Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened.

It was like trying to recall a forgotten dream—each time I felt close to remembering where we’d met, the memories slipped away.

Memories are either the greatest poetry, when they are memories of a vital happiness, or a burning pain, when they touch dried wounds.p. 479

All that helter-skelter about strings and memories was only relevant in the dark. It was light out now and time to put away childish things.

It only took one imperfection. One. Then laughs would turn into screams [...]. People would turn into memories and memories into nightmares.

When I die, remember to remove my body from the cooler before you start making the hunch punch. But by all means, do get drunk on my memory.

In her final years she would still recall the trip that, with the perverse lucidity of nostalgia, became more and more recent in her memory.

The spring came suddenly; the rains stopped, the days grew noticeably longer, and the afternoon light felt powdery, as if it might blow away.

...dark embers smolder inside me - one touch and they flare - who would have thought memory combustible, or near you bright sparks appear?...

She smiles, and her eyes look as if they can see back into her memory, into all the things that have gone into making a person what they are.

Memory is not only unruly, leaving us in the lurch when most needed, but stupid as well, putting its nose into places where it is not wanted.

The thing with giving up is you never know. You never know whether you could have done the job. And I'm sick of not knowing about my life.

I think a person permeates a spot, and a lost presence makes the environment timeless to me, keeps an area alive. It pulsates because of that.

There’s no such thing as yesterday, he thought dully. Memory is just today, happening over and over again, stamped indelibly with regret.

Two butterflies in two socks could walk faster than I can run. A love song will jog your memory like I jog like Roger Bannister in a wheelchair.