“Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations. They have been out and about, on people's lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today -- that they are stored with other meanings, with other memories, and they have contracted so many famous marriages in the past.” PeopleWritingHas BeensTodayPastHouseMemoriesMarriageStreetsCenturyFieldsDifficultyLipsChiefsAssociationEchoesEnglish Words Author:Virginia Woolf
“Memory is a wonderfully useful tool, and without it judgement does its work with difficulty; it is entirely lacking in me.... Now,the more I distrust my memory, the more confused it becomes. It serves me better by chance encounter; I have to solicit it nonchalantly. For if I press it, it is stunned; and once it has begun to totter, the more I probe it, the more it gets mixed up and embarrassed. It serves me at its own time, not at mine.” IfsDoeSelfMemoriesChanceMinesJudgmentToolsDifficultyPressesJudgementConfusedEncountersLackingEmbarrassedDistrustStunnedChance Encounters Author:Michel de Montaigne
“We can tell people abstract rules of thumb which we have derived from prior experiences, but it is very difficult for other people to learn from these. We have difficulty remembering such abstractions, but we can more easily remember a good story. Stories give life to past experience. Stories make the events in memory memorable to others and to ourselves. This is one of the reasons why people like to tell stories.” PeopleGivingWritingReasonStoriesPastRememberDifficultMemoriesEventsDifficultyReason WhyMemorableAbstractAbstractionThumbsGood StoryPast Experiences Book:Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence Source: Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence
“Another trouble with poetry - and I'm gonna stop the list at two - is the presence of presumptuousness in poetry, the sense you get in a poem that the poet takes for granted an interest on the reader's part in the poet's autobiographical life, in the poet's memories, problems, difficulties and even minor perceptions.” TwoProblemInterestMemoriesTroublePoetReaderPerceptionDifficultyListsGrantedMinors Author:Billy Collins