Collecting Souvenirs Quotes

How far does a pretence of feeling, maintained with absolute conviction, become authentic?

It is, perhaps, a better thing to be valued only as an object of passion than never to be valued at all. I had never been so absolutely the mysterious other. I had become a kind of phoenix, a fabulous beast; I was an outlandish jewel.

That is the purpose of museums, of course. One does not go merely to collect facts and souvenirs and picture post cards, but to enlarge one's notion of all that has been, and all that is, and all that might be. In this way we begin to understand what part each of us was born to play in the marvelous tale of existence.

I should have liked to have had him beside me in a glass coffin, so that I could watch him all the time and he would not have been able to get away from me.

I speak as if he had no secrets from me. Well, then, you must know I was suffering from love and I knew him as intimately as I knew my own image in a mirror. In other words, I knew him only in relation to myself.

He was prepared to die for it, as one of Baudelaire's dandies might have been prepared to kill himself in order to preserve himself in the condition of a work of art, for he wanted to make this experience a masterpiece of experience which absolutely transcended the everyday. And this would annihilate the effects of the cruel drug, boredom, to which he was addicted although, perhaps, the element of boredom which is implicit in an affair so isolated from the real world was its principle appeal for him.

But I do not want to paint our circumstantial portraits so that we both emerge with enough well-rounded, spuriously detailed actuality that you are forced to believe in us. I do not want to practise such sleight of hand. You must be content only with glimpses of our outlines, as if you had caught sight of our reflections in the looking-glass of somebody else’s house as you passed by the window.

And it is in this gap between resemblance and identity that nostalgic desire arises. The nostalgic is enamored of distance, not of the referent itself. Nostalgia cannot be sustained without loss.

Everyone collects souvenirs, whether they call them that or not. They're evidence that we’ve taken part in the great dance of life – been places, seen things. They’re connections between us and something grander and more eternal than we are. And they belong to us. Tourists shooting blurry mobile-phone-camera snapshots of the ‘Mona Lisa’ or Niagara Falls want to prove they were there, not to have art to hang on their walls.

The magnificence of such objects hardly pertains to the human. They live only in a world of icons and there they participate in rituals which transmute life itself to a series of grand gestures, as moving as they are absurd.

At the sight of their heroes and heroines, the crowd would turn demoniac. Some little gesture, either too pleasing or too offensive, would start it moving and then nothing but machine guns would stop it. Individually the purpose of its members might simply to be to get a souvenir, but collectively it would grab and rend.

THE UNIVERSE PROCEEDS out of what it has been and into what it will be, inexorably, unstoppably, at the rate of one second per second, one year per year, forever. At right angles to its forward progress lie the past and the future. The future, that is to say, does not lie “ahead” of the present in the stream of time, but at a right angle to it: the future of any present moment can be projected as far as you like outward from it, infinitely in fact, but when the universe has proceeded further, and a new present moment has succeeded this one, the future of this one retreats with it into the what-has-been, forever outdated. It is similar but more complicated with the past.

Not until the lamp is utterly shattered,” she said, “and all pages everywhere sealed up in mildew—but then one would only cease to be, wouldn’t one? Till then, simply changelessness. How deliciously restful. It’s what one wanted, isn’t it, what one had prepared for and sought after—what one had invented out of all the terrible longings and dissatisfactions, never knowing that this exactly was what one was inventing—and yet having no other reason, all along, but this. How pleasant and odd that it should be so….

...because you are not trying simply to complete a set of books or toys or Weetabix cards, you are trying to complete yourself, to get back to the whole person you were before, as a child, before the obstructions and compromises of adulthood got in the way. And yet, all you are really doing is accumulating a pile of crap, souvenirs of the futility of the quest.

In Canada, when we speak of water, we're speaking of ourselves. Canadians are known to be unextravagant, and one explanation of this might be that we know that wasted water means a diminished collective soul; polluted waters mean a sickened soul. Water is the basis of our self-identity, and when we dream of canoes and thunderstorms and streams and even snowballs, we're dreaming about our innermost selves.

And now we realize what is expected—the Americans want to exchange. It is apparent that they have not long been in the war; they are still collecting souvenirs, shoulder straps, badges, belt buckles, decorations, uniform buttons. In exchange we stock ourselves with soap, cigarettes, chocolate and tinned meat. They even want us to take a handful of money for our dog—but we draw the line there; let them offer what they will, the dog stays with us.

I’m sorry, really, to be taking it all from you. Don’t be silly. His eyes, large, liquid, remote, were—were whatever is the opposite of silly. She felt no anger at him, and not envy; she did want him to have her house; only—for a wild moment—wanted desperately not to lose it either. She wanted to share it, share it all; she wanted…He went on looking at her, fixedly and unashamedly as a cat; and there came a flaw in time, a doubling of this moment, a shadow scene behind this scene, in which he asked her to come now, come to stay, stay now, stay always, yield it all to him and yet have it all…. As instantly as she perceived it, the flaw healed, and No, no, she said, blinking, turning back to the kitchen door, shaken, as though, unaware, she had found herself walking out on ice.

Cassie Wright's largest audience, the only part of her audience still growing, is composed of sixteen-to-twenty-five-year-old men. These men buy her backlist movies, her plastic breast relics and pocket vaginas, but not for any erotic purpose. They collect the blow-up sex surrogates and signature lingerie as some form of religious relics. Souvenirs of the real mother, the perfect mother they never had. Frankenstein parts or religious totems of the mother they'll spend the rest of their lives trying to find -who'll praise them enough, support them enough, love them enough.

Libby, not all the gays have an encyclopedic knowledge of the American musical theater. It's not like they hand you a DVD box set of of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Collection in a Liza Minnelli souvenir tote bag when you come out.' 'Well, they should. I'd totally be gay for a Liza Minnelli tote bag.

The house wasn't theirs anymore. It was full of people, some in uniforms and some in suits. People counting rooms, making lists of objects and pictures, taking things away. Anna is in there somewhere. She has been ordered to help with this packing-up into boxes and crates, told that she should be ashamed of working for the Jews. And it is not just their art, not just the bibelots, all the gilded stuff from tables and mantelpieces, but their clothes, Emmy's winter coats, a crate of domestic china, a lamp, a bundle of umbrellas and walking-sticks. Everything that has taken decades to come into this house, settling in drawers and chests and vitrines and trunks, wedding-presents and birthday-presents and souvenirs, is now being carried out again. This is the strange undoing of a collection, of a house and of a family. It is the moment of fissure when grand things are taken and when family objects, known and handled and loved, become stuff.

And lastly — I hope you are not too sleepy to pay attention to this, Harry — the young Tom Riddle liked to collect trophies. You saw the box of stolen articles he had hidden in his room. These were taken from victims of his bullying behavior, souvenirs, if you will, of particularly unpleasant bits of magic. Bear in mind this magpie-like tendency, for this, particularly, will be important later

American Indians share a magnificent history — rich in its astounding diversity, its integrity, its spirituality, its ongoing unique culture and dynamic tradition. It's also rich, I'm saddened to say, in tragedy, deceit, and genocide. Our sovereignty, our nationhood, our very identity — along with our sacred lands — have been stolen from us in one of the great thefts of human history. And I am referring not just to the thefts of previous centuries but to the great thefts that are still being perpetrated upon us today, at this very moment. Our human rights as indigenous peoples are being violated every day of our lives — and by the very same people who loudly and sanctimoniously proclaim to other nations the moral necessity of such rights. Over the centuries our sacred lands have been repeatedly and routinely stolen from us by the governments and peoples of the United States and Canada. They callously pushed us onto remote reservations on what they thought was worthless wasteland, trying to sweep us under the rug of history. But today, that so-called wasteland has surprisingly become enormously valuable as the relentless technology of white society continues its determined assault on Mother Earth. White society would now like to terminate us as peoples and push us off our reservations so they can steal our remaining mineral and oil resources. It's nothing new for them to steal from nonwhite peoples. When the oppressors succeed with their illegal thefts and depredations, it's called colonialism. When their efforts to colonize indigenous peoples are met with resistance or anything but abject surrender, it's called war. When the colonized peoples attempt to resist their oppression and defend themselves, we're called criminals. I write this book to bring about a greater understanding of what being an Indian means, of who we are as human beings. We're not quaint curiosities or stereotypical figures in a movie, but ordinary — and, yes, at times, extraordinary — human beings. Just like you. We feel. We bleed. We are born. We die. We aren't stuffed dummies in front of a souvenir shop; we aren't sports mascots for teams like the Redskins or the Indians or the Braves or a thousand others who steal and distort and ridicule our likeness. Imagine if they called their teams the Washington Whiteskins or the Washington Blackskins! Then you'd see a protest! With all else that's been taken from us, we ask that you leave us our name, our self-respect, our sense of belonging to the great human family of which we are all part. Our voice, our collective voice, our eagle's cry, is just beginning to be heard. We call out to all of humanity. Hear us!

My Mother They are killing her again. She said she did it One year in every ten, But they do it annually, or weekly, Some even do it daily, Carrying her death around in their heads And practicing it. She saves them The trouble of their own; They can die through her Without ever making The decision. My buried mother Is up-dug for repeat performances. Now they want to make a film For anyone lacking the ability To imagine the body, head in oven, Orphaning children. Then It can be rewound So they can watch her die Right from the beginning again. The peanut eaters, entertained At my mother’s death, will go home, Each carrying their memory of her, Lifeless – a souvenir. Maybe they’ll buy the video. Watching someone on TV Means all they have to do Is press ‘pause’ If they want to boil a kettle, While my mother holds her breath on screen To finish dying after tea. The filmmakers have collected The body parts, They want me to see. They require dressings to cover the joins And disguise the prosthetics In their remake of my mother; They want to use her poetry As stitching and sutures To give it credibility. They think I should love it – Having her back again, they think I should give them my mother’s words To fill the mouth of their monster, Their Sylvia Suicide Doll, Who will walk and talk And die at will, And die, and die And forever be dying.

She knew she was delaying the inevitable- trying to locate Agnete's address- but decided to make a list of things to buy first, looking for shops close to the hotel and purposefully ignoring her uncertain finances. She dunked a sopaipilla in her coffee and brushed powdered sugar from her lips, the plate of chile-flecked fried polenta, chorizo, and eggs already finished. It might not have been a vacation, but it felt like one. She was on her own, eating strange foods, planning to spend money she wasn't sure she had, and no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to her. She had fallen down the rabbit hole. It was easiest to come up with ideas for Saisee, whose pride in her cooking shone in everything she concocted, tossing in a pinch of this and a smidgen of that. Alice had even watched her hold crushed spices in the palm of her hand and blow them gently over the pot. 'My momma taught me that. Best way to get flavor to every part of the pot.' For here there would be white posole and blue cornmeal, a collection of chile powders, and piloncillo, the little cones of unrefined Mexican sugars Alice imagined she might use to make caramelized custard.

The truth is, travel costs money, and I prefer to spend it collecting experiences rather than souvenirs.

I was hoping to be done with Margot's scrapbook before she left for college, but as anyone who's ever scrapbooked knows, Rome wasn't built in a day. You could spend a year or more working on a scrapbook. I've got Motown girl-group music playing, and my supplies are laid out all around me in a semicircle. My heart hole punch, pages and pages of scrapbook paper, pictures I've cut out of magazines, glue gun, my tape dispenser with all my different colored washi tapes. Souvenirs like the playbill from when we saw Wicked in New York, receipts, pictures. Ribbon, buttons, stickers, charms. A good scrapbook has texture. It's thick and chunky and doesn't close all the way.

You just collect bulky religious souvenirs to use as murder weapons, is it? No one ever suspects the heavy hand of the Lord. Repent, repent, or Jesus might take the head off yeh!

From all journeys, be they imaginative or geographic, the most important souvenirs to be collected are the reminders that people's lives are fortified by family and friends; by our ability to create our lives like a piece of art; and our efforts to reconcile our material needs with the importance of our connections to each other.

In my room later, I placed Gran’s photo in my memory box. Inside were mementos I’d collected over the years: a lock of my real hair in a little see-through bag, birthday cards, holiday souvenirs, a lucky penny and the hair clip Gran had given me for my twelfth birthday, before I’d developed alopecia

C'est le magistère de l'histoire, incessante transfusion de l'âme des pères dans l'âme des fils, qui maintient une race invariable en son fond. Pour des petits peuples comme le nôtre, mal assurés de leur destin, exposés à douter de leur avenir, c'est l'histoire, "conscience vigilante et collective d'une société fière d'elle-même," (G. Kurth), qui détermine les suprêmes fidélités. Pour une race démembrée et dispersée comme la race française d'Amérique, c'est encore l'histoire, reliant aux mêmes souvenirs, faisant communier à l'idéal des mêmes aïeux, qui maintient, malgré les distances, l'essentielle fraternité.

C'est le magistère de l'histoire, incessante transfusion de l'âme des pères dans l'âme des fils, qui maintient une race invariable en son fond. Pour des petits peuples comme le nôtre, mal assurés de leur destin, exposés à douter de leur avenir, c'est l'histoire, "conscience vigilante et collective d'une société fière d'elle-même," (G. Kurth), qui détermine les suprêmes fidélités. Pour une race démembrée et dispersée comme la race française d'Amérique, c'est encore l'histoire, reliant aux mêmes souvenirs, faisant communier à l'idéal des mêmes aïeux, qui maintient, malgré les distances, l'essentielle fraternité.

C'est le magistère de l'histoire, incessante transfusion de l'âme des pères dans l'âme des fils, qui maintient une race invariable en son fond. Pour des petits peuples comme le nôtre, mal assurés de leur destin, exposés à douter de leur avenir, c'est l'histoire, "conscience vigilante et collective d'une société fière d'elle-même," (G. Kurth), qui détermine les suprêmes fidélités. Pour une race démembrée et dispersée comme la race française d'Amérique, c'est encore l'histoire, reliant aux mêmes souvenirs, faisant communier à l'idéal des mêmes aïeux, qui maintient, malgré les distances, l'essentielle fraternité.

C'est le magistère de l'histoire, incessante transfusion de l'âme des pères dans l'âme des fils, qui maintient une race invariable en son fond. Pour des petits peuples comme le nôtre, mal assurés de leur destin, exposés à douter de leur avenir, c'est l'histoire, "conscience vigilante et collective d'une société fière d'elle-même," (G. Kurth), qui détermine les suprêmes fidélités. Pour une race démembrée et dispersée comme la race française d'Amérique, c'est encore l'histoire, reliant aux mêmes souvenirs, faisant communier à l'idéal des mêmes aïeux, qui maintient, malgré les distances, l'essentielle fraternité.

I am my own hero. Scars are simply souvenirs you collect along the way. They make you tougher and you learn from them. I’ve learned some lessons the hard way and some the soft way.

They’re more opportunistic,’ said Sowerby. ‘They’ll take roadkill, so I don’t see why they’d turn their beak up at a free ear or two. The things you learn on the job!’ Gordy sighed. ‘Eyes, and now ears; perhaps Harry was right.’ ‘About what?’ ‘Souvenirs. Maybe whoever’s done this is collecting body parts.’ ‘What a truly lovely thought.’ ‘Isn’t it just? Anything else?

This bourgeois conjunction of sign and signified is apparent in the dramatic rescue of the classics offered in advertisements for gilt-and-leather volumes of “The World’s Greatest Literature.

The Sad Boy Ay, his old mother was a glad one. And his poor old father was a mad one. The two begot this sad one. Alas for the single shoe The Sad Boy pulled out of the rank green pond, Fishing for fairies On the prankish advice Of two disagreeable lovers of small boys. Pity the unfortunate Sad Boy With a single magic shoe And a pair of feet And an extra foot With no shoe for it. This was how the terrible hopping began That wore the Sad Boy thin and through To his only shoe And started the great fright in the provinces above Brent Where the Sad Boy became half of himself To match the beautiful boot He had dripped from the green pond. Wherever he went weeping and hopping And stamping and sobbing, Pounding a whole earth into a half-heaven, Things split where he stood Into the left side for the left magic, Into no side for the missing right boot. Mercy be to the Sad Boy Scamping exasperated After a wide boot To double the magic Of a limping foot. Mercy to the melancholy folk On the Sad Boy's right. It was not for want of wandering He lost the left boot too And the knowledge of his left side, But because one awful Sunday This dear boy dislimbed Went back to the old pond To fish up another shoe And was quickly (being too light for his line) Fished in. Gracious how he kicks now All the little ripples up! The quiet population of Brent has settled down, And the perfect surface of the famous pond Is slightly pocked, marked with three signs, For visitors come to fish for souvenirs, Where the Sad Boy went in And his glad mother and his mad father after him.

se "in-between times" to get things done. For example, it takes 15 minutes or less to change the sheets on a bed. So when you're waiting for dinner to finish cooking, to go somewhere, or for something to finish up, make a bed. Planning saves you time. Know what you have to do-and set your priorities. ere's a fun idea! Why not lighten a gathering together load a little by hosting a tea "potluck." It's a great way to widen your circle of friends and expand your recipe files. You provide the beautiful setting-and, of course, the tea. Invite each guest to bring a wonderful tea-time treat to share, along with the recipe. Have fun sampling all the goodies. You can also invite someone to play the piano, the guitar, or even do a dramatic reading of some sort. After the gathering, create a package of recipes and send them to each participant, along with a "thank you for coming" note. Friends are the continuous threads that help hold our lives together. f you have a fireplace, make it the focus of the room. Add plants, a teddy bear collection, or whatever you like to catch the eye. Add homey touches with a favorite stuffed toy, a framed picture of yourself with your grandmother. Photos and vacation souvenirs are great to liven up a room. Slipcovers help you make incredible changes in your decor simply. In winter months, toss an afghan over a sofa or chair. When you're not using afghans or blankets, stack them neatly under a shelf or a table to add texture to a room. Instead of a lamp table, stack wooden trunks or packing boxes together. These make great tables and provide storage.

Tu sais, pour en avoir été victime, que ce qui est le plus difficile à vivre, ce n'est pas tant l'acte blessant en lui-même. Non, ce qui est infini ment plus avilissant et pervers, c'est la réaction des spectateurs, tout au tour. L'hilarité, les regards moqueurs, le mépris. Se faire pousser, insulter, mordre, ça fait mal sur le coup. Et puis ça passe. Mais les conséquences, les retombées ou le souvenir laissé dans la conscience collective, ça, ça perdure longtemps.

What remains of a couple when it’s gone? A small collection of souvenirs: phrases, images, sensations. These fragments persist long afterward, as vivid as they are completely and radiantly meaningless, as if they were signs that will one day reveal their secrets. Sometimes the fragments include a child or two, and sometimes those children grow up and have to be what they are. But although the couple is the primary image of love, the couple is not all that love is, and so these fragments are not signs

We did not collect many souvenirs, for our own skin was the best souvenir we could think of that day.34 Signaller Ron Buckell, 1st Canadian Artillery Brigade, CEF

Like the clichéd serial killer, Gosnell kept souvenirs of his crimes. All of those little baby feet in formaldehyde-filled glass jars were trophies. Kareema Cross was so disturbed by them that she took photos of them as far back as 2008. If anyone from the Pennsylvania Department of Health had bothered to inspect the Women’s Medical Society, they would have seen them at once. Gosnell didn’t hide them. But the feet were not his only trophies. Gosnell also collected pictures of women’s genitals. He snapped pictures when his patients were unconscious during their abortions. Steve Massof testified that he often saw Gosnell take out his cell phone and take pictures, ostensibly for “research” or for “teaching.” Gosnell was not in fact conducting any research that Massof was aware of, nor did he teach. The doctor told Massof that he had an academic interest in female genital mutilation...

This is the whole purpose of museums, of course. One does not go merely to collect facts and souvenirs and picture postcards, but to enlarge one’s notion of all that has been, and all that is, and all that might be. In this way we begin to understand what part each of us was born to play in the marvelous tale of existence.

I've never collected souvenirs. But if I could, I'd save the white of beautiful nights in a little pouch on my chest, the way Indians keep the scents of the prairie.

He put them in a situation where they needed to earn his “currency” to stay out of trouble. Each time the kids did some work, they got a receipt (some business cards) for the task they had performed. At the end of the month, the kids returned the cards to their father. As Mosler explained, he didn’t actually need to collect his own cards back from the kids. “What would I want with my own tokens?” he asked. He had already gotten what he really wanted out of the deal—a tidy house! So why did he bother taxing the cards away from the kids? Why didn’t he let them hold on to them as souvenirs? The reason was simple: Mosler collected the cards so the kids would need to earn them again next month. He had invented a virtuous provisioning system! Virtuous in this case means that it keeps repeating.

the landscape retains its grip on the collective imagination, offering the promise of tranquillity, open space, freedom from responsibility; a rustic souvenir of permanence and stability. Britons treasure their shrinking countryside like a family heirloom wrapped in silk, locked away in the secret compartment of a writing table, protected from foreign invasion for most of a millennium.

After dinner I text Chris to see if she wants to come over, but she doesn't text back. She's probably out with one of the guys she hooks up my scrapbooking. with. Which is fine. I should catch up on I was hoping to be done with Margot's scrapbook before she left for college, but as anyone who's ever scrapbooked knows, Rome wasn't built in a day. You could spend a year or more working on one scrapbook. I've got Motown girl-group music playing, and my sup plies are laid out all around me in a semicircle. My heart hole punch, pages and pages of scrapbook paper, pictures I've cut out of magazines, glue gun, my tape dispenser with all my different colored washi tapes. Souvenirs like the playbill from when we saw Wicked in New York, receipts, pictures. Ribbon, buttons, stickers, charms. A good scrap book has texture. It's thick and chunky and doesn't close all the way.

Je suis en manque de lui, et cette sensation est tout aussi douloureuse que son souvenir est délicieux.

When I deeply see: • bedsheets painted with highlighter? … children live here! • dead rose left too long in vase? … lingering memories of a brother’s gift. • Great-grandma’s wicker laundry basket overflowing in the mudroom? … we had a full, rich weekend! • vehicle souvenirs — a collection of shoes, Sunday school paper, Lego pieces? … we’ll gather them up too. • study table spread out with thoughts and ideas? … we’re thinking now. • a pile of tossed shoes on a shelf in the garage? … worn days of a good summer. • stack of tattered books? … stories that have become real.

even souvenir seekers. One of the worst contaminants was fellow officers, especially brass grandstanding if reporters were present and eager to grab a video bite to slap on the twenty-four-hour news cycle. One more glance at the circular coffin. Okay, Amelia Sachs thought: Knuckle time… A phrase of her father’s. The man had also been cop, a beat patrolman working the Deuce—Midtown South; back then Times Square was like Deadwood in the 1800s. “Knuckle time” referred to those moments when you have to go up against your worst fears. Breadbasket… Sachs returned to the access door and climbed through it and down into the utility room below the cellar. Then she took the evidence collection gear bag from the other officer. Sachs said, “You search the basement, Jean?” “I’ll do it now,” Eagleston said. “And then get everything into the RRV.” They’d done a fast examination of the cellar. But it was apparent that the perp had spent minimal time there. He’d grabbed Chloe, subdued