memories

Had I known how sweet they wereI would have saved more of these memories

There's not a day that goes by, without me thinking of you, dying, in someone else's arms.

I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.

Strange, what brings these past things so vividly back to us, sometimes!

Withdraw, like a turtle, into a hard yet harmless shell, ornamented with beautiful memories of the past.from the book 'I Know Who You Are!

Sitting on the floor, I'd replay the past in my head. Funny, that's all I did, day after day after day for half a year, and I never tired of it. What I'd been through seemed so vast, with so many facets. Vast, but real, very real, which was why the experience persisted in towering before me, like a monument lit up at night. And the thing was, it was a monument to me.

It__ not easy remembering the good times.

Yes, you are right! I am your leftover trash. I hope you know a bum got to eat too. I believe you were one when I met you.

Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you.

The past beats inside me like a second heart.

I take a picture, but it's not about who is in the picture or the background of it. It's about the memories and meanings it holds.

Walls get made, walls crumble, buildings get built, buildings collapse, memories get made, memories last.

We build a self-image from stored memories including a swarm of physical and social interactions, evocative emotions, and other associative experiences. Selfhood also comes from the language, symbols, and artifacts, which potent combinations create cultural beliefs. We build a self upon real as well as imaginary experiences. A person__ rational and irrational beliefs forge a sense of self. The books that we read, the music we listen to, the films we watch, and what church or other social gatherings we attend constitute meaningful activities that congeal and work together to shape our sense of identity. Cultural determinants drive how we work, play, worship, and raise our children. Culture has its own sources of reinforcement that can influence members of society to adopt an interdependent, communal sense of self, or an independent, individualistic sense of self. Culture is not fate, but none of us is immune from the great octopus of culture; its tentacles touch us every direction that we turn. Our self-identity is subtlety influenced by the prevailing political-social culture as well as affected by our perceived social status, economic or otherwise.

We are, at least in part, who we remember ourselves to be. Take away our memories, and you take away our selves.

To greet the present is to part with the past and future.

Surrendering is not giving up--it is gaining strength.

Jealousy, and attempting to match others in life and stride, is self-abandonment.

Control is an illusion that you must give up.