William Wordsworth Quotes

It wasn't that I forgot Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station. It's there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back and make sure of it. But why should you?

Everywhere we go and move on and change, something's lost--something's left behind. You can't ever quite repeat anything, and I've been so yours, here--

Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o'er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last?

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

No one wants life to end. It was bad enough when my last tour came to an end.

The punctuation of anniversaries is terrible, like the closing of doors, one after another between you and what you want to hold on to.

History can just be so unkind as time passes.

I only felt a cold wind blow while I tried to hang on to the past.

It's easy to get buried in the past when you try to make a good thing last.

I didn't realize it, but the days came along one after another, and then two years were gone, and everything was gone, and I was gone.

The calendar has a magic that makes us imagine a memory can be resurrected and revived, but nothing returns.

memories fall apart too.

And her life will perhaps be the richer, for holding now within it the memory of what came, but could not stay.

The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.

When you put so much effort to forget someone, the effort itself becomes a memory. Then you have to forget the forgetting, and that too is memorable.

Don't think about what you've left behind. If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return.

Remembering the ball became for Emma a daily occupation. Every time Wednesday came round, she told herself when she woke up: 'Ah! One week ago...two weeks ago...three weeks ago, I was there!' And, little by little, in her memory, the faces all blurred together; she forgot the tunes of the quadrilles; no longer could she so clearly picture the liveries and the rooms; some details disappeared, but the yearning remained.

That's the trouble with living things. Don't last very long. Kittens one day, old cats the next. And then just memories. And the memories fade and blend and smudge together.

Visiting old haunts is hard on memory. Things shrink, change, and disappear.

There is nothing steadfast in life but our memories. We are sure of keeping intact only that which we have lost.

Things happen once only and are never repeated, never return. Except in memory.

Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.

Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die.

For years I have been mourning and not for my dead, it is for this boy for whatever corner in my heart died when his childhood slid out of my arms.