accomplished something big and that's a memory I will never forget. ↗

— Gabby Douglas

#big #forget #i #memory #never

Do not trust your memory; it is a net full of holes; the most beautiful prizes slip through it. ↗

— Georges Duhamel

#beautiful #full #holes #memory #most

Dipping into the archive is always an interesting, if sometimes unsettling, proposition. It often begins with anxiety, with the fear that the thing you want won't surface. But ultimately the process is a little like tapping into the unconscious, and can bring with it the ambivalent gratification of rediscovering forgotten selves. Rather than making new pictures why can't I just recycle some of these old ones? Claim "found" photographs from among my boxes? And have this gesture signify "resistance to further production/consumption"? (96) ↗

— Moyra Davey

#memory #life

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. ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#mortality #past #beauty

It is always worth itemizing happiness, there is so much of the other thing in a life, you had better put down the markers of happiness while you can. ↗

— Sebastian Barry

#memory #time #life

What makes and experience a memory is when we share with someone, the emotions we felt ↗

— Jeremy Aldana

#life #memory #experience

Once upon a time, this idea of having a trained, disciplined, cultivated memory was not nearly so alien as it would seem to us to be today. ↗

— Joshua Foer

#discipline #memory #art