James Salter Quotes

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January.

Time never stood still for me. It went too fast; that was the bad thing about it!

The world changes too fast. You take your eyes off something that's always been there, and the next minute it's just a memory.

Beautiful things grow to a certain height and then they fail and fade off, breathing out memories as they decay. And just as any period decays in our minds, the things of that period should decay too, and in that way they're preserved for a while in the few hearts like mine that react to them. Trying to preserve a century by keeping its relics up to date is like keeping a dying man alive by stimulants.

Like a wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we were, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.

Life is a memory, and then it is nothing.

Writing is a futile attempt to preserve what disappears moment by moment. All that remains of my mother is what I remember and what I have written for and about her. Eventually that is all that will remain of [my husband] and me. Writing sometimes feels frivolous and sometimes sacred, but memory is one of my strongest muses. I serve her with my words. So long as people read, those we love survive however evanescently. As do we writers, saying with our life's work, Remember. Remember us. Remember me.

Books are not life, only its ashes.

It's not realistic to imagine that any poem will last forever. Our species won't last forever! We try to capture and preserve our impressions of reality because it's all going away: everything we think and remember, everything we've ever felt, everyone we love.

As ephemeral as our footprints were in the sand along the river, so also were those moments of childhood caught in the photographs. And so will be our family itself, our marriage, the children who enriched it and the love that has carried us through so much. All this will be gone. What we hope will remain are these pictures, telling our brief story.

I leave no trace of wings in the air, but I am glad I have had my flight.

In the sense that writing is to retrieve the past and stop the passing of time, all writing is about loss. It's not nostalgia in the sense of yearning to bring back the past, but recognition of the erosion of things as you live.

I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over.

I think that there is something beautiful about mortality. It makes our decisions mean more.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments.

One thing I wish I could tell my younger self: take photos of everyday life, not special occasions; later, that's what will be interesting to you.

Time itself comes in drops.

Time, you old gypsy man, will you not stay, put up your caravan just for one day?

We do not remember days, we remember moments.

Writers and believers live their lives haunted by the same question: What happens to our days once they disappear? The objective fact is that each day that passes is lost forever, as forbidden to us as the dead. But prayer and fiction offer a different answer. Those lost days still live among us, written in each person's hand, turned into stories.

Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.