Quotes & Sayings About Memorial

There is one other wall, of course. One we never speak of. One we never see, One which separates memory from madness. In a place no one offers flowers. THE WALL WITHIN. We permit no visitors. Mine looks like any of a million nameless, brick walls - it stands in the tear-down ghetto of my soul; that part of me which reason avoids for fear of dirtying its clothes and from atop which my sorrow and my rage hurl bottles and invectives at the rolled-up windows of my passing youth. Do you know the wall I mean? - Steve Mason, U.S. Army captain (Vietnam), poet Excerpted from the poem "The Wall Within" by Steve Mason, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran considered the unofficial poet laureate of the Vietnam War. "The Wall Within" was read at the 1984 dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, and was entered in its entirety into the Congressional Record. — Kevin Sites

Well," he said, "this isn't too bad. My left leg is broken, but at least I'm right-legged. That's pretty fortunate."
"Gee," one of the other employees murmured. "I thought he'd say something more along the lines of 'Aaaaah! My leg! My leg!'"
"If someone could just help me get to my foot," Phil said, "I'm sure that I can get back to work."
"Don't be ridiculous," Violet said. "You need to go to a hospital."
"Yes, Phil," another worker said. "We have those coupons from last month, fifty percent off a cast at the Ahab Memorial Hospital. Two of us will chip in and get your leg all fixed up. I'll call for an ambulance right away. — Lemony Snicket

Mr. Franzen said he and Mr. Wallace, over years of letters and conversations about the ethical role of the novelist, had come to the joint conclusion that the purpose of writing fiction was "a way out of loneliness."
(NY Times article on the memorial service of David Foster Wallace.) — Jonathan Franzen

Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals" - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness. — Ambrose Bierce

Augustus Waters died eight days after his prefuneral, at Memorial, in the ICU, when the cancer, which was made of him, finally stopped his heart, which was also made of him. — John Green

Directly down the lawn and accross the Ellipse from the White House are those ordered, classic lines of the Jefferson Memorial and the eyes of the 19-foot statue that gaze directly into the White House, a reminder to any of us who might occupy that mansion of the quality of mind and generosity of heart that once abided there and has been so rarely seen there again. — Ronald Reagan

08/14/1025h. Dessert Competitions.
08/14/1315h. Illinois State Fair Infirmary; then motel; then Springfield Memorial Medical Center Emergency Room for distention and possible rupture of transverse colon (false alarm); then motel; incapacitated till well after sunset; whole day a washout; incredibly embarrassing, unprofessional; indescribable. Delete entire day. — David Foster Wallace

You must miss New San Diego. I heard they finally finished the Obama Memorial Bridge. — Lee Strauss

Fertility says, "Can you relax and just let things happen?"
I ask, does she mean, like disasters, like pain, like misery? Can I just let all that happen?
"And Joy," she says, "and Serenity, and Happiness, and Contentment." She says all the wings of the Columbia Memorial Mausoleum. "You don't have to control everything," she says. "You can't control everything."
But you can be ready for disaster.
A sign goes by saying, Buckle Up.
"If you worry about disaster all of the time, that's what you are going to get," Fertility says. — Chuck Palahniuk

In your carefree heart; I want to be your Memorial for a life time. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Skybridge parking?" Hardy asked as we drove through the huge sprawl of buildings in the medical center. We were passing the thirty-story Memorial Hermann tower sheathed with spandrel glass, one of a multitude of offices and hospitals in the complex.
"No, there's a valet at the main entrance," Haven said, unbuckling her seat belt.
"Hold on, honey, I haven't stopped yet." He glanced over his shoulder at me and saw that I was out of my seat belt, too. "Y'all mind waiting 'til I put the brakes on before you jump out?" he asked ruefully.
-Hardy, Haven, Ella — Lisa Kleypas

Why should the Eisenhower memorial be over twice the size of WWII Memorial? Why should it be so vast as to comfortably house two Lincoln Memorials, two Washington Monuments, and two Jefferson Memorials - all six at once? — Leon Krier

Graves aren't for the dead. They're for the loved ones the dead leave behind them. Once those loved ones have gone, once all the lives that have touched the occupant of any given grave had ended, then the grave's purpose was fulfilled and ended. I suppose if you looked at it that way, one might as well decorate one's grave with an enormous statue or a giant temple. It gave people something to talk about, at least. Although, following that logic, I would need to have a roller coaster, or maybe a Tilt-A-Whirl constructed over my own grave when I died. Then even after my loved ones had moved on, people could keep having fun for years and years. Of course, I'd need a slightly larger plot. — Jim Butcher

My name is Natasha Trethewey, and I was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1966, exactly 100 years to the day that Mississippi celebrated the first Confederate Memorial Day, April 26, 1866. — Natasha Trethewey

You see, when a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations - to try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of that which seems senseless. — Barack Obama

But monument themselves memorials need. — George Crabbe

If we turn now to such vestiges of cult as are associated otherwise than with time and season, we discover a definite recognition of the survival of these nearly a century ago. Keightley, the old fairy mythologist, who did such yeoman service in the collection of much valuable elfin lore, says, as long ago as 1850, when referring to the confused nature of his subject: 'Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings (the larger and greater fairies) once formed part of ancient and exploded systems of religion and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved. — Lewis Spence

I don't want to spend a fortune on my cremation urn, but I really do want to look nice at my memorial service. — Lynn Flewelling

These fallen heroes represent the character of a nation who has a long history of patriotism and honor - and a nation who has fought many battles to keep our country free from threats of terror. — Michael N. Castle

The Memorial Dedication was a momentous occasion — Tommy Hilfiger

Legend has it that Walter was taking a walk with his father one day and passed by a church where Oswald directed his young son's attention to a memorial. "There's a name you will never remember," Oswald commented as he kept walking. Walter paused to read: — Patricia Cornwell

The voice welling up out of this little man is terrific, Harry had noticed it at the house, but here, in the nearly empty church, echoing off the walnut knobs and memorial plaques and high arched rafters, beneath the tall central window of Jesus taking off into the sky with a pack of pastel apostles for a launching pad, the timbre is doubled, richer, with a rounded sorrowful something Rabbit hadn't noticed hitherto, gathering and pressing the straggle of guests into a congregation, subduing any fear that this ceremony might be a farce. Laugh at ministers all you want, they have the words we need to hear, the ones the dead have spoken. — John Updike

God I s Not A Religion. — Gary Beck

Well, I think one doesn't really have to invent this memorial space, because it is already there. And it is speaking with a voice and, you know, 4 million of us came to see the site. — Daniel Libeskind

What the first Christians knew as the "New Testament" was not a book, but the Eucharist. In a cultic setting, at a solemn sacrificial banquet, Jesus made an offering of his "body" and "blood." He used traditional sacrificial language. He spoke of the action as his memorial. He told those who attended to repeat the action they had witnessed: "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19). — Scott Hahn

Anyone can turn,Aidan. Any one of us without a lifemate. Gregori glided across the room because he could not stand the physical distance Savannah had put between them. Her eyes were once again shadowed and haunted, the memorial service filling her with sadness and guilt.He slipped behind her chair,his hands coming down on her shoulders to begin a gentle massage. He neeed the contact as much as she did.
Aidan hid his shock.He had known Gregori for centuries, had learned healing arts from him, had learned to stalk and kill the vampire from him. Nothing ever touched Gregori. Nothing. No one.But those cold silver eyes, as they swept over Savannah, were molten mercury, the man's posture clearly protective, possessive, and the touch on her shoulders was frankly tender. — Christine Feehan

Gray stood up and came round the desk. "Think of the words on that memorial, Wraysford. Think of those stinking towns and foul bloody villages whose names will be turned into some bogus glory by fat-arsed historians who have sat in London. We were there. As our punishment for God knows what, we were there, and our men died in each of those disgusting places. I hate their names. I hate the sound of them and the thought of them, which is why I will not bring myself to remind you. But listen." He put his face close to Stephen's. "There are four words they will chisel beneath them at the bottom. Four words that people will look at one day. When they read the other words they will want to vomit. When they read these, they will bow their heads, just a little. 'Final advance and pursuit.' Don't tell me you don't want to put your name to those words. — Sebastian Faulks

I have asked to have no funeral, and no memorial service. I hate other people's and would certainly not appreciate my own. — Charles Saatchi

With living colours give my verse to glow: The sad memorial of a tale of woe! — William Falconer

Stories don't teach us to be good; it isn't as simple as that. They show us what it feels like to be good, or to be bad. They show us people like ourselves doing right things and wrong things, acting bravely or acting meanly, being cruel or being kind, and they leave it up to our own powers of empathy and imagination to make the connection with our own lives. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. It isn't like putting a coin in a machine and getting a chocolate bar; we're not mechanical, we don't respond every time in the same way ...
The moral teaching comes gently, and quietly, and little by little, and weighs nothing at all. We hardly know it's happening. But in this silent and discreet way, with every book we read and love, with every story that makes its way into our heart, we gradually acquire models of behaviour and friends we admire and patterns of decency and kindness to follow.
Philip Pullman from his Award Lecture, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Recipient 2005 — Philip Pullman

You think the only battles fought are done so with rifles, and the only wounds that kill draw blood. You think courage is loud, boisterous, and proud. Mrs. Warner, I don't think you have a clue as to what this memorial truly represents.
-Clay to Meg — Lorraine Heath

I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the
living; tears for the dead. — Robert Green Ingersoll

If you threw a barbecue yesterday for the Memorial weekend, it was 29 percent more expensive than last year because Barack Obama's policies have led to groceries going up 29 percent. — Michele Bachmann

9/11 was an INSIDE JOB...WAKE THE FUCK UP! — Patrick Michael Mooney

the memorial stained-glass window dedicated to the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, on whose side God had been in two world wars, though this hadn't prevented them suffering heavy casualties. — David Nobbs

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes
and I see many of them in the audience here today
our sense of patriotism is particularly strong. — Barack Obama

7 Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever. — Anonymous

Happy Memorial Day! Thank you to all our service men and women past and present. You are not forgotten! — Courteney Cox

Our public monuments are memorials to the Enlightenment. — Mason Cooley

We're all forgotten sooner or later. But not films. That's all the memorial we should need or hope for, — Burt Lancaster

The funeral was not a funeral. Her family called it a memorial service, because they hadn't found Diana's body yet, but everyone in New Iberia called the hour at St. Peter's a funeral, either out of respect or ignorance. The boundary was hazy. — Lauren Kate

Or you can fake your own death," Bill suggested.
"Because really, that's the most cathartic resolution - if all your friends and family think you're dead. Everyone cries, they have a little rant about all your potential going to waste, they put on a memorial service and you can hide and see who bothers to come - and if you're really lucky, they bury an empty coffin. When they couldn't even be bothered to spot you a twenty 'til payday. You know how much booze you could buy for the cost of a single coffin? — Jordan Castillo Price

Chris Hedges said that Michael Jackson's memorial service was a variety show with a coffin, that MJ transformed himself through surgery and perhaps female hormones from a brown-skinned African American male to a chalk-faced androgynous ghoul with no clear sexual identity. — Chris Hedges

So three days before the millennium, Bianca called. "D'ya wanna go to the White House with Trisha and me?" By Trisha, she meant country singer Trisha Yearwood, whose record label, MCA, she'd recently been hired to work at. "When would that be, exactly?" I asked. "For that Millennium Concert at the Lincoln Memorial. There's a party at the White House after and all." She always talked like she was chewing gum between words. "They're flying us there in a private jet. Ya don't need to write about it. Just come as Trisha's guest. It'll be fun." "Shit, I'm supposed to go ice-skating with some guys who think the world's going to end. Give me a day to figure things out and I'll get right back to you. — Neil Strauss

That philosopher who said we think, therefore we are, should have spent an hour in the maternity ward of Waite Memorial Hospital. He'd have had to change his whole philosophy. The — Janet Fitch

Green sods are all their monument; and yet it tells A nobler history than pillared piles, Or the eternal pyramids. — James Gates Percival

Their sacrifice was great, but not in vain. All Americans and every free nation on earth can trace their liberty to the white markers of places like Arlington National Cemetery. And may God keep us ever grateful. — George W. Bush

The fantastic thing about the memorial to the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel is that it's one of the rare examples where they've preserved a battlefield more or less as it was. You can see all the trenches, where the British were, where the Germans lined up. — Michael Winter

The centuries of capitalism were held to have produced nothing of value. One could not learn history from architecture any more than one could learn it from books. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the names of streets-anything that might throw light upon the past had been systemically altered. — George Orwell

She had read enough about teenagers to understand you couldn't confront them directly. You couldn't even agree with them. The best strategy was to feign indifference to whatever wrong direction they were headed in, then plop in little facts, like Alka-Seltzers, round innocuous comments, let those sink in, take slow, antidotal effect . . . — Melissa Pritchard

Their own souls rose and cried
Alarum when they heard the sudden wail
Of stricken freedom and along the gale
Saw her eternal banner quivering wide. — John Le Gay Brereton

She'd seen them on the news, compassionate Americans talking about how the United States should be more welcoming to people who came in peace. She believed these kindhearted people, like Natasha, would never betray them, and she wanted to tell Jende this, that the people of Judson Memorial Church loved immigrants, that their secret was safe with Natasha. But she also knew it would be futile reasoning with a raging man, so she decided to sit quietly with her head bowed as he unleashed a verbal lashing, as he called her a stupid idiot and a bloody fool. The man who had promised to always take care of her was standing above her vomiting a parade of insults, spewing out venom she never thought he had inside him. For the first time in a long love affair, she was afraid he would beat her. She was almost certain he would beat her. And if he had, she would have known that it was not her Jende who was beating her but a grotesque being created by the sufferings of an American immigrant life. — Imbolo Mbue

Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices. — Harry S. Truman

Holocaust Memorial Day is intended as an inclusive commemoration of all the individuals and communities who suffered as a result of the Holocaust - not only Jews, but also Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, political prisoners and dozens of ethnic and other minorities. — Jack Straw

I want to make a memorial for our turkey. Never has a bird been so tortured to provide such a lousy dinner. — Laurie Halse Anderson

I have long believed that sacrifice is the pinnacle of patriotism. — Bob Riley

Emma stared at the ceiling of the hotel room. Her thoughts went over every memorial, each picture, the families and children left behind. At this point it was a nightly routine. Some people counted sheep. Emma counted her father's victims. One by one. — Anais Torres

Berlin seems like a place of healing to me though: you have both the Holocaust Memorial and Hiroshima Strasse side-by-side there. You have the whole last century libraried and you can see exactly what we did. Now there's lots of artists and musicians moving there because they can't afford the rent in London and New York, and they're having children and making it a gentle place. It seems to be a place of hope now. — Robert Montgomery

The architects of this wickedness will find no safe harbor in this world. We will chase our enemies to the furthest corners of this Earth. It must be war without quarter, pursuit without rest, victory without qualification — Tom DeLay

A Sonnet is a
moment's
monument,
Memorial from the
Soul's eternity
To one dead
deathless hour. — Dante Gabriel Rossetti

If the world were to end tomorrow and we could choose to save only one thing as the explanation and memorial to who we were, then we couldn't do better than the Natural History Museum, although it wouldn't contain a single human. The systematic Linnean order, the vast inquisitiveness and range of collated knowledge and beauty would tell all that is the best of us. — A.A. Gill

I am I and you are you, whatever we were to each other that we still are. — Henry Scott Holland

By my reckoning, I'm about 100 kilometers from Pathfinder. Technically it's called "Carl Sagan Memorial Station." But with all due respect to Carl, I can call it whatever the hell I want. I'm the King of Mars. — Andy Weir

If all goes well, we will be back in time for a proper memorial service [for your father], Ben. I promise."

Ben looked up, and all the bitterness was gone from his eyes, replaced somehow by both resignation and determination.

"And if all doesn't go well?" he asked, tightening his grip on Coralee's trusting hand as he led her outside to the driveway.

Kira's flawless features morphed into something like a smile, yet wholly without happiness or humor.

"Then you'll all be meeting up with [your father] soon enough, I expect. Either that, or you shall wish it was so. — Caitlin Rush

We should not take a Memorial Day recess until we pass a proper memorial for the slain students in Littleton, Colorado, and other school gun tragedies. — John Conyers

It is important that we remember.
It is vital we do more than just remember. — Richelle E. Goodrich

They all start competing against Lincoln as the greatest president. And the [library] building becomes the symbol, the memorial to that dream. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

If I had signed my fourth season of SNL, I wouldn't have ever had the opportunity to do Curb Your Enthusiasm. If my buddy OG Pearson wouldn't have passed away, I wouldn't have been in L.A. for his memorial, and I would've never auditioned for Curb. — J. B. Smoove

In our observances this Memorial Day, we honor the brave Americans who paid the highest price for their commitment to the ideals of peace, freedom, and justice. Our debt to them can be paid only by our own recommitment to preserving those same ideals. — Ronald Reagan

This was the first Memorial Day [Monday, May 1st, 1865]. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is Black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the war had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution. — David W. Blight

What I can do for my country, I am willing to do. — Christopher Gadsden

These martyrs of patriotism gave their lives for an idea. — Schuyler Colfax

My research, even before 1972, moved in directions beyond those cited for the Nobel Memorial Prize. Most of it, in one way or another, deals with information as an economic variable, both as to its production and as to its use. — Kenneth Joseph Arrow

The heroes of Flight 93 won the first battle in the War on Terror, and they should never be forgotten. — Jim Ramstad

Every spring, this country will be reminded of the Lady from Texas. As trees bloom and flowers carpet our nation's capital, Lady Bird Johnson will be remembered. Only Lady Bird Johnson could, with her vision of a beautiful America, lay claim to spring as her memorial. — David Mixner

Lindbergh expressed these thoughts in a splendid speech while accepting the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy at the Washington Aero Club in January 1946. Titling his speech "Honoring the Wright Brothers," he took as his theme "the way in which science was divorcing man from his old sense of independence and moral values."16 — Winston Groom

Their silent wounds have speech
More eloquent than men;
Their tones can deeper reach
Than human voice or pen. — William Robert Woodman

If the baser instinct of rampant self-preservation adamantly refuses to surrender itself to the infinitely greater call of self-sacrifice, in attempting to save our lives we will have in reality completely destroyed our lives. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial. — Pericles

Where is delight? and what are pleasures now?-Moths that a garment fret.The world is turned memorial, crying, ThouShalt not forget! — Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Wesley, the younger child, had had rheumatic fever when he was seven and Mrs. May thought this was what had caused him to be an intellectual. — Flannery O'Connor

In 2003, Congress authorized the construction of a visitor center for the Vietnam Memorial to help provide information and educate the public about the memorial and the Vietnam War. — Dennis Cardoza

There's intense national feeling in America that could be called patriotism. — Michael Ignatieff

The whole memorial is for different senses ... seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling. I probably would have come up with something different if I had not lived through it. — Lawrence Halprin

The Great Stone at the center of the Somme memorial has this inscription: "Their name liveth for evermore." The memorial contains 73,077 names, the names of young men who were robbed of life. Note that we often say that they gave their lives, but of course, this is not true; their lives were taken from them. It is not outrageous to consider the carving of their names and the false promise of "evermore" another act of violence. — Nel Noddings

In the church is a memorial to Mrs. Sarah Hill, who bequeathed 1 pound annually, to be divided at Easter, between two boys and two girls who "have never been undutiful to their parents; who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to steal, or to break windows." Fancy giving up all that for five shillings a year! It is not worth it! — Jerome K. Jerome

On my recent trip to Israel, I had the opportunity to visit Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, and reaffirm our collective responsibility to confront anti-Semitism, prejudice, and intolerance across the world. On this Yom Hashoah, we must accept the full responsibility of remembrance, as nations and as individuals-not simply to pledge "never again," but to commit ourselves to the understanding, empathy and compassion that is the foundation of peace and human dignity. — Barack Obama

Today, the men from that meeting are frozen in photographs.
They are immortal, or rather: they must never be forgotten.
The villa has become a place of memorial.
I visited it one gloriously sunny day in July 2004.
You can walk through the horror.
The long table used for the meeting is frightening.
As if the objects had taken part in the crime.
The place with forever be charged with terror.
So this is what it means, when a chill runs down your spine.
I had never understood that expression before.
The physical manifestation of an invisible icy finger.
Tracing the vertebrae in your back. — David Foenkinos

True patriotism isn't cheap. It's about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going. — Robert Reich

A wise friend told me that we all could use more than one set of parents - our relations with the original set are too intense, and need dissipating. — Alice Adams

I saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial not as an object placed into the earth but as a cut in the earth that has then been polished, like a geode. — Maya Lin

We must be prepared to make the same heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. — Albert Einstein

No tongue is able to declare the greatness of the love that Jesus bears to every soul: and therefore this Spouse, when he would leave this earth, in order that his absence might not cause us to forget him, left us as a memorial this Blessed Sacrament, in which he himself remained; for he would not that there should be any other pledge to keep alive our remembrance of him than he himself. — Peter Of Alcantara

I watched as people went to the memorial reading the names. I started at the first entry from 1954. I read each one quietly but out loud to myself, like I'd done with the names of those in the museum. I felt somehow they were getting the message that their sacrifice was known and their voice was heard. — Janelle Gray

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies. — Moina Michael

We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers. — Blaise Pascal

They, and we, are the legacies of an unbroken chain of proud men and women who served their country with honor, who waged war so that we might know peace, who braved hardship so that we might know opportunity, who paid the ultimate price so that we might know freedom. — Barack Obama

He gave the tree of life its name, not because it could confer on man that life with which he had been previously endued, but in order that it might be a symbol and memorial of the — John Calvin

Today, the United States stands as a beacon of liberty and democratic strength before the community of nations. We are resolved to stand firm against those who would destroy the freedoms we cherish. We are determined to achieve an enduring peace - a peace with liberty and with honor. This determination, this resolve, is the highest tribute we can pay to the many who have fallen in the service of our Nation. — Ronald Reagan

People will know you for who you are, but will remember you for what you have done. True leaders make long lasting impacts! — Israelmore Ayivor