Delusion And Memory Quotes

All events of the past withered to mere skeletons, veined and fleshed of fancy. ~ Ashim Shanker

They all stood unwilling on the sandbar, holding to the net. In the eastern sky were the familiar castles and the round towers to which they were used, gray, pink, and blue, growing darker and filling with thunder. Lightning flickered in the sun along their thick walls. But in the west the sun shone with such a violence that in an illumination like a long-prolonged glare of lightning the heavens looked black and white; all color left the world, the goldenness of everything was like a memory, and only heat, a kind of glamor and oppression, lay on their heads. The thick heavy trees on the other side of the river were brushed with mile-long streaks of silver, and a wind touched each man on the forehead. At the same time there was a long roll of thunder that began behind them, came up and down mountains and valleys of air, passed over their heads, and left them listening still. With a small, near noise a mockingbird followed it, the little white bars of its body flashing over the willow trees.

'We are here for a storm now,' Virgil said. 'We will have to stay till it's over.'

("The Wide Net") ~ Eudora Welty

It had given her pleasure to do things for him in his lifetime, and now it was a pleasure to do things for his memory. But the memory of a father went only so far. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

When one embraces a moment of rapture from the past, either by trying to reclaim it or by refusing to let it go, how can its brightness not tarnish, turn grey with longing and sorrow, until the wild spell of the remembered interlude is lost altogether and the memory of sadness claims its rightful place in the mind? And what is it we expect from the sun-drenched past? There is no formula for re-entry, nothing we can do to enable reconstruction. ~ Jane Urquhart

Unhappy memories are persistent. They're specific, and it's the details that refuse to leave us alone. Though a happy memory may stay with you just as long as one that makes you miserable, what you remember softens over time. What you recall is simply that you were happy, not necessarily the individual moments that brought about your joy.
But the memory of something painful does just the opposite. It retains its original shape, all bony fingers and pointy elbows. Every time it returns, you get a quick poke in the eye or jab in the stomach. The memory of being unhappy has the power to hurt us long after the fact. We feel the injury anew each and every time we think of it. ~ Cameron Dokey

These are amongst the last memories I shall relinquish to the page, though I am hanging onto them for now and for as long as I can. When they are gone, will there be anything left of me? Am I nothing but memory? ~ J.S. Watts

The most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life; in which they govern themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience, quickness of memory, and inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good or evil fortune, and the errors of one another. ~ Thomas Hobbes

There must be a solemn and terrible aloneness that comes over the child as he takes those first independent steps. All this is lost to memory and we can only reconstruct it through analogies in later life ... To the child who takes his first steps and finds himself walking alone, this moment must bring the first sharp sense of the uniqueness and separateness of his body and his person, the discovery of the solitary self. ~ Selma Fraiberg

Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past. Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ our natural powers in the production of any effect. There would be an end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation. ~ David Hume

we don't legislate stupidity, you protect it and it breeds (paraphased from memory) (Adiamante) ~ L.E. Modesitt Jr.

This is the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with its beautiful stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth
a world which now trembles before the King In Yellow. ~ Robert W. Chambers

All that was left was the recollection of having had a good idea, a recurrent experience of having had a good, an excellent, a most important idea, a truly fundamental idea, but one never remembered itself the idea from one moment to the next, memory was something you simply couldn't depend on, a man's memory set him traps he'd walk into and find himself hopelessly lost in, Konrad said, a man's memory lured him into a trap and then deserted him; it happened over and over again that a man's memory lured him into a trap, or several traps, thousands of traps, and then deserted him, left him all alone, alone in limitless despair because he felt drain of all thought; Konrad had come to observe this geriatric phenomenon and had begun to be more and more terrified of it, he was in fact prepared to state that a man's youthful memory was capable of turning into an old man's memory from one moment to the next, with no warning whatsoever, suddenly you found yourself with an old man's memory, unprepared by such warning signals as a failure , from time to time, in trifling matters, brief lapses of omissions, the way a mental footbridge or gangplank might give a bit as one passed over it; no, old age set in from one moment to the next, many a man made this abrupt passage from youth to age quite early in life, a sudden shift from being the youngest to the oldest of men, a characteristic of so-called brain workers, who tended, basically, not to have a so-called extended youth, no gradual tra ~ Thomas Bernhard

It may be that actual tears have stained the tile floors or soaked into the carpets of such places. It may be that these tears can never be removed. And everywhere the odor of melancholy, that is the very odor of memory. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

There's basically an element of fiction in everything you remember. Imagination and memory are almost the same brain processes. When I write fiction, I know that I'm using a bunch of lies that I've made up to create some form of truth. When I write a memoir, I'm using true elements to create something that will always be somehow fictionalized. ~ Isabel Allende

There was a blond misty boy sitting beside me, and he looked at me, and I at him, and we were not strangers: our hands moved towards each other to embrace. I never heard his voice, for we did not speak; it is a shame, I should so like the memory of it. Loneliness, like fever, thrives on night, but there with him light broke, breaking in the trees like birdsong, and when sunrise came, he loosened his fingers from mine, and walked away, that misty boy, my friend. ~ Truman Capote

When we think of friends, and call their faces out of the shadows, and their voices out of the echoes that faint along the corridors of memory, and do it without knowing why save that we love to do it, we content ourselves that that friendship is a Reality, and not a Fancy
that it is builded upon a rock, and not upon the sands that dissolve away with the ebbing tides and carry their monuments with them. ~ Mark Twain

Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.
They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.
So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word. ~ Terry Pratchett

We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The White House begun airing their TV commercials to re-elect the president, and the John Kerry campaign is condemning his use of 9/11 in the ads. He said, it is unconscionable to use the tragic memory of a war in order to get elected, unless of course, it's the Vietnam War. ~ Jay Leno

Sometimes, in moments of memory or daydream, I feel the different iterations of myself pass by each other, as if right-now-me crosses paths with past-me or imaginary-me or even future-me in the hallways of my mind. "I miss you when I blink," one says. "I'm right here," says the other, and reaches out of hand. ~ Mary Laura Philpott

Sometimes,' she said, 'I think I must have invented him.'
I know all I want to about your child,' Chauvin said harshly.
Anne Desbaresdes moaned again, louder than before. Again she put her hand on the table. His eyes followed her movement and finally, painfully, he understood and lifted his own leaden hand and placed it on hers. Their hands were so cold they were touching only in intention, an illusion, in order for this to be fulfilled, for the sole reason that it should be fulfilled, none other, it was no longer possible. And yet, with their hands frozen in this funereal pose, Anne Desbaresdes stopped moaning.
One last time,' she begged, 'tell me about it one last time.'
Chauvin hesitated, his eyes somewhere else, still fixed on the back wall. Then he decided to tell her about it as if it were a memory.
He had never dreamed, before meeting her, that he would one day want anything so badly.'
And she acquiesced completely?'
Wonderfully.'
Anne Desbaresdes looked at Chauvin absently. Her voice became thin, almost childlike.
I'd like to understand why his desire to have it happen one day was so wonderful?'
Chauvin still avoided looking at her. Her voice was steady, wooden, the voice of a deaf person.
There's no use trying to understand. It's beyond understanding.'
You mean there are some things like that that can't be gone into?'
I think so.'
Anne Desbaresdes' expression became dull, almost stupid. Her lips ha ~ Marguerite Duras

You didn't inoculate yourself yesterday," I say to Peter.
"No, I didn't," Peter says.
"Why not?"
"Why should I tell you?"
I run my thumb over the vial and say, "You came with me because you know I have the memory serum, right? If you want me to give it to you, it couldn't hurt to give me a reason."
He looks at my pocket again, like he did earlier. He must have seen Christina give it to me. He says, "I'd rather just take it from you."
"Please." I lift my eyes up, to watch the snow spilling over the edges of the buildings. It's dark, but the moon provides just enough light to see by. "You might think you're pretty good at fighting, but you aren't good enough to beat me, I promise you."
Without warning he shoves me, hard, and I slip on the snowy ground and fall. My gun clatters to the ground, half buried in the snow. That'll teach me to get cocky, I think, and I scramble to my feet. ~ Veronica Roth

In excited conversation we have glimpses of the universe, hints of power native to the soul, far-darting lights and shadows of an Andes landscape, such as we can hardly attain in lone meditation. Here are oracles sometimes profusely given, to which the memory goes back in barren hours. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Memory is the treasure house of the mind wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved. ~ Thomas Fuller

I see the awakening of consciousness as a series of spaced flashes, with the intervals between them gradually diminishing until bright blocks of perception are formed, affording memory and a slippery hold. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Work dominates life in Eden-Olympia, and drives out everything else. The dream of a leisure society was the great twentieth-century delusion. Work is the new leisure. Talented and ambitious people work harder than they have ever done, and for longer hours. They find their only fulfillment through work. The men and women running successful companies need to focus their energies on the task in front of them, and for every minute of the day. The last thing they want is recreation. ~ J.G. Ballard

I am trying now to re-create in my mind the picture of the man as I saw him in 1939- he, the revered author of Sinister Barriers, I the novice. I think I can rely on my near-photographic memory for the purpose. (I call it "near-photographic" because I can only remember things that happen to be lying around near photographs.)

Let's see, as I recall, he is six-feet seven-inches tall (when he is sitting down, that is) with a long and majestic English face. Then, too, I distinctly remember, there was a small flashing golden aura about his head, the occasional play of hissing flashes when he moved it suddenly, and the distant rumble of thunder when he spoke. ~ Isaac Asimov

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other. ~ Francis Bacon

Twentieth-century developments in science support a new animism. Developments in physics have led to a world of energetic events which seem to be self-moving and to behave in unpredictable ways. And recent studies in biology seem to demonstrate that bacteria and macromolecules have elemental forms of perception, memory, choice, and self-motion. ~ David Ray Griffin

Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory. ~ Will Durant

I guess falling in love with mermaids is pretty dangerous," he finally said.
"Did you?" Ariel asked in a small voice. "Fall for me? At all?"
Eric gave her a measured look, treating the question seriously as she had his. "I did fall for you, just not in the way I expected it would happen. And maybe not in the way you hoped. It wasn't a lightning bolt. As I got to know you, I realized you were the most... energetic, fun, enthusiastic... alive girl I had ever met." He smiled at the memory- and Ariel felt her breath catch. "You know, for a boy who's all about sailing and running around with his dog and exploring, you were just about as perfect a companion as he could ever want. And beautiful, to boot. I would have been very lucky."
He said this wistfully.
Ariel wasn't sure when she was going to start breathing again. ~ Liz Braswell

And her life will perhaps be the richer, for holding now within it the memory of what came, but could not stay. ~ George MacDonald

She knew that neither his clothes nor the years stood between her and the living intactness of that memory. ~ Ayn Rand

No. I remember. So long as I don't think about it too much, my hands and feet take over; some memory locked into muscle that my brain has nothing to do with.
I know how to drive. And I'm better at it than he is. ~ Teri Terry

The miniature sandscapes of ridge and valley pressed into the soles of my feet and for days after the walk I would feel a memory of that pressure and pattern. ~ Robert Macfarlane

The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It isn't absurd, e.g., to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity; that the idea of great progress is delusion, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty.

The more indifferent people are to politics, to the interests of others, the more obsessed they become with their own faces. The individualism of our time.

Not being able to fall asleep and not allowing oneself to move: the marital bed.

If high culture is coming to an end, it is also the end of you and your paradoxical ideas, because paradox as such belongs to high culture and not to childish prattle. You remind me of the young men who supported the Nazis or communists not out of cowardice or out of opportunism but out of an excess of intelligence. For nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of nonthought… You are the brilliant ally of your own gravediggers.

In the world of highways, a beautiful landscape means: an island of beauty connected by a long line with other islands of beauty.

How to live in a world with which you disagree? How to live with people when you neither share their suffering nor their joys? When you know that you don't belong among them?... our century refuses to acknowledge anyone's right to disagree with the world…All that remains of such a place is the memory, the ideal of a cloister, the dream of a cloister…

Humor can only exist when people are still capable of recognizing some border between the important and the unimportant. And nowadays this border ha ~ Milan Kundera

And when Rambo whispered to me, assuring me of my nearest death, I was relieved at my parents' absence, for my death like all death should be a death and an end- no memory, no photograph, no stories and no mother's tears. In death everything should cease. All else is nothing but human vanity and make-believe. ~ Rawi Hage

Lack of sleep negatively affects mood, memory, immune function, and pain sensitivity; it makes people more likely to fight with their partners; it contributes to weight gain. ~ Gretchen Rubin

Jack, who apparently always had to be moving in some way, had made up for the missing knife by grabbing a half loaf of French bread and methodically ripping it into tiny pieces.
"What," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Why don't faeries like bread?"
"Hmm?" Jack looked up, then shrugged. "I dunno."
Lend picked up a piece, crumbling it. "My dad said he thought it was because it was the staff of life for people."
"Nasty stuff tastes like mold," Jack said. "I tried a piece once a while ago when I was still trying to force myself to eat normal food so I could stay here. It was like a shock to my whole system." He shuddered at the memory. ~ Kiersten White

I started to stand, but I neeed to say more to Tracey. "Tracey, I apologize again for calling you 'Arvey' all that time."
Her whole body, already still, stiffened.
"I wouldn't have done it if I had known your real name."
One hand slipped up under her hair, as if swiping a tear.
"I hope you never do anything like the picture again because it caused a lot of trouble, but there's something important I want you to know."
She slowly raised her head and faxed me with damp, red eyes.
Memory took me back to that night Grandma explained why she was so happy in spite of the horrors she had survived. I wanted to do what Grandma had done – leave the bad times behind so I could enjoy the good times. I wanted to close the door on this whole drama.
"Tracey, I forgive you. ~ Brenda Vicars

When the great Greek cry breaks into the Latin of the Mass, as old as Christianity itself, it may surprise some to learn that there are a good many people in church who really do say kyrie eleison and mean exactly what they say. But anyhow, they mean what they say rather more than a man who begins a letter with "Dear Sir" means what he says. "Dear" is emphatically a dead word; in that place it has ceased to have any meaning. It is exactly what the Protestants would allege of Popish rites and forms; it is done rapidly, ritually, and without any memory even of the meaning of the rite. When Mr. Jones the solicitor uses it to Mr. Brown the banker, he does not mean that the banker is dear to him, or that his heart is filled with Christian love, even so much as the heart of some poor ignorant Papist listening to the Mass. ~ G.K. Chesterton

The goal of a life free of dysphoria is a snare and a delusion. A better goal is of good commerce with the world. Authentic happiness, astonishingly, can occur even in the presence of authentic sadness. ~ Martin Seligman

Imagine the literary buff, steeped in his beloved classics, rejoicing in a memory that sings, prepared to dispense kilowatts of goodwill, who fetches up at the Odeon on an off day. There are days like that, when everything rings hollow, and even the hollowness is unconvincing. There's nothing to be done about it: the inspiration's not there. He's left with a terrible sense of disappointment, resentment, against whom he doesn't exactly know: the playwright or the actors? All he can do is curl up in bed, alone, all alone, and console himself with suitably wrought alexandrines. ~ Jacques Yonnet

Walter looked about him lingeringly and lovingly. This spot had always been so dear to him. What fun they all had had here lang syne. Phantoms of memory seemed to pace the dappled paths and peep merrily through the swinging boughs–Jem and Jerry, bare-legged, sunburned schoolboys, fishing in the brook and frying trout over the old stone fireplace; Nan and Di and Faith, in their dimpled, fresh-eyed childish beauty; Una the sweet and shy, Carl, poring over ants and bugs, little slangy, sharp-tongued, good-hearted Mary Vance–the old Walter that had been himself lying on the grass reading poetry or wandering through palaces of fancy. They were all there around him–he could see them almost as plainly as he saw Rilla–as plainly as he had once seen the Pied Piper piping down the valley in a vanished twilight. And they said to him, those gay little ghosts of other days, "We were the children of yesterday, Walter–fight a good fight for the children of today and tomorrow. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Love is for weak people, it's a delusion and it can be deadly. ~ L.J.Smith

My definition of forgiveness is a sigh, very like a sigh of relief, on which the memory of evil is breathed out.
With letting go of the memory, discontinuing the incessant replaying of pain, and instead feeling the unmitigated overness of the evil, the evildoer often looks quite different: flawed, like me, a child of God, like me. Forgiven, like me. ~ Nevada Barr

What we have instead are false memories aroused later and more pertinent to this later perspective than to the original events. Sometimes in matters of great emotion, one representation, retaining all the original intensity, comes to replace another, which is then discarded and forgotten. The new representation is called a screen memory. A screen memory is a compromise between remembering something painful and defending yourself against that very remembering. ~ Karen Joy Fowler