Emily Giffin Quotes

Clothing is . . . an exercise in memory. It makes me explore the past: how did I feel when I wore that. They are like signposts in the search for the past.

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

I always had my roots in the past.

Kunta Kinte's strength derives from the knowledge of where he comes from, but it struck me that I don't know where I come from. I understand that my last name is Kirby, that I was born in London, third-generation Jamaican, and at some point along the line, that name was changed. I didn't know my history past my grandparents.

For some reason, humans have this funny thing about where we came from - it always has far more emotional weight than where we are.

I didn't truly understand the depth of my roots until I was old enough to wonder and care.

It does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance who knows what you know. I see so many new folks nowadays who seem to have neither past nor future. Conversation has got to have some root in the past, or else you have got to explain every remark you make, and it wears a person out.

From early on I valued the gift of memory above all others. I understood that as we grow older we carry a whole nation around inside of us, places and ways that have disappeared, believing that they are ours, that we alone hold the torch for our past, that we are as impenetrable as stone.

The past is like the hair on our head. I moved to New York when I was twelve, but you always have this feeling that wherever you come from, you physically leave it, but it doesn't leave you.

It is not that I belong to the past, but the past that belongs to me.

It's always good to go home. It's strengthening to see your past and know you have someplace to go where you're part of a people.

We all need a past - that's where our sense of identity comes from.

Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past.

I've always been aware that to be named after someone from the past carries with it all kinds of bittersweetness.

In search of my mother's garden, I found my own.

I knew I could not cope with the future unless I was able to rediscover the past.

You don't want to trash what you've done; that's your history.

You can't leave the thing that you are, the house that has become your biography.

One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.

For a while, I thought a lot about lineage. Where do I belong? Who am I standing next to?

People wonder why I love Africa so much. I say this is where I was born and raised. My roots are in Africa; that's were I developed.

Let us say in the pocket of one of my old coats I find a movie ticket from many years ago. Once I see the ticket, not only do I remember that I saw this movie, but also scenes from this movie, which I think I have entirely forgotten, come back to me. Objects have this power, and I like it.

I believe in the old, because it shows us where we come from - where our souls have risen from. And I believe in the new, because it gives us the opportunity to create who we are becoming.

It's not like I pretend the past doesn't exist or that I'm not proud to be a part of it.