John Muir Quotes

He couldn't tell that this was one of those occasions a man never forgets: a small cicatrice had been made on the memory, a wound that would ache whenever certain things combined - the taste of gin at mid-day, the smell of flowers under a balcony, the clang of corrugated iron, an ugly bird flopping from perch to perch.

You're burned into my mind forever

Experience is valuable only when it has brought suffering and when the suffering has left its mark upon both body and mind.

People can't seem to get it through their heads that there is never any healing or closure. Ever. There is only a short pause before the next "horrifying" event. People forget there is such a thing as memory, and that when a wound "heals" it leaves a permanent scar that never goes away, but merely fades a little. What really ought to be said after one of these so-called tragedies is, "Let the scarring begin.

And he wants you to keep that at the front of your mind? He wants you to stay focused on the darkest seasons of your life? How could that possibly do any good?' . . . He wants you to remember who delivered you from that time. That's the point of holding on to memory: delivery, not darkness.

Let everyone see the blood,' he said. 'Don't clean it up. That's the only way people remember.'... I could see the blood inside my head. It was with me forever, whether or not I wanted to forget.

The worst moment of one's life could be seared into the memory, brighter than any joy.

How could anyone stay sane with entire lifetimes stored in one human mind?

What happens in a certain place can stain your feelings for that location, just as ink can stain a white sheet. You can wash it, and wash it, and still never forget what has transpired - a word which here means 'happened, and made everybody sad'.

...and trauma had a way of burning memories deeper into the mind.

I think a fragrance is more of a signature than even what you wear - something you'll remember more down the road than a shirt.

'A Long Way Gone' says something about human nature that we try, most of the time, to ignore.

It was Kovacs who said "Mother" then, muffled under latex. It was Kovacs who closed his eyes. It was Rorschach who opened them again.

My guess is that fearful events are the hardest to root out. They're the ones we naturally remember the best, after all.

Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away. Most of this “something” cannot be seen or heard or numbered or scientifically detected or counted. It’s what we leave in the minds of other people and what they leave in ours. Memory. The census doesn’t count it. Nothing counts without it.

Horrible experiences lead us to wonder whether the person who experiences them might not be something horrible.

Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to life as long as God himself

My mother just wanted me to forget it. So, of course, every word was immediately, irrevocably branded into my brain.

Each wedding picture was less of a memento than a scar. Proof of some horror movie scenario Katherine Kenton has survived.

When we live with a memory we live with a corpse; the impact of the experience has changed us once but can never change us again.

She had lost all our memories for ever, and it was as though by dying she had robbed me of part of myself. I was losing my individuality. It was the first stage of my own death, the memories dropping off like gangrened limbs.

When the body escaped mutilation, seldom did the heart go to the grave unscarred.

It's probably a merciful thing that pain is impossible to describe from memory

The memory is like orbiting twin stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what's evident forever affected by the gravity of what's concealed.

That is, Jack thought, the way of life. The horror changes us, because we can never forget. Cursed with memory. It starts when we're old enough to know what death is and realize that sooner or later we'll lose everyone we love. We're never the same. But somehow we're all right. We go on.