Truman Capote Quotes

The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.

One's memories aren't what actually happened - they're very subjective. You can always make it much better, right?

I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened.

It is curious to note how fragile the memory is, even for the important times in one's life. This is, moreover, what explains the fortunate fantasy of history.

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.

memory is so selective; wishful thinking presses it into service all the time.

Such are the Splendors and Miseries of memory: it is proud of its ability to keep truthful track of the logical sequence of past events; but when it comes to how we experienced them at the time, memory feels no obligation to truth.

But it's funny how the memory works and how sometimes we just belive whatever we want.

One man's remorse is another man's reminiscence.

When you get old, it's hard to tell what's memory and what you've kind of created in your head as memory, you know?

There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.

Memory is a fiction we tell ourselves: just a piece of the truth.

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.

Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.

I think you just assume that your memory is just sort of a video playback of your experience, but it's nothing like that at all. It's a complete refabrication of an event and a lot of it is made up, because you're filling in spaces.

The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.

Memories are like mulligatawny soup in a cheap restaurant. It is best not to stir them.

Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories.

We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.

Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily coloured by the circumstances

As soon as anything is processed by memory, it’s fiction.

Memory is often less about truth than about what we want it to be.

You can't trust your memory. You change it to suit yourself.

While the past asks only to be remembered, a woman's memory alters on her behalf and in her best interests. Memory - the vain old biddy - cannot resist penciling a few slight, cosmetic revisions in the margins of the past.

I dwell in the past.