Memory And Imagination Quotes

“What indeed is the half-life of a mortal consciousness? What is the half-life of a memory of that mortal consciousness? Of course, this is purely an academic question and of no immediate concern to those of us existing in the world of the living, for we possess already a memory, in its stead, which serves as a basis of our perception of the past. Accurate or not, this nature of memory allows us to understand the past according to the positions occupied by the flesh about which we seek to know, but, unfortunately, not in a way relative to the flesh itself—that flesh stripped of identity and circumstance, that flesh which, in its most rudimentary capacity, had once collided, interacted, fought, competed, negotiated, cooperated, and mated with other flesh: there is no history of this kind, thoroughly naked and telling enough, which is accessible to us, for we are composed of the very same substance, the very same flesh, and sadly incapable of stepping outside of it, even momentarily.”
― Ashim Shanker, Only the Deplorable

“To borrow Julia Creet's phrase, maybe "memory is where we have arrived rather than where we have left." ... I used to think I was a transcriber of my own experiences and memories, adding an image here and there, but now I think I am more of a shaper. I take small fragments of image, memory, silence, and thought, and shape them with imagninary hands into something different.”
― Victoria Chang, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence and Grief

“Making art requires a degree of intentionality. All works of art require a contemplative individual drawing from their bank of knowledge and immersion into the realms of memory and imagination in order to make an outward, communicative expression. Only human beings can draw upon the dialectical tension between memory and imagination to create artistic renderings.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Good writers are like magpies, attracted to shiny things and storing away treasures -
pieces of dialogue and experience - which pop up from memory unexpectedly.”
― Jane Wilson-Howarth, Snowfed Waters

“Life, he supposes, is like that – not simply a catalogue of events, but an internal narrative that imposes shape and order on those events, and adds and subtracts, and lends meaning where there is none. And if one makes no attempt to separate invention from reality, or to impose some discipline on that inner storyteller, one might wonder whether one has in fact lived dozens of lives, countless lives. Reality, he thinks, is not the same as the truth.”
― Mari Biella, Loving Imogen

“If all the stars sank back into the White Sea, there would be no space for thee. For we are the jubilee of when eternity could see. A memory of what was, and suns could be.”
― H.S. Crow

“Memory and imagination allow us to enter the womb of creation, devise the lens through which we translate our surroundings, and create the spectrum that transliterates our experiences.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Language is a tool that allows us to express our thoughts. We use mechanisms of language including oral storytelling and indicative writing to depict a storehouse of evocative images. Language links our mind’s tawny memory and blooming imagination to the world. Storytelling connects each of us to the consciousness of other people who inhabit this planet.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Both memory and imagination arrest time. By conjoining memory and imagination in forming storytelling’s language, style, and texture, writers’ negate the mind’s march into forgetfulness. We employ the full sprung use of memory and imagination to blunt our descent into nothingness.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Human time is not a compiling of moments, layer upon layer, like old newspapers there to be drawn from down in the pile. It is a fuse, burning up our moments as we live them.”
― A. Jay Adler, Footnote 1

“What if: memory is the light you swallow?”
― Susan Nguyen, Dear Diaspora

“A good memory tempts us to live in the past.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov