Quotations
"'That was what set me off hating civilization.'
'Well, cheer up,' he said; 'there isn't much of it left.'" -Elizabeth Bowen, "Mysterious Kôr"

"What is it that civilization softens in us? Civilization cultivates only a versatility of sensations in man, and…decidedly nothing else." -Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)

"…where there was nature and earth, life and water, I saw a desert landscape that was unending, resembling some sort of crater, so devoid of reason and light and spirit that the mind could not grasp it on any sort of conscious level and if you came close the mind would reel backward, unable to take it in. It was a vision so clear and real and vital to me that in its purity it was almost abstract. This was what I could understand, this was how I lived my life, what I constructed my movement around, how I dealt with the intangible. This was the geography around which my reality revolved: it did not occur to me, ever, that people were good or that a man was capable of change or that the world could be a better place through one's taking pleasure in a feeling or a look or a gesture, of receiving another person's love and kindness. Nothing was affirmative, the term 'generosity of spirit' applied to nothing, was a cliché, was some kind of bad joke. Sex is mathematics. Individuality no long an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire - meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead. Fear, recrimination, innocence, sympathy, guilty, waste, failure, grief, were things, emotions, that no one really felt anymore. Reflection is useless, the world is senseless. Evil is its only permanence. God is not alive. Love cannot be trusted. Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in…this was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged…" -Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

Quotations
"'After all, we live in the present day! History is quite far back; it is said, of course, but it does seem silly. I never ever cared for history at school; I was glad when we came to the end of it.'
'And when, my dear, did you come to the end of history?'" -Elizabeth Bowen, "Ivy Gripped the Steps"

"'The happiest countries, like the happiest women, have no history,' said Dean."
-L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon

             "Those angels of history are whispering, again,
That I'm the product of two people who should have known
Better…."
-Jay Hopler, "The Boxcars of Consolidated Rail Freight"

"'Sometimes I feel I don't want to know anything more about it than I know already.'
'Why not?'
'Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only — finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember that your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands'.'"
-Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Quotations
"'All the ghostly joys of the past are haunting me — all the ghostly fears of the future.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"Rebellion flamed up in her soul as the dark hours passed by — not because she had no future but because she had no past." -L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

"Was it impossible that the past should be able to injure the future irreparably?"
-Elizabeth Bowen, "The Inherited Clock"

"'The mind of man is capable of anything — because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage — who can tell? — but truth — truth stripped of its cloak of time.'" -Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Quotations
"…instead of the misery and disillusion of sixty odd years of mental vacuum, of physical squalor, I would spare them all by ending everything at the height of my so-called career while there were still illusions left among my profs, still poems to be published in Harper's, still a memory at least that would be worthwhile." -Sylvia Plath, Letters Home

"But the peculiarity of these two strong memories is that each was very simple.  I am hardly aware of myself, but only of the sensation.  I am only the container of the feeling of ecstasy, of the feeling of rapture.  Perhaps this is characteristic of all childhood memories; perhaps it accounts for their strength.  Later we add to feelings much that makes them more complex; and therefore less strong; or if not less strong, less isolated, less complete." -Virginia Woolf, A Sketch of the Past

"He smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams." -Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

"Anyways, these ideas or feelings or ramblings had their satisfactions.  They turned the pain of others into memories of one's own.  They turned pain, which is natural, enduring, and eternally triumphant, into personal memory, which is human, brief, and eternally elusive." -Roberto Bolaño, 2666 (Translated by Natasha Wimmer)

"Nothing told her anything, except one thing — unless she had lost her memory, she had lost her way." -Elizabeth Bowen, "The Inherited Clock"

"'…I shall sit with my memories. I expect to spend some time getting to know them.'" -Elizabeth Bowen, "The Inherited Clock"

"'People's memories are very short — a lucky thing, I always think.'" -Agatha Christie, "The Thumbmark of St. Peter"

"Moments of their secret life together burst like stars upon his memory." -James Joyce, "The Dead"

"No memory of the past touched him, for his mind was full of a present joy." -James Joyce, "A Little Cloud"

"He began to doubt the reality of what memory told him." -James Joyce, "A Painful Case"

"I liked the man. He was lean with memories." -Jack Kerouac, On the Road

"My memory is a goddamn liar." -Elizabeth McCracken, An Exact Replica of a Figment                                                                               of My Imagination

"It is only my memory that holds me here. Time, let me vanish. Then what we separate by our very presence can come together." -Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

"…It had been made for happy remembering
By people who were still too young
To have learned about memory…" -Ted Hughes, "A Short Film"

Random Musing
I don't think a post about "memory" would be complete without the following video:

Quotations
"'Oh,' she though, 'how horrible it is that people have to grow up — and marry — and change!'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"Kindred spirits alone do not change with the changing years." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"'Changes come all the time. Just as soon as things get really nice they change,' she said with a sigh." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

"'…you'll change, whether you think you will or not.  Nothing ever stays the same.'" -Sylvia Plath, "Initiation"

"'Young people think they never can change, but they do in the most wonderful manner, and very few die of broken hearts.'" -Louisa May Alcott, Jo's Boys

"'How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!'" -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"…she was oppressed, she was overcome by her own felicity; — and happily disposed as is the human mind to be easily familiarized with any change for the better, it required several hours to give sedateness to her spirits, or any degree of tranquility to her heart." -Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

"Change leaves everything at the same level. Nothing stays bright but mornings." -Elizabeth Bowen, "Unwelcome Idea"

"'I remembered the old doctor – "It would be interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot." I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting.'" -Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

"Then he asked if I didn't like things changing.  And I said I wouldn't mind things changing if I became an astronaut, for example, which is one of the biggest changes you can imagine apart from becoming a girl or dying." -Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change." -Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

"'People change, they eat meals year after year and change with every meal.'" -Jack Kerouac, On the Road

"'The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure.'" -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Random Musing
In case you were curious, I personally do not like change very much. I have very little use for it, and generally find it a huge (rather frightening) nuisance.

Quotations
"Elizabeth's spirit's soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. 'How could you begin?' said she. 'I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?'
'I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.'" -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"'I am happier than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that he can spare from me.'" -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"My mother then said she wished she knew why she had married him, and would like still more to know why he had married her.
My father said, 'You were so lovely — you've no idea.'" -Elizabeth Bowen, "Songs My Father Sang Me"

"'I have given my heart to another,' he repeated over and over again to himself." -Edward Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

"They fell in love for no reason at all, in the park, on a bench…" -Graham Greene, "When Greek Meets Greek"

"'Forgive me. Don't love me any more. Yes. Love me. Love me.'" -Katherine Mansfield, "Je ne parle pas français"

"For they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say? — some days, some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people…" -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

"'You've destroyed my loneliness.'" -Virginia Woolf, Night and Day

Vesper: I can't resist waking you. Every time I do you look at me as if you hadn't seen me in years. Makes me feel reborn.
-Casino Royale

Ashley: She's the only dream I ever had that didn't die in the face of reality.
-Gone With the Wind

Mr. Darcy: If, however, your feelings have changed. I would have to tell you, you have bewitched me body and soul, and I love— I love— I love you.
-Pride & Prejudice

Harry: I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend a day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes, and I love that you are the last person I wanna talk to before I go to sleep at night.
-When Harry Met Sally…

Harry: I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody you want the rest of you life to start as soon as possible.
-When Harry Met Sally…