“To live (as I understand it) is to exist within a conception of time.But to remember is to vacate the very notion of time.Every memory, no matter how remote its subject, takes place 'Now,' at the moment it's called to the mind.The more something is recalled, the more the brain has a chance to refine the original experience.Because every memory is a re-creation, not a playback.”

“Every memory no matter how remote its subject takes place "now " at the moment it's called up in the mind. The more something is recalled the more the brain has a chance to refine the original experience because every memory is a re-creation not a playback.”

“In the Ebbinghaus curve, or forgetting curve, R stands for memory retention, s is the relative strength of memory and t is time. The power of a memory can be built through repetition, but it is the memory we are recalling when we speak, not the event. And stories are annealed in the telling, edited by turns each time they are recalled...People remember what they can live with more often than how they lived.”

“For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories and it's a pity we use it so little.”

“He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the words and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.”

“Unhappy memories are persistent. They're specific, and it's the details that refuse to leave us alone. Though a happy memory may stay with you just as long as one that makes you miserable, what you remember softens over time. What you recall is simply that you were happy, not necessarily the individual moments that brought about your joy.But the memory of something painful does just the opposite. It retains its original shape, all bony fingers and pointy elbows. Every time it returns, you get a quick poke in the eye or jab in the stomach. The memory of being unhappy has the power to hurt us long after the fact. We feel the injury anew each and every time we think of it.”