Remembering The Good Quotes & Sayings

She would read a book hundreds of times, carrying it with her until the pages were torn and the covers were falling off, then she'd paste the covers to the ceiling where she could stare at them, like remembering a good dream. — Sarah Addison Allen

Catch a customer with emotion and you will have a customer for a day; but, capture a customer with value and you will keep a customer for a lifetime. I truly believe in good, old-fashioned values when it comes to business. That is what timelessness is made of! At the end of the day, the question is, "Do you want to build a good hut for a day or do you want to build a good fortress for a lifetime?" Quality, value, understanding the needs of your clientele - that's how you build a legacy. Connect with people, because you can never underestimate just how many people out there are yearning for any form of good interpersonal connection that they can find and when you can provide that as a brand name, you can allow the person behind your business to shine through. That's how timelessness is created. It's not created by luring people into a myth; it's created by making connections, by remembering people's names, by being genuinely interested in everybody. — C. JoyBell C.

The good and the beautiful is not forgotten; it lives in legend and in song. — Hans Christian Andersen

I've always been pretty good at remembering the details about certain things. — Chris Jericho

I lean down and drop a kiss on the top of his head. "Goodbye, Achilles," I whisper, and I leave Maxen Ashley Colchester alone with his head in his hands. I leave and get in my car and go back home, remembering the feel of his hair on my lips.
I will break from loving him, I think. I will split with it, burn with it.
And yet, for the first time, I know what I have to do. I know that I'm a good man, I know that I'd be a good leader. I know that I can stop Melwas and keep Greer safe. I know how to do it.
I have to become more than a prince.
I have to become a king myself. — Sierra Simone

What is human life? The first third a good time; the rest remembering about it. — Mark Twain

What happens to a marriage? A persistent failure of kindness, triggered at first, at least in my case, by the inequities of raising children, the sacrifices that take a woman by surprise and that she expects to be matched by her mate but that biology ensures cannot be. Anything could set me off. Any innocuous habit or slight or oversight. The way your father left the lights of the house blazing, day and night. The way he could become so distracted at work that sometimes when I called, he'd put me on hold and forget me, only remembering again when I'd hung up and called back. The way he wore his pain so privately, whistling around the house after we'd had a spat, pretending nonchalance, protecting you and your sisters from discord, hiding behind his good nature, inadvertently — Jan Ellison

We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. — Thich Nhat Hanh

I always hang up my own dresses. It is a good lesson in appreciation and in always remembering that you're part of a team, not outside of the team, but with the team and on the team. — Stephanie Seymour

I was never any good at remembering dates, but now I hardly have to. When the first bulb catalogs get delivered and the hens start laying again, that's all the notice I'll need to know that winter has passed. — Susan Orlean

Allyson meanwhile is remembering. Why this person? All the things she has told herself, or other people have told her - infatuation or Paris or good acting or lust - no longer hold water, because she remembers so viscerally and feels it anew. It's not any of that. It's not even him. Or all him. It's her. The way she can be with him. — Gayle Forman

We know about your presence that fills the world, that occupies our life, that makes our life in the world true and good. We notice your powerful transformative presence in word and in sacrament, in food and in water, in gestures of mercy and practices of justice, in gentle neighbors and daring gratitude. We count so on your presence and then plunge - without intending - into your absence. We find ourselves alone, abandoned, without resources remembering your goodness, hoping your future, but mired in anxiety and threat and risk beyond our coping. In your absence we bid your presence, come again, come soon, come here: Come to every garden become a jungle Come to every community become joyless sad and numb. We acknowledge your dreadful absence and insist on your presence. Come again, come soon. Come here. — Walter Brueggemann

Some people become hypercritical when stressed.
Then again, he hadn't been stressed last week. She giggled, remembering how he'd instructed her on the proper way to fold hand towels. Talk about nitpicky. Perhaps this would be a good time to call it quits. — Cherise Sinclair

Only by remembering to say 'no' will the women of 21st century regain their voice and remember their power. 'No' is the most important word in a woman's dialectic arsenal, and it is the one word that our employers, our leaders, and quite often, the men in our lives would do anything to prevent us from saying. No, we will not serve. No, we will not settle for the dirty work, the low-paid work, the unpaid work. No, we will not stay late at the office, look after the kids, sort out the shopping. We refuse to fit the enormity of our passion, our creativity, and our potential into the rigid physical prison laid down for us since we were small children. No. We refuse. We will not buy your clothes and shoes and surgical solutions. No, we will not be beautiful; we will not be good. Most of all, we refuse to be beautiful and good. — Laurie Penny

Jake eyed the fire, remembering what Gene Bell had told him about attracting the Thunderbird. He thought about going over to say something, but quickly changed his mind. It would be just another reason for the older boys to tease him about flying creatures and make-believe. In fact, they would be right to tease, because Jake believed that the Thunderbird might be his only chance of a proper pioneering adventure on the boring Oregon Trail. Thinking about the Thunderbird made Jake Polson feel a little bit like his hero Julius Greengrass, and that had to be a good thing. — Dan Abnett

Despair IS the greatest sin,' Dr. Nuttham finally responded slowly. 'It involves forgetting that God is there. Forgetting that He is good and that all He is and does eXtends from and works toward this perfect goodness. That doesn't mean that He allows evil, or creates it, or perpetuates it. That's our entwinement. Rather, He uses even our evil toward His good. We all need forms of remembering this first great love ... writing, reading, creating, BEING. — Carolyn Weber

Something maternal awakened, perhaps, by the physical contact with such lovely young babies? And tonight was a good night, thus I feel correspondingly tender. There will be other bad nights, but remembering the versatile quicksilver shifting of children's moods, I smile with equanimity and do not cherish grudges, as most of us adults do, letting them fester like a cancer. But I let my emotions run on the same forgiving and transient track. — Sylvia Plath

You know what makes me happy? Unexpected phone calls in the middle of the day. Remembering what I liked at that one restaurant we went to that one time. Half-dead grocery store flowers just because they were on sale. A good morning text that says, "have a good day and try not to burn anything to the ground in a furious rage. — Samantha Irby

I was also surprised by the alacrity and dedication we devote to the damaging exercise of remembering, which after all brings nothing good and serves only to hinder our normal functioning, like those bags of sand athletes tie around their calves for training. — Juan Gabriel Vasquez

I want you." She felt the words wrench from her. As they slipped from her mouth into his, he crushed her against him in a grip that left all gentleness behind. His lips savaged, warred, absorbed, util they were both speechless. With an inarticulate mrumuer, Grant buried his face in her hair and fought to find reason.
"Good God,in another minute I'll forget it's still daylight and this is a public road."
Gennie ran her fingers down the nape of his neck. "I already have."
Grant forced the breath in and out of his lungs three times, then lifted his head. "Be careful," he warned quietly. "I have a more difficult time remembering to be civilized than doing what comes naturally. At this moment I'd feel very natural dragging you into the backseat,tearing off your clothes and loving you until you were senseless."
A thrill rushed up and down her spine, daring her,urging her. She leaned closer utnil her lips were nearly against his. "One should never go against one's nature. — Nora Roberts

Maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look lie. — Jodi Picoult

Nature never makes excellent things, for mean or no uses: and it is hardly to be conceived, that our infinitely wise Creator, should make so admirable a Faculty, as the power of Thinking, that Faculty which comes nearest the Excellency of his own incomprehensible Being, to be so idlely and uselesly employ'd, at least 1/4 part of its time here, as to think constantly, without remembering any of those Thoughts, without doing any good to it self or others, or being anyway useful to any other part of Creation. — John Locke

Baby Girl," I say. "I need you to remember everything I told you. Do you remember what I told you?"
She still crying steady, but the hiccups is gone. "To wipe my bottom good when I'm done?"
"No, baby, the other. About what you are."
I look deep into her rich brown eyes and she look into mine. Law, she got old-soul eyes, like she done lived a thousand years. And I swear I see, down inside, the woman she gone grow up to be. A flash from the future. She is tall and straight. She is proud. She got a better haircut. And she is remembering the words I put in her head. Remembering as a full grown woman.
And then she say it, just like I need her to. "You is kind," she say, "you is smart. You is important. — Kathryn Stockett

Remembering the good has also resurrected the bad. — Siobhan Davis

Nobody wants to admit to this, but bad things will keep on happening. Maybe that's beause it's all a chain, and a long time ago someone did the first bad thing, and that led someone else to do another bad thing, and so on.
You know, like that game where you whisper a sentence into someone's ear, and that person whispers it to someone else, and it all comes out wrong in the end.
But then again, maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like. — Jodi Picoult

Once they are gone they will never come back
Looking at pictures and remembering the good times wont help like people say
nothing will bring them back — Julia Knight

Dear World,

I'm not quiet because I'm shy. I'm quiet because everywaking minute there are thousands of thoughts swirling around in my head. And I'm constantly sorting through them, remembering the good ones and fighting the bad ones. I'm an overthinker. It's who I am. Please just be patient with me. I swear I want to talk to you. I just need some extra time to get my thoughts in order.

Love, me — Emily Trunko

Daddy," she says again, this time putting more of a needy whine into her voice. It is the thing that has swayed him, these times when he has come near to turning on her: remembering that she is his little girl. Reminding him that he has been, up to today, a good father.

It is a manipulation. Something of her is warped out of true by this moment, and from now on all her acts of affection toward her father will be calculated, performative. Her childhood dies, for all intents and purposes. But that is better than all of her dying, she knows. — N.K. Jemisin

Remembering where and why you fell and learning the lessons well is a good starting point to start all over again with a broaden insight and a renewed fortitude and wit to dare again for victory! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

If someone has offended you, insulted you, or disappointed you, let it go! If you are remembering all the ways you have been hurt or forgotten, let it go! Ask yourself, what good does it do for me to hold on to this? — Iyanla Vanzant

But I tell you, nothing is pointless, and nothing is meaningless if the artist will face it. And it's his business to face it. He hasn't got the right to sidestep it like that. Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist - the only thing he's good for - is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning. Even if it's only his view of a meaning. That's what he's for - to give his view of life. Surely, we understand very little of what is happening to us at any given moment. But by remembering, comparing, waiting to know the consequences, we can sometimes see what an event really meant, what it was trying to teach us. — Katherine Ann Porter

You're warning me off. There's no need, I assure you. At this moment in time, my only ambition is to get myself through the day ---" He broke off, realising too late what he'd admitted, remembering, suddenly, why he had kissed her in the first place. And now he'd given her the perfect opening to start again.
But to his surprise, her expression softened. "Yes," she said. "That is how I have felt since --- since." She blinked rapidly, and forced a smile. "It is a good thing, this -- this---between us, because now I know that I am recovering myself... — Marguerite Kaye

Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh.
And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done; and you would know too why your friends had been evasive about it, at the time.
There is a good deal of comfort, now, in remembering this. — Margaret Atwood

My first priority when taking pictures is to achieve clarity. A good documentary photograph transmits the information of the situation with the utmost fidelity; achieving it means understanding the nuances of lighting and composition, and also remembering to keep the lenses clean and the cameras steady. — Sam Abell

Gerontologists studying the aging process find increasing evidence that most of us will age with a fair degree of success. There's far less institutionalization and disability than one might have guessed. While the size of social networks shrink with age, the quality of the relationships improves. There are types of cognitive skills that improve in old age (these are related to social intelligence and to making good strategic use of facts, rather than merely remembering them easily). The average elderly individual thinks his or her health is above average, and takes pleasure from that. And most important, the average level of happiness increases in old age; fewer negative emotions occur and, when they do, they don't persist as long. Connected to this, brain-imaging studies show that negative images have less of an impact, and positive images have more of an impact on brain metabolism in older people, as compared to young. — Robert M. Sapolsky

How embarrassing that she ever did something that silly. But, good God, she was seventeen. At that age, we're mostly high-pitched and crazy. All urgent chemicals raging around the blood course. And that's why we do dangerous and embarrassing things, as if simultaneously we're immortal and going to die tomorrow. And that's why we look back on that time so fondly from the dimmer years to come. Remembering the days when we were like Greek gods. Mighty and idiotic. — Charles Frazier

To try too hard to make people good is one way to make them worse. The only way to make them good is to be good, remembering well the beam and the mote. — George MacDonald

In a time of dislocation, the Manichean view- we, the "good versus them, the "bad" -is, though comfortable, also false and dangerous. False, as I myself know remembering a little girl who wanted a gun and a brother who did not[...]. Dangerous because this simplistic view depends on rigid notions of what men and women are in relation to war and of war itself as an absolute contrast to peace. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

Most of the time I'm thinking of you
All of the time I love you
Remembering the good times and the bad
So much as
Happened and
Maybe I'm loving too fast
All I know is I ...
Love you. And want to
Live with you
Only you
Will you be my wife? — Monica Murphy

When Luke had descended into the River Styx, he would've had to focus on something important that would hold him to his mortal life. Otherwise he would've dissolved. I had seen Annabeth, and I had a feeling he had too. He had pictured that scene Hestia showed me - of himself in the good old days with Thalia and Annabeth, when he promised they would be a family. Hurting Annabeth in battle had shocked him into remembering that promise. It had allowed his mortal conscience to take over again, and defeat Kronos. His weak spot - his Achilles heel - had saved us all — Rick Riordan

I can no longer hear my voices, so I am a little lost. My suspicion is they would know far better how to tell this story. At least they would have opinions and suggestions and definite ideas as to what should go first and what should go last and what should go in the middle. They would inform me when to add detail, when to omit extraneous information, what was important and what was trivial. After so much time slipping past, I am not particularly good at remembering these things myself and could certainly use their help. A great many events took place, and it is hard for me to know precisely where to put what. And sometimes I'm unsure that incidents I clearly remember actually did happen. A memory that seems one instant to be as solid as stone, the next seems as vaporous as a mist above the river. That's one of the major problems with being crazy: you're just naturally uncertain about things. (9) — John Katzenbach

Ramrod felt a great sadness building up, deep within. There were no words to express his feeling of loss. The sorrow rose up from the pit of his stomach and caught in his throat. He had a strangled ejaculation buried deep down in his soul. Yes, Ramrod missed his wife very, very much. He missed the warmth of her breasts pressed up against him in the night. He even missed her cold feet. And he especially missed her bedtime facial. Yes, it's true - he missed her eyes, he missed her mouth. He had trouble remembering how she wore her hair the last time he saw her, and he missed that, too. It's like, where Love was concerned, Ramrod's aim wasn't very good. Yes, life was becoming very, very hard on Ramrod. — Earl Lee

Easter is all about remembering the importance of change, responsibility, and doing the right thing for the good of our children. — David Cameron

My story is about all I got to my name right now, and that's why I feel robbed. But a story's a whole lot more than most people got. All you people watching out there, you're listening to what I say because I have something you don't: I got plot. Bought and paid for. That's what all you people want, and why you're sucking off me. You want my plot. I know how you feel too, since hey, I used to feel the same way. TV and video games and movies and computer screens ... On April 8th, 1999, I jumped into the screen, I switched to watchee. Ever since, I've known what my life is about. I give good story. It may have been kinda gory, but admit it, you all loved it. You ate it up. Nuts, I ought to be on some government payroll. Without people like me, the whole country would jump off a bridge, 'cause the only thing on TV is some housewife on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? winning $64,000 for remembering the name of the president's dog. — Lionel Shriver

I am one of those irritating people, who hang on to the door-knob after they say good-bye, and will neither come back nor go, always remembering something else which must be said ... — Nellie L. McClung

My husband used to take care of the business part of this, and after he died I found I wasn't really any good at it. I hate remembering who owes me what and bugging them if they haven't paid me. — Jane Haddam

It's not easy remembering the good times. — Cecelia Ahern

Today was a day for remembering only the good. And there had been a lot of good. — Barbara Freethy

Happiness is simply collecting and remembering all the good moments in your life ... — Ilsa Madden-Mills

Good, stupid high school boys aren't worth It" She throws an arm over my shoulder. "They're trained to like a certain type of girl, with highlights and pretty nails- the kind who are good at remembering to put on lotion every morning after they shower." She smiles like she's got a dirty secret. "And let's face it ... sluts. — Siobhan Vivian

The kind of thing I'm good at is knowing every politician in the state and remembering where he itches. And I know where to scratch him. — Earl Long

We're remembering both the good and the bad in our history together in this world. This isn't an attempt to make people feel bad every morning and to force them to go stick their fingers in a wall socket. We chose these things we included as a way to point people toward the possibility of transformation even while remembering the great pain we have experienced as humanity. — Shane Claiborne

Caring about the quality of your work causes stress. Stress can kill you. Maintain good health by remembering that the stockholders are complete strangers who have never done anything for you. — Scott Adams

And the pomegranates,/
like memories, are bittersweet/
as we huddle together,/
remembering just how good/
life used to be — Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Neither Meredith nor I were good with remembering numbers and when Meredith ran to get a piece of paper to write them down, Smoke looked at his feet and a muscle clenched in his jaw. Then he herded Meredith and me into the kitchen. There he sat us at my big, battered farm table and quizzed us on the three different codes until we memorized them. — Kristen Ashley

I can feel the hurt. There's something good about it. Mostly it makes me stop remembering. — Albert Borris

I am not especially good at remembering the actualities of the world I inhabit, but I have pretty strong associative memories of how it feels to live in that world, and to wonder at its weird machinations, at any age. — Scott Bradfield

was too good to turn down, and so she and Berthe left for the States together. They'd suggested that Carol and Imogen might like to come too, but it would have been almost impossible for Carol to get a work visa, and besides, she was uneasy about raising her daughter in New York. It was Madame Fournier who found her the housekeeper's job in the Delissandes' holiday home in Hendaye, seven hundred kilometres away. There had been tears at their departure, but Imogen didn't remember them. She didn't remember the flight to Biarritz. No matter how hard she tried, her first clear memory was of the gates of the Villa Martine opening and of Denis Delissandes yelling at his sons. The sudden sound of a mobile ringtone startled her so much that she jumped and instinctively put her hand into her bag, before remembering that her phone was in its component parts and scattered around France. At the same time, a man walking out of a doorway took his own phone from his — Sheila O'Flanagan

Remembering is a noble and necessary act. The call of memory, the call to memory, reaches us from the very dawn of history. No commandment figures so frequently, so insistently, in the Bible. It is incumbent upon us to remember the good we have received, and the evil we have suffered. — Elie Wiesel

While all the universe and my family are still sleeping, I will walk among the red and blue twinkle-lights of the living room, to sit and gaze upon the pretty white angel atop the tree and say silent prayers, remembering what was good in the world and why I was brought here to remember. — Carew Papritz

When day begins to break I count my blessings, good and bad, Being wakeful for your sake, Remembering the covenant we've always had, What eagle look your face still shows, While up from my heart's root So great a sweetness flows I shake from head to foot. — P.C. Cast

She wanted to believe him so much, but fear held her in its grasp more firmly than ever before. And if she made the wrong decision, she would have to live with the result for the rest of her life. That could be a long time and she'd already made one wrong choice regarding marriage and love. What if she made another? She sat there remembering the way he'd been good to her children, the way he'd made love to her that first time, soothing her fears. She remembered how he'd finally begun to teach her the shipping business, the impromptu baseball game with Philip, the picnic in her office, the trip to his family home, and all the little things that made her laugh. From the very first he'd been kind to her, while lying repeatedly regarding the business. The business seemed to be his Achilles' heel and he'd just given it to her. — Sylvia McDaniel

A lesser man might have begrudged
him that, but remembering the old adage, "The finder's goods shall
he retain / Nor mind the loser's dreadful pain," I rejoiced, rather, in his good
fortune. — Vinnie Tesla

If there's one thing that we're very good at as humans, it's remembering the bad stuff. For some reason, it's always the pain that gets you. — Henry Cavill

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. — Roger C. Shank

My conflicts of conscience are about the only battles I'm fighting these days, and I'm willing to fight until the end. There is something freeing
about this life, about living out of a single backpack and disappearing into the night. About smelling terrible and never remembering people's names. About never having to say you're sorry. We exist outside of society. We stay up late and sleep even later. We
are bandits, pirates, serial killers. The dregs. Someone should lock us up and never let us out again. But instead, they give us their money, they offer us their beds. We are not
going to pay for the beer. We are not going to be back here for a good, long while. We have prior engagements. We have the money in a duffel bag. We have no shame. Fuck guilt. Back to life. — Pete Wentz

I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will eat away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. — Elizabeth Gilbert

It felt like the times were good, like we were remembering a time before Rachel died, even though things were never this good then, because they were just normal, and ordinary is never the kind if good you remember. — Zoe Whittall

Live your life remembering good experiences, the bad ones were just lessons — Michello Borgo

Nothing can tend so much to humble us before the mercy and justice of God as the consideration of His benefits and our own sins. Let us, then, consider what He has done for us, and what we have done against Him; let us call to mind our sins in detail, and His gracious benefits in like manner, remembering that whatever there is of good in us is not ours, but His, and then we need not be afraid of vainglory or of taking complacency in ourselves ... — Francis Of Assisi

People are very good [at] thinking about agents. The mind is set really beautifully to think about agents. Agents have traits. Agents have behaviors. We understand agents. We form global impression of their personalities. We are really not very good at remembering sentences where the subject of the sentence is an abstract notion. — Daniel Kahneman

I suppose it is because I have lived rather a restricted life myself that I have found so much enjoyment in remembering what I have learned in these last years about brave people and strange scenes. I have sat here day after day this winter, sleeping a good deal in my chair, hardly knowing if I was in London or the Gulf country, dreaming of the blazing sunshine, of poddy-dodging and black stockmen, of Cairns and of Green Island. Of a girl that I met forty years too late, and of her life in that small town that I shall never see again, that holds so much of my affection. — Nevil Shute

Fine. I don't have the time or the inclination to edit erotica, even good erotica, if there is such an animal. I'm not the only editor here. Give it to Thomas Finley." Zach named his least favorite coworker, the one who'd given him his nickname. "Or Angie Clark even."

"Finley? That pansy? He'd make a pass at Sutherlin, and she'd eat him alive. If you punched him in the face, he wouldn't even know how to bleed right."

Zach nearly laughed in agreement before remembering he was fighting with J.P. — Tiffany Reisz

I usually doze off between 7:30 and 9 p.m. while putting my baby to sleep. Then I suddenly wake up remembering I'm an adult with no bedtime. I spend the next four hours catching up on reading, e-mails, and other adult pursuits until I collapse for good until sunrise. — Padma Lakshmi

You have to hope that [good things] happen to you. [ ... ] That's the only thing we really, surely have, is hope. You hope that you can be alive, that things will happen to you that you'll actually witness, that you'll participate in. Rather than life just rolling over you, and you wake up and it's Thursday, and what happened to Monday? Whatever the best part of my life has been, has been as a result of that remembering. — Bill Murray

In twenty years you could say and do a lot you wish you hadn't. In twenty years you could store up a lot of regrets. And then, when it was too late, when there was no one left to say "I'm sorry" to, "I didn't mean it" to, you could stop sleeping for regret, stop eating, talking, working, for regret. You could stop wanting to live. You could want to die for regret.
It was only remembering the good times that kept you from taking the knife from the kitchen drawer and, holding it so, tightly in your fist, on the bed, naked to no purpose except that that was how you came into the world and how your best moments in the world had been spent
holding it so, roll onto the blade, slowly so that it slid like love between your ribs and into that stupidly pumping muscle in your chest that kept you regretting. — Joseph Hansen

What a joy it is to read a book that shocks one into remembering just how high one's literary standards should be. ... a tour de force by one of England's best novelists ... . Atonement is a spectacular book; as good a novel - and more satisfying ... - than anything McEwan has written ... .sublimely written narrative ... . The Dunkirk passage is a stupendous piece of writing, a set piece that could easily stand on its own. ... — Noah Richler

Blue thinks of this now as he makes his way across the river, watching black ahead of him and remembering his father and his boyhood out in Gravesend. The old man was a copy, later a detective at the 77th precinct, and life would have been good, Blue thinks, except for the bullet that went through his father's brain in 1927. Twenty years ago, he says to himself, suddenly appalled by the time that has past, wondering if there is a heaven, and if so whether or not he will get to see his father after he dies. — Paul Auster

Well, memory can play tricks. Most people, I think, tend to remember the good rather than the bad when someone close to them dies. — Soheir Khashoggi

In Egypt, the cats ... afford evidence that animal nature is not altogether intractable, but that when well-treated they are good at remembering kindness. — Claudius Aelianus

Only for today, I will devote ten minutes of my time to some good reading, remembering that just as food is necessary to the life of the body, so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul — Pope John XXII

Hold onto one thought: You're not important. You're not anything. Some day the load we're carrying with us may help someone. But even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us. We're going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. That's where we'll win out in the long run. And some day we'll remember so much that we'll build the biggest goddam steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up. — Ray Bradbury

Following Alyssa, they all walked over to the green clearing in front of the mess hall. It was where they'd held most of the all-camp activities, like games. Jenna sighed, remembering all the good times she'd had there---the gossip, the giggles, the crazy conversations. — Melissa J. Morgan

Something that had been a single cell, a cluster of cells, a little sac of tissue, a kind of worm, a potential fish with gills, stirred in her womb and would one day become a man
a grown man, suffering and enjoying, loving and hating, thinking, remembering, imagining. And what had been a blob of jelly within her body would invent a god and worship; what had been a kind of fish would create, and, having created, would become the battleground of disputing good and evil; what had blindly lived in her as a parasitic worm would look at the stars, would listen to music, would read poetry. — Aldous Huxley

Isn't it weird," I said, "the way you remember things, when someone's gone?"
What do you mean?"
I ate another piece of waffle. "When my dad first died, all I could think about was that day. It's taken me so long to be able to think back to before that, to everything else."
Wes was nodding before I even finished. "It's even worse when someone's sick for a long time," he said. "You forget they were ever healthy, ever okay. It's like there was never a time when you weren't waiting for something awful to happen."
But there was," I said. "I mean, it's only been in the last few months that I've started remembering all this good stuff, funny stuff about my dad. I can't believe I ever forgot it in the first place."
You didn't forget," Wes said, taking a sip of his water. "You just couldn't remember right then. But now you're ready to, so you can."
I thought about this as I finished off my waffle. — Sarah Dessen

I read that the body remakes itself every seven years. Every cell. Even the bones rebuild themselves like coral. Why then do we remember what should be long gone? What's the point of every scar and humiliation? What is the point of remembering the good times when they are gone? I love you. I miss you. You are dead. — Jeanette Winterson

My mom was a model, so she's been really good about giving me tips on how to navigate behind the scenes - like the importance of being nice to everyone on set and remembering people's names, to how to be a positive part of the photo shoot and stuff like that. — Gigi Hadid

Flower was a good metaphor for growth. The song is obviously about sexual responsibility, so that was the main metaphor. Also, it's like knowing who someone has been and remembering and appreciating that, but really appreciating what they are now even more. — Jody Watley

When I parked in front of Charlie's house, he reached over to take my face in his hands. He handled me very carefully, pressing just the tips of his fingers softly against my temples, my cheekbones, my jawline. Like I was especially breakable. Which was exactly the case
compared with him, at least.
"You should be in a good mood, today of all days," he whispered. His sweet breath fanned across my face.
"And if I don't want to be in a good mood?" I asked, my breathing uneven.
His golden eyes smoldered. "Too bad."
My head was already spinning by the time he leaned closer and pressed his icy lips against mine. As he intended, no doubt, I forgot all about my worries, and concentrated on remembering how to inhale and exhale. — Stephenie Meyer

How long had it had been since she'd thought back on the evenings around the fire, number games at the kitchen table, or listening to her father sing? Too long. Yes, there had been bad times. And she had tallied them like figures in a column, not remembering to factor in the good. She had doctored the books. — Julie Klassen

He would perhaps have known that to try too hard to make people good, is one way to make them worse; that the only way to make them good is to be good
remembering well the beam and the mote; that the time for speaking comes rarely, the time for being never departs. — George MacDonald

And if that's the case
if we are our remembering selves
then it matters far less how we feel moment to moment with our children. They play rich and crucial roles in our life stories, generating both outsize highs and outsize lows. Without such complexity, we don't feel like we've amounted to much. "You don't have a good story until something deviates from the expected," says McAdams. "And raising children leads to some pretty unexpected happenings. — Jennifer Senior

If we knew a person was going to die, we'd hold harder to the memories."
Fire corrected him, in a whisper. "The good memories. — Kristin Cashore

Unless we believe the gospel, we will be driven in all we do-whether obeying or disobeying-by pride ('self-love') or fear ('of damnation'). Apart from 'grateful remembering' of the gospel, all good works are done then for sinful motives. Mere moral effort may restrain the heart, but does not truly change the heart. Moral effort merely 'jury rigs' the evil of the heart to produce moral behavior out of self-interest. It is only a matter of time before such a thin tissue collapses. — Timothy Keller

Being a good leader requires remembering that you're there for a reason, and the reason certainly isn't to have your way. High-integrity leaders not only welcome questioning and criticism - they insist on it. — Travis Bradberry

He lay still for a while, alone in the silent house, remembering the night before, what that had been like, wondering what might be starting. Thinking did he want it to start, and what if he did. Late in the afternoon he called her. You doing all right? he said. Yes, aren't you? Yes, I am. Good. I enjoyed myself, he said. You think you'd like to get together again sometime? You're not suggesting an actual date, are you? Maggie said. In broad daylight? I don't know what you'd call it, Guthrie said. I'm just saying I'd be willing to take you out for supper at Shattuck's and invest in a hamburger. To see how that would go down. When were you thinking of doing that? Right now. This evening. Give me fifteen minutes to get ready, she said. He hung up and went upstairs and put on a clean shirt and entered the bathroom and brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He looked at himself in the mirror. You don't deserve it, he said aloud. Don't ever even begin to think that you do. — Kent Haruf

Quickly, the dragon came at him, encouraged
As Beowulf fell back; its breath flared,
And he suffered, wrapped around in swirling
Flames
a king, before, but now
A beaten warrior. None of his comrades
Came to him, helped him, his brave and noble
Followers; they ran for their lives, fled
Deep in a wood. And only one of them
Remained, stood there, miserable, remembering,
As a good man must, what kinship should mean. — Burton Raffel

Maybe that's why I was so afraid of Sasha's love. With him comes the remembering part that I was so good at forgetting.
~Piper - 'Breathe Me — Alexia Purdy

Coraline opened the box of chocolates. The dog looked at them longingly.
"Would you like one?" she asked the little dog.
"Yes, please," whispered the dog. "Only not toffee ones. They make me drool."
"I thought chocolates weren't very good for dogs," she said, remembering something Miss Forcible had once told her.
"Maybe where you come from," whispered the little dog. "Here, it's all we eat. — Neil Gaiman

I suppose there may be a branch president or a high councilor or an elders quorum president or a visiting teacher in the room who wants to know what it is we are to accomplish as Church members when we get together, even if it's only in a home evening group or an opportunity to pray together. Well, this passage indicates that it may have something to do with remembering each other. We all count. Everyone matters. We have a name and it's recorded and we need to remember that here. No one must get lost. "And their names were taken, that they might be remembered and nourished by the good word of God ... to keep them continually watchful unto prayer, relying alone upon the merits of Christ ... to fast and to speak with one another concerning the welfare of their souls ... to observe that there should be no iniquity among them"
what a great thought about meetings and what they are supposed to do, what a Sunday School class can be, what a scriptural discussion in an apartment can be. — Jeffrey R. Holland