Diane Ackerman Quotes

Shall memory restore The steps and the shore, The face and the meeting place.

We exist only by virtue of what we possess, we possess only what is really present to us, and many of our memories, our moods, our ideas sail away on a voyage of their own until they are lost to sight! Then we can no longer take them into account in the total which is our personality. But they know of secret paths by which to return to us.

I'm not nostalgic. My memories are back here in my mind.

A scene should be selected by the writer for haunted-ness-of-mind interest. If you're not haunted by something, as by a dream, a vision, or a memory, which are involuntary, you're not interested or even involved.

By virtue of depression, we recall those misdeeds we buried in the depths of our memory. Depression exhumes our shames.

Memory. My poison, my food.

Strange how when you're young you have no memories...Then one day you wake up and BOOM, memories overpower all else in your life, forever making the present moment seem sad and unable to compete with a glorious past that now has a life of its own.

What is reason now was passion heretofore.

He began to search among the infinite series of impressions which time had laid down, leaf upon leaf, fold upon fold softly, incessantly upon his brain; among scents, sounds; voices, harsh, hollow, sweet; and lights passing, and brooms tapping; and the wash and hush of the sea.

Photography has definitely been my favorite way to remember things. At least for me that’s how my brain processes things, of memories or moments - if I take a picture of it I can remember so many more details. I think it’s about choosing the exact picture in my head that signifies or symbolizes a moment - almost as if you’re using film. It’s almost archaic.

Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their place in the pictures of memory.

I keep saying that backwards is all you can see. You can't see front. My wife says, "Stop, you're always in the past." She sees me sort of daydreaming.

Grace, who haunted my thoughts when I couldn’t dream

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.

My face carries all of my memories. Why would I erase them?

Sometimes when I'm alone, I take the pearl from where it lives in my pocket and try to remember the boy with the bread, the strong arms that warded off nightmares on the train, the kisses in the arena.

Memories of ice and Trent surfaced, and I wrapped my arms around my middle. I had saved him, and he had saved me. What was wrong with us?

The memory is perpetually looking back when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like those repositories in animals that are filled with food, on which they may ruminate when their present pastures fail.

For as long as I can remember, I've had memories.

It's funny how close the past is, sometimes. Sometimes it seems as if you could almost reach out and touch it. Only who really wants to?

Memories must enter the bloodstream, must churn awhile through the heart's mill, must be crushed and polished, be nearly forgotten or cling like burs to other stories before they spill forth in purple patterns, shapes of small bones and worm rot, shapes of clouds and the spaces between leaves.

I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.

Yes, the past is another country, but one that we can visit, and once there we can bring back the things we need.

I keep boxes filled with recuerdos - little memories that are in the form of pictures and events that I've written down. It's funny that I chose to write them in Spanish rather than English or Portuguese.

The radio of my youth ... is now a quaint memory replaced by computer hard drives.