Six Quotes About Memory

"There is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good
for life in the future, than some
good memory, especially a memory of
childhood, of home. If a man carries
many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his
days."
-- Dostoevski/ THE BROTHERS
KARAMAZOV --

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"We fill in gaps in our memory using
chains of events that are logically
acceptable. Our biases, expectations, and past knowledge
are all used in the filling-in process, leading to distortions in
what we remember."
-- Elizabeth Loftus/ MEMORY --

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"I am no longer competing for space
in other people's memories."
-- Adrienne Rich/ OF WOMAN BORN --

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"Simonides was a poet of ancient Greece who was famous for his ability to give long recitations
entirely from memory. His secret was
to tie each successive part of a
to-be-remembered poem or speech to a
specific locale within the mental
floor-plan of either an actual or
imagined temple. For each successive
subsection of the talk to be given,
Simonides would mentally walk from
place to place within the temple,
rehearsing the appropriate material
before the same specific piece of
statuary."
-- Nicholas Negroponte --

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"I once remember mornings,
rich and still
When cloudy dragons floated
every hill
And robins sang The Preludes
heard by Lizst
To water violins
concealed in mist."
-- May Sarton --

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"We often berate ourselves for thinking that we no longer love a
dead relative or friend, but that is
because we are unable to remember
them wholly or completely. True love
and true memory emerge at unexpected
times: an old glove at the bottom of
a drawer, a fragrance in a crowd that was hers, a night spent in a
particular room. We dissolve in tears, crushed beneath a flower-stalk of remembrance."
-- Marcel Proust/ REMEMBRANCE OF
THINGS PAST --

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