Rohinton Mistry Quotes

Of all our sorrows, memory is the worst.

What I find compelling is the moment in which people realize, with suffering and pain, that in the past there was a time when they were happy, because back then the present and the future coincided - they were one and the same thing.

The punctuation of anniversaries is terrible, like the closing of doors, one after another between you and what you want to hold on to.

Joy and sorrow are both my perpetual companions, but the joy is called Past and the sorrow Present.

There are a hundred places where I fear To go, --so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, 'There is no memory of him here!' And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

There's an old poem by Neruda that I've always been captivated by, and one of the lines in it has stuck with me ever since the first time I read it. It says "love is so short, forgetting is so long." It's a line I've related to in my saddest moments, when I needed to know someone else had felt that exact same way. And when we're trying to move on, the moments we always go back to aren't the mundane ones. They are the moments you saw sparks that weren't really there, felt stars aligning without having any proof, saw your future before it happened, and then saw it slip away without any warning.

Memory is a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past.

Now I am sober and there's only the hangover and the memory of love.

memories should be sharp when one has nothing else to live for

Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole world or even two; he has grown used to its disappearance and accustomed to the new scenery of another act: but suddenly the names and faces of a time long dead appear more and more often on his way, calling up series of shades and pictures kept somewhere, "just in case," in the endless catacombs of the memory, making him smile or sigh, and sometimes almost weep.

Sometimes I think of you and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone has said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shift of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.

Nothing is more fatal to happiness than the remembrance of happiness.

What happiness is there in just the memory of happiness?

When a man or woman loves to brood over a sorrow and takes care to keep it green in their memory, you may be sure it is no longer a pain to them.

I couldn’t help but think about school and everything else ending. I liked standing just outside the couches and watching them—it was a kind of sad I didn’t mind, and so I just listened, letting all the happiness and the sadness of this ending swirl around in me, each sharpening the other. For the longest time, it felt kind of like my chest was cracking open, but not precisely in an unpleasant way.

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.

Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o'er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last?

I no longer want reminders of what was, what got broken, what got lost, what got wasted.

I've been very fortunate in the things I've had in my life. But, at the same time, I wish I had the same types of memories as everyone else.

I think that my regrets mostly have to do with my relationship with my ex-girlfriend. Every once in a while, you get those flashback memories of conversations you had with your exes, and you just, like, wince when you're walking down the street. Something occurs to you, 'Oh, no, I said that.'

I will never forget my beautiful days with you in Shanklin, they are certainly the most pleasant ones of my life. Look, I have tears in my eyes just to think about it. I am furious to be here, it is the end of happiness for a whole year.

Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.

Our past is who we are, and death is one of our experiences. I lost my husband a long time ago, but it's always yesterday.