She Who Remembers Quotes & Sayings

Whenever life sucks, remember you're going to die someday. — Oscar Wilde

Margaux looks around the table; this is not working. All of a sudden she's thinking about a safe room, something she's only heard of but suddenly wants: water, oxygen, bulletproof door, dead bolts, a thousand books. Utterly quiet. Completely silent. No girls she barely knows in saggy leather pants, no girls in mesh strippers' gloves and jeans sanded thin as a bee's wing, and no girls who can't stay home one night a year because they are always and forever out. On their way to. Coming from.
And then her heart open. Just a little, but it does. Because she remembers all that. How she felt then: the self-reproach, the utter confusion ... That's why her heart opens. For those girls at the table who always feel baffled and sad, tender and malign, repulsive and desirable, innocent and contemptuous of innocence.
So she cries. For them, mostly. For herself a little ... everything hesitates. So that for a second there's no sound in the enormous room but that of Margaux sobbing. — Ron Koertge

"Who Remembers the Armenians?"

I remember them
and I ride the nightmare bus with them
each night
and my coffee, this morning
I'm drinking it with them

You, murderer -
Who remembers you? — Najwan Darwish

The whole flock is helping to raise her, with Total insisting on French lessons and Nudge making sure she doesn't look like a cave girl (even though we pretty much live in caves). But it's only Fang who spends as much time with her as I do, Fang who patiently teaches the fascinating facts his photographic brain remembers from all those fat books I shunned in school. Fang, because he's her father. — James Patterson

In the history of each sport, the heroes who win the Olympic gold medal are the ones we remember. Nobody remembers the World Champion 25 years ago, but everyone remembers who the Olympic Champions were, even 100 years ago. — Lavinia Milosovici

TIME PASSES SWIFTLY WHEN A PERSON DOESN'T THINK ABOUT ANYTHING. Or maybe it's that when a person looks back, he doesn't recall anything significant to mark the passing time, so he remembers it as one complete piece of his life. — Doug Cooper

A horse can lend its rider the speed and strength he or she lacks, but the rider who is wise remembers it is no more than a loan. — Pam Brown

She wondered If I had woken up, would I have smelled his sadness, his desperation, and his detachment?
His death, her breath.
He told her once, she remembers, these two words have no other rhyme but each other.
If she could go back, she thinks
She would open her eyes, instead of her heart. — Rachel Thompson

It is not because I do not love my adopted land - it is the natural feeling of one far from home, who remembers those happy, carefree days when life flowed at full tide, without responsibility, flashing past one like the drama in a fascinating story of adventure and romance. — Erich Von Stroheim

is also time for a final break with our theologically grounded reserve about whatever is being done by the state-which really only comes down to fear. "Speak out for those who cannot in the church today still remembers that this is the very least the Bible asks of us in such times as these? — Keith Clements

The ground shakes and she remembers the stories of dusty boys who lost their legs trying to jump the train to the other side. Legs made of dirt. Returned to dirt. But what a wonderful sound that had. "The other side." Worth losing one's legs for, losing one's entire body to reach there. The other side. — Ray Else

Gogol remembers having to do the same thing when he was younger, when his grandparents died ... He remembers, back then, being bored by it, annoyed at having to observe a ritual no one else he knew followed, in honor of people he had seen only a few times in his life ... Now, sitting together at the kitchen table at six-thirty every evening, his father's chair empty, this meatless meal is the only thing that seems to make sense. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Joy, joy, joy!
Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers,
And the future is dark, and the present is spread,
Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

The real enemy is not fat but us. We are the misusers; we are the greedy ones. If we have no better sense than to purposefully destroy ourselves, it is no wonder that nature punishes us with vile diseases and calls in our maker long before their time. Nature remembers every extra bite of cherry pie, T-bone steak, fried chicken, pizza. — Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz

She remembers blood.
A fine mist which goes deep into her lungs, over her skin and through the air. She remembers a desert at dusk. The sky indigo blue and the fire bright, so bright that she can see everything. Near the fire, in the night, all she knows is chaos wrapped in crimson. All is death and nightmare with a single solitary dancer who smiles cruelly as he moves. He is power and darkness. He is man and beast, silver coin eyes and that face, those claws and the agony of loss.
Time stretches wide; seconds like vast eons swallow up her world. Vince is dead, his mother, his brother and her small son ripped apart and gushing as he/it moves. She is screaming, a howl of agony beyond words, primal and wordless. Still he moves, faster than air, faster than she could ever be. Blood drips from her face as she grunts, running with her lungs on fire and her last remaining hope wrapped in her arms. — Amanda M. Lyons

And my friend Karen remembers
as a little girl
studying Hebrew she inquired
of her refugee tutor who stroked his beard
and said in Yiddish "if there is a god
or if there isn't a god
a Jew studies"
isn't that a good story
beloved, but the woman in me
says that the poet lies
the poet can afford to lie — Alicia Suskin Ostriker

I don't think anyone ever remembers what they were really like as kids. Adults think they do, but they don't. Photos and videos don't capture the real you, or bring back to life the person you used to be. You have to return to the past to do that. — Darren Shan

Remember, you cannot be responsible for the happiness of other people. You can do your best to be sensitive to the needs and desires of others, but some people will not be happy no matter how much you do for them. If you decided you were responsible for their happiness, you could drive yourself completely up the nearest wall. — Kevin Leman

When i'm right no ones remembers, when i'm wrong no ones forget — Anonymous

As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. — Anonymous

There is no more terrible woe upon earth than the woe of the stricken brain, which remembers the days of its strength, the living light of its reason, the sunrise of its proud intelligence, and knows that these have passed away like a tale that is told ... — Ouida

though. Our Azadian friends are always rather nonplussed by our lack of a flag or a symbol, and the Culture rep here - you'll meet him tonight if he remembers to turn up - thought it was a pity there was no Culture anthem for bands to play when our people come here, so he whistled them the first song that came into his head, and they've been playing that at receptions and ceremonies for the last eight years." "I thought I recognized one of the tunes they played," Gurgeh admitted. The drone pushed his arms up and made some more adjustments. "Yes, but the first song that came into the guy's head was 'Lick Me Out'; have you heard the lyrics?" "Ah." Gurgeh grinned. "That song. Yes, that could be awkward." "Damn right. If they find out they'll probably declare war. Usual Contact snafu. — Iain M. Banks

And it's okay if you have to go away Oh just remember the telephone works both ways And if I never ever hear them ring If nothing else I'll think the bells inside Have finally found you someone else and that's okay Cause I'll remember everything you sang ((You and I both)) — Jason Mraz

She remembers in 1940 when the city's population had been called upon to donate all the metal objects they could spare. Married women were asked for their wedding rings. Florence's piazzas were thus heaped with enormous piles of tarnished rusting metal objects. There was something almost touching about the slapdash poverty of the contribution. Candelabras, door handles, pipes, bits of engines, tools. It later occurred to her that these bits of waste metal would in all probability be melted down and fashioned into weapons, ammunition maybe. That the candelabra she was looking at might end up lodged in someone's chest in the form of a bullet, someone who would never know that a household ornament of mysterious provenance would cause his death. — Glenn Haybittle

A spirit of harmony can only survive if each of us remembers, when bitterness and self-interest seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny. — Barbara Jordan

At such times one sees everything and remembers it all. I know from personal experience. I wish I did not. — Stephen King

History is amoral: events occurred. But memory is moral; what we consciously remember is what our conscience remembers. History is the Totenbuch, The Book of the Dead, kept by the administrators of the camps. Memory is the Memorbucher, the names of those to be mourned, read aloud in the synagogue. — Anne Michaels

I am becoming the woman I've wanted,
grey at the temples,
soft body, delighted,
cracked up by life
with a laugh that's known bitter
but, past it, got better,
knows she's a survivor--
that whatever comes,
she can outlast it.
I am becoming a deep
weathered basket.

I am becoming the woman I've longed for,
the motherly lover
with arms strong and tender,
the growing up daughter
who blushes surprises.
I am becoming full moons
and sunrises.

I find her becoming,
this woman I've wanted,
who knows she'll encompass,
who knows she's sufficient,
knows where she's going
and travels with passion.
Who remembers she's precious,
but knows she's not scarce--
who knows she is plenty,
plenty to share. — Jayne Brown

A real man is one who remembers the lady's birthday, but never knows how old she is. A man who never remembers her birthday, but knows exactly how old she is, - is her husband. — Faina Ranevskaya

For Abby, "friend" is a word whose sharp corners have been worn smooth by overuse. "I'm friends with the guys in IT," she might say, or "I'm meeting some friends after work."

But she remembers when the word "friend" could draw blood. She and Gretchen spent hours ranking their friendships, trying to determine who was a best friend and who was an everyday friend, debating whether anyone could have two best friends at the same time, writing each other's names over and over in purple ink, buzzed on the dopamine high of belonging to someone else, having a total stranger choose you, someone who wanted to know you, another person who cared that you were alive. — Grady Hendrix

I listen to the rain talk to the leaves. She tells a story of love and
leaving (isn't that always the story? Isn't that always the punchline?)
She tells it softly like someone who has recently lost something that
cannot be replaced. She closes her eyes and remembers. The leaves
quietly wait. They love in silence. They understand in the dark. And I
too begin to understand. We are all part pouring rain, part fallen
leaves. We are all part of the world, and we all have a story. — Emm Roy

Avie Tevanian, a lanky and gregarious engineer at NeXT who had become Jobs's friend, remembers that every now and then, when they were going out to dinner, they would stop by Chrisann's house to pick up Lisa. "He was very sweet to her," Tevanian recalled. "He was a vegetarian, and so was Chrisann, but she wasn't. He was fine with that. He suggested she order chicken, and she — Walter Isaacson

In her book The Writing Life (1989), Annie Dillard tells the story of a fellow writer who was asked by a student, "Do you think I could be a writer?" "'Well,' the writer said, 'do you like sentences?'" The student is surprised by the question, but Dillard knows exactly what was meant. He was being told, she explains, that "if he likes sentences he could begin," and she remembers a similar conversation with a painter friend. "I asked him how he came to be a painter. He said, 'I like the smell of paint.'" The point, made implicitly (Dillard does not belabour it), is that you don't begin with a grand conception, either of the great American novel or masterpiece that will hang in the Louvre. You begin with a feel for the nitty-gritty material of the medium, paint in one case, sentences in the other. — Stanley Fish

She remembers that when she first moved here, a woman who had been in Hong Kong for six years had confided plaintively: I feel like my real life is on pause. It's nice here, and I like all the help and the vacations, but I'm ready now. I'm ready to resume my real life, and now all I feel like I'm doing is waiting. — Janice Y.K. Lee

Don't talk to me like that," she squeaked. "Like what, baby? Talk like a man who appreciates what he sees? A man who remembers how it felt to kiss your full lips? To touch your body? I might have been drunk that night, but I've had years to remember. Years of lonely nights dreaming of your ivory skin against mine. The scent of you. The taste ... — Eve Langlais

She stood beside me for years, or was it a moment? I cannot remember. Maybe I loved her, maybe I didn't. There was a house, and then no house. There were trees, but none remain. When no one remembers, what is there? You, whose moments are gone, who drift like smoke in the afterlife, tell me something, tell me anything. — Mark Strand

Cash misses his wife with a blank pain in his chest, and he misses his sisters and cousins, who have known him since he was a strong, good-looking boy. Everyone back there remembers, or if they are too young, they've been told. The old ones get to hang on the sweet, perfect past. Cash was the best at climbing trees; his sister Letty won the story bees. The woman who married Letty's husband's brother, a beauty named Sugar, was spotted one time drinking a root beer and had her picture in LIFE magazine. They all know. Now she has thin hair and a humped back but she's still Sugar, she gets to walk around Heaven, Oklahoma, with everybody thinking she's pretty and special. which she is. That's the trouble with moving away from family, he realizes. You lose your youth entirely, you have only the small tired baggage that is carried within the body. — Barbara Kingsolver

I always tell this story: When I started, the woman went to the store to buy a dress. She saw it in pink and red, and then she remembered that the husband, who is probably going to pay for the dress, loves it in pink. So she buys the pink. Today, the same woman goes to the store and remembers the husband likes pink, and she buys the red. — Oscar De La Renta

Come, join your kin and lend strength to the weaker ones. Together, together, we journey, back to our beginnings and our endings. Gather, shore-born creatures of the sea, to return to the shores yet again. Bring your dreams of sky and wings; come to share the memories of our lives. Our time is come, our time is come. - She Who Remembers — Robin Hobb

Ms. Lessing points to a current dogma: political correctness. "It's a continuation of the old Communist Party. It is! The same words, the same attitudes ... 'the Communist Party has made a decision and this is the line."
At first, she says, political correctness had a good beginning; she remembers saying that the language that we use is sexist, racist and so on. But then, "that became a dogma. Because we love a dogma,you know, we really do. We can never just let things develop easily from an idea, it seems to me there's always a group of fanatics who grasp it and make it a dogma. — Doris Lessing

I hate my body Hate what it remembers. Hate what it let him do. — Cheryl Rainfield

No one remembers you for standing in the crowd . But they do remember you for standing out of it. — Eddie Harris

Great sex is wonderful while it's happening, but who remembers great sex they had in 1983? — Bob Seger

If ever they remembered their life in this world it was as one remembers a dream. — C.S. Lewis

For a split second every morning, she forgets. And then the black heaviness is there, and she wonders what it is, and then she remembers. — Lisa Genova

That's the way life works: gratitude and appreciation just bring more goodness. Remember: Everything we give out comes back. Gratitude has all sorts of little, surprising rewards. — Louise Hay

Do not ignore the voice of your heart always in favor of your logical mind. For the heart remembers beauties that the mind cannot recall and thus speaks for a reason. — Tonny K. Brown

You have survived so much
that no one remembers.
And you still spread warm
rain on all your overgrown
lots. And you still get dressed
in the morning. You still
open wide for the sun. — Jacqui Germain

But when the web is pulled askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the middle, one remembers that these webs are not spun in mid-air by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in. — Virginia Woolf

Stop your worrying, panicking and stressing. Breathe. Remember, you made it this far through difficulties that seemed impossible. Remember how many times you were saved at the very last minute
this time is no different. — Bryant H. McGill

There are still many tribal cultures where poetry and song, there is just one word for them. There are other cultures with literacy where poetry and song are distinguished. But poetry always remembers that it has its origins in music. — Edward Hirsch

Where we belong is often where we least expect to find ourselves - a place that we may have willed ourselves to forget, but that the heart remembers forever. — Emily Giffin

I was reading a poem by my idol, Wallace Stevens, in which he said, 'The self is a cloister of remembered sounds.' My first response was, Yesss! How did he know that? It's like he's reading my mind. But my second response was, I need some new sounds to remember. I've been stuck in my little isolation chamber for so long I'm spinning through the same sounds I've been hearing in my head all my life. If I go on this way, I'll get old too fast, without remembering any more sounds than I already know now. The only one who remembers any of my sounds is me. How do you turn down the volume on your personal-drama earphones and learn how to listen to other people? How do you jump off one moving train, marked Yourself, and jump onto a train moving in the opposite direction, marked Everybody Else? I loved a Modern Lovers song called, 'Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste,' and I didn't want to waste mine. — Rob Sheffield

The muttered hint, "Remember, you have a stroke here," freezes my joints like a blast from Siberia. — John Updike

Don't be fooled. Charlie remembers things exactly the way he wants to remember them. I suppose we all do ... And then we spend the rest of our lives basing the way we think about our families on what we THOUGHT happened
instead of what really did. — Janette Oke

Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying,
Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,
Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,
My heart remembers how! — Robert Louis Stevenson

When Alex left for Alaska," Franz remembers, "I prayed. I asked God to keep his finger on the shoulder of that one; I told him that boy was special. But he let Alex die. So on December 26, when I learned what happened, I renounced the Lord. I withdrew my church membership and became an atheist. I decided I couldn't believe in a God who would let something that terrible happen to a boy like Alex. After I dropped off the hitchhikers," Franz continues," I turned my van around, drove back to the store, and bought a bottle of whiskey. And then I went out into the desert and drank it. I wasn't used to drinking, so it made me real sick. Hoped it'd kill me, but it didn't. Just made me real, real sick. — Jon Krakauer

Whether or not you choose to keep your covenant to always remember Him, He always remembers you. — Henry B. Eyring

Helen Hart is so old, she remembers when the Dead Sea was sick. — Jerry Lawler

But it is always easy to put together stories about a past which nobody any longer remembers, like those about journeys to countries where nobody has ever been. — Marcel Proust

You must realize first of all that you are the proof of everything, including yourself. None can prove your existence, because his existence must be confirmed by you first. Your being and knowing you owe nobody. Remember, you are entirely on your own. You do not come from somewhere, you do not go anywhere. You are timeless being and awareness. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

She doesn't think that the mean people she knows are the most passionate; they just want to laugh at everything. But then she remembers that she laughed when a boy in class played a joke on an ugly girl and made her cry. — Mary Gaitskill

The leaves fall patiently
Nothing remembers or grieves
The river takes to the sea
The yellow drift of leaves. — Sara Teasdale

Once you step inside, history has to be rewritten to include you. A fiction develops a story that weaves you into the social fabric, giving you roots and a local identity. You are assimilated, and in erasing your differences and making you one of their own, the community can maintain belief in its wholeness and purity. After two or three generations, nobody remembers the story is fiction. It has become fact. And this is how history is made. — Camilla Gibb

No man can be an exile if he remembers that all the world is one city. — C.S. Lewis

Healing comes when the individual remembers his or her identity - the purpose chosen in the world of ancestral wisdom - and reconnects with that world of Spirit. — Malidoma Patrice Some

Looking back at a repetition of empty days, one sees that monuments have sprung up. Habit is not mere subjugation, it is a tender tie: when one remembers habit it seems to have been happiness. — Elizabeth Bowen

The first time Raffaele ever saw Adelina, it was a stormy-wracked night that changed her life and, indeed, the world. He recalls looking down from the window in his Dalia lodging to see a girl with silver-bright hair, conjuring an illusion of darkness such that he had never seen. He remembers the day she first came to his chambers in Estenzia, when Enzo was still alive and she was still innocent, and the way she looked up at him with her uncertain, damaged gaze. He remembers her test, and what he said to Enzo that night. How long ago that had been. How he had judged her wrongly. — Marie Lu

Your modern teenager is not about to listen to advice from an old person, defined as a person who remembers when there was no Velcro. — Dave Barry

This is the greatest evil that grows out of a wrong act. Somebody always remembers it ... in an evil way. — James A. Michener