Etched In Memory Quotes

I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me. If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. “Patroclus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.

The years, the months, the days, and the hours have flown by my open window. Here and there an incident, a towering moment, a naked memory, an etched countenance, a whisper in the dark, a golden glow these and much more are the woven fabric of the time I have lived.

If all we are allowed is hours, minutes, I want to be able to etch each of them on to my memory with exquisite clarity so that I can recall them at moments like this, when my very soul feels blackened.

Had he stood outside my door as I'd stood outside his, fists at his sides, lips drawn back? Did it have him as bad as it had me? Was it eating at him, gnawing at him with the same sharp vicious little teeth that wouldn't let me sleep? Yes, it was. I could see the rage of insatiable uninvited lust in every line of that dark, stoic face that had once been too subtly etched for me to read. I wasn't the only one lying awake at night, fevered with memories, tossing, turning, soaking my sheets, burning up--not for Fae sex, but him, damn it all to hell, him.

If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. “Patroclus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.

And I saw for the first time how, despite the isolation of our own lives, we are always connected to our ancestors; our bodies hold the memories of those who came before us, whether it is the features we inherit or a disposition that is etched into our soul.

Your momma wanted to save you--save you from your fate. If she hadn't, you'd be nothing but a memory and a fear long forgotten. Just like all you who mix the breeds. What they want you two for, what they have planned." She shook her head again and when she looking at me, sorrow etched across her face. "They fear you, fear what comes from you. I told you child. I told you that your path was filled with dark things tat must be done.

All I had to do was open a book - to see the stories bleeding from page to page. To see the memories etched onto paper.

In the dark, dank world of the Tunnels, I would call upon this memory. And there would be a flicker of candlelight. If only for a moment. I closed my eyes, as if my eyelids were the levers of a printing press, etching the fibers into my mind. Memories were outside Cole’s reach. As long as I held them, memories were mine and mine alone.

The past is a tricky thing. Sometimes it's etched in stone. And other times, it's rendered in soft memories. But if you meddle too long in deep, dark things... Who knows what monsters you'll awaken?

Every libromancer had a first book. Etched more sharply into my memory than my first kiss, this book had been my magical awakening.

Except he and I know that some pain burrows so deep, no narcotic can ever soothe it. It's etched on your bones. It hides in your marrow, like cancer. If the boy survives, the pain is a memory he won't want.

I could see the rage of insatiable uninvited lust in every line of that dark, stoic face that had once been too subtly etched for me to read.I wasn't the only one lying awake at night, fevered with memories, tossing, turning, soaking my sheets, burning up--not for Fae sex, but him, damn it all to hell, him.

The image of him frozen to the spot in the pouring rain would be etched into my memory forever.

Relationships never truly die. Though they may come to an end, their essence lives on, forever etched in the threads of our cherished memories.

If you take another lover, Elena” — he thrust back in, making her gasp — “what I do to him will become a nightmare etched in human memory.

She turned suddenly, and before I could react, framed my face with her hands and pressed her lips to mine. I froze, mostly in shock, but after a moment my body uncoiled and I closed my eyes, relaxing into her. I remembered this; the feel of her lips on mine, cool and soft, the touch of her fingers on my skin. I remembered her scent, those long nights when we would lie under the cold, frozen stars, dreaming in each other’s arms. For a second, my body reacted instinctively. I started to pull us closer, to wrap my arms around her and return the kiss with equal passion…but, then I stopped. I remembered this perfectly; every shining moment with Ariella was forever etched into my mind. What we’d had, what we’d shared, everything. I’d built a shrine to her in my memories, carefully tended with grief and anger and regret. I knew every inch of our relationship, the passion, the feeling of emptiness when we weren’t together, the longing and, yes, the love. I had been in love with Ariella. I remembered what she’d meant to me once, what I’d felt for her then… …and what I didn’t feel for her now.

Line by line, moment by moment, special times are etched into our memories in the permanent ink of everlasting love in our relationships.

Life was made up of moments, big ones and little, the good and bad, dark and light. We never remembered the gray, the times in between, but instead only the moments that had the ability to transform us in some way, affect us so completely that the memory would be forever etched upon who we were, who we are, and who we would become.

He lives vividly in her recollections, however, and his memory is etched on her soul.

What is human memory?" Manning asked. He gazed at the air as he spoke, as if lecturing an invisible audience - as perhaps he was. "It certainly is not a passive recording mechanism, like a digital disc or a tape. It is more like a story-telling machine. Sensory information is broken down into shards of perception, which are broken down again to be stored as memory fragments. And at night, as the body rests, these fragments are brought out from storage, reassembled and replayed. Each run-through etches them deeper into the brain's neural structure. And each time a memory is rehearsed or recalled it is elaborated. We may add a little, lose a little, tinker with the logic, fill in sections that have faded, perhaps even conflate disparate events. "In extreme cases, we refer to this as confabulation. The brain creates and recreates the past, producing, in the end, a version of events that may bear little resemblance to what actually occurred. To first order, I believe it's true to say that everything I remember is false.

Home is the place in deepest space Where star etched memories burn, Home is that sigh for a color of sky and a will to return.

Shapes began to appear in the mist as it thickened. Clary saw herself and Simon as children, holding hands, crossing a street in Brooklyn,; she had barrettes in her hair and Simon was adorably rumpled, his glasses sliding off his nose. There they were again, throwing snowballs in Prospect Park; and at Luke's farmhouse, tanned from summer, hanging upside down from tree branches. She saw them in Java Jones, listening to Eric's terrible poetry, and on the back of a flying motorcycle as it crashed into a parking lot, with Jace there, looking at them, his eyes squinted against the sun. And there was Simon with Isabelle, his hands curved around her face, kissing her, and she could see Isabelle as Simon saw her: fragile and strong, and so, so beautiful. And there was Valentine's ship, Simon kneeling on Jace, blood on his mouth and shirt, and blood at Jace's throat, and there was the cell in Idris, and Hodge's weathered face, and Simon and Clary again, Clary etching the Mark of Cain onto his forehead. Maureen, and her blood on the floor, and her little pink hat, and the rooftop in Manhattan where Lilith had raised Sebastian, and Clary was passing him a gold ring across a table, and an Angel was rising out of a lake before him and he was kissing Isabelle...

I have these two different images of her etched into my memory: one as this idealized mother, and the other as a sort of pressure weighing down on me - obsessive, feminine love.

[...]and yet wasn't there something about [vampires] that struck a deep chord of recognition, even of memory? The teeth, the blood, the hunger, the immortal union with darkness -- what if these things weren't fantasy but recollection or even instinct, a feeling etched over eons into human DNA, of some dark power that lay within the human animal?

STOP DIGGING.' The letters on the mirror were etched in my memory. Now, as I finished my make-up with a swipe of lip-gloss, I huffed on the mirror, and wrote in the steam obscuring my reflection one word: 'NO'.

I may say that I have forgotten a certain thing. Partially false; it has just faded I know. Unintentionally that thing might have prick-ed me more than the other things that I might have let go. I will only understand its depth, if after years of persuasive erosions and new etch marks, I dream about you one fine night; having nothing to do with my present. Just some sweet-bitter memories might surface one day. And that one day I will regret and at the same time thank to have met you in my life.

There’ll be moments in life, sweet pea, that stand out in your memories like a photograph. Scenes captured perfectly in your mind, frozen in time with each detail as colorful as it was that first time you saw it. ‘Flashbulb memories,’ some people call them,” she’d told me, her eyes crinkling up and nearly disappearing in a face etched with too many laugh lines to count. “Most people don’t recognize those moments as they happen. They look back fifty years later, and realize that those were the most important parts of their entire life. But at the time, they’re so busy looking ahead to what’s coming down the line or worrying about their future, they don’t enjoy their present. Don’t be like them, sweet pea. Don’t get so caught up in chasing your dreams that you forget to live them.

I am always a different man; a reinterpretation of the man I was yesterday, and the day before, and all the days I have lived. The past is gone, was always gone; it does not exist, except in memory, and what is memory but thought, a copy of perception, no less but no more replete with truth than any passing whim, fancy, or other agitation of the mind. And if it is actions, words, thoughts that define an individual, those definitions alter like the weather - if continuity and pattern are often discernible, so are chaos and sudden change.

History, she realized, was mostly lost. No matter how diligent the recorders, the witnesses, the researchers, most of the past simply no longer existed. Would never be known. The notion seemed to empty her out somewhere deep inside, as if the very knowledge of loss somehow released a torrent of extinction within her own memories-moments swirling away, never to be retrieved. She set a finger in one groove etched into the stone, followed its serpentine track downward as far as she could reach, then back up again. The first to do so in how long?

Let’s take it slow because I’d like each moment we share to be etched in my memory. And I’d like these memories to make me smile wistfully someday. Let’s take it slow because I’m keeping a journal of our journey, and someday I’ll turn it into a book. I’d like our story to be rich in detail, and full of laughter and intriguing conversations. Let’s take it slow because all my life, I’ve always rushed into so many things, and they were all mistakes — I’d like you to be one of those things I’m going to do right. You deserve that much.

I shook my head back and forth as though I was a human etch-a-sketch, erasing the memory.

...I came across a Haida saying that had etched itself into my memory banks: 'Joy is a well-made object, equaled only to the joy of making it.

Things, I know, stiffen and shift in memory, become what they never were before. As when an army takes over a country. Or a summer yard goes scarlet with fall and its venous leaves. One summons the years of the past largely by witchcraft-a whore's arts, collage and brew, eye of newt, heart of horse. Still, the house of my childhood is etched in my memory like the shape of the mind itself: a house-shaped mind-why not? It was this particular mind out of which I ventured-for any wild danger or sentimental stance or lunge at something faraway. But it housed every seedling act. I floated above it, but close, like a figure in a Chagall.

beyond beginnings the earth her many tribes and clans their life songs merge into one chant- - And to each creation the heartline trail is etched in delicate memory pattern webs so intricate in a unity of day into night the seasons follow

The knowledge feels grotesque in my mind but I grasp it and hold it tight, etching it deep into my memory. Why am I doing this? Why do I want to know the names and functions of all the beautiful structures I've spent my years violating? Because I don't deserve to keep them anonymous. I want the pain of knowing them and by extension myself: who and what I really am.

Just because the ones we love die (or fall out of our lives or disappear from the spinning of our spheres) does not mean we love them any less or erase them from the deeply etched lines of the maps we have traveled. We find ways to keep them alive in spirit, with the brutal knowing that they are gone in body. We can remember; we can feel & this can all be grief & it can all be love, too.

Come to me in the dark, bring me all of your scars. I want to know every crack in your heart, every ache, every memory that haunts you. I want to see the realness in your face, the way your eyes stay light even when you talk of pain, and the way your lips are uneven when you smile. The grooves carved into your soul have made you beautiful and I want to run my fingers across the etches. I know people cover wounds and disguise their damage, but this is what makes you, you, and I want to know you. I want to sink inside of you and feel your depth. Don’t protect me from your story. We all have a story and I’m tired of drowning alone.

Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” “You might’ve mentioned it once or twice before,” “That’s right. I did mention it before. I remember telling you how amazing you are. I think we were in front of a mirror.” “Does that sound familiar?” “Um, yeah. That seems vaguely familiar.” “Vaguely? Maybe I didn’t pound it into you hard enough.” “Oh, I think you pounded it in plenty hard.” “Maybe I should’ve taken the time to give you a good tongue-lashing, too, then.” “Oh, I think the form of communication you used was very effective.” “So it’s all coming back to you now?” “Yes, it’s all coming back to me.” “If you’re lying, I could sweat it out of you, you know.” “I’m not lying. It’s etched into my memory. Permanently.” “Maybe we should revisit it, just so you’re clear on everything we discussed. I want to make sure it’s in there. Nice and deep. So you never forget it.” “I doubt there’s anything you could do to get it in there any deeper.” “Oh, I can think of one or two things. The only way we’ll know for sure, though, is to try. And I don’t know about you, but I’m committed to this.  Invested. And I’m nothing if not thorough.

The feel of him would forever be etched in her memory.And cause an eternity of torment.

Memories were movable, he was discovering. They weren’t etched in stone like some monolith testimony to the eons, as he’d once imagined.

He wanted to etch into his heart these memories, and wondered how he could have forgotten this tragedy for so many years.

Buildings aren’t homes, Johnelle. People are…and memories, and Ian has plenty of those.

I am eternally grateful to those friends and others who gave me more than I could give to them. Memories of them are etched in my heart and will remain there forever.

In that place, everybody was strangers. But somehow everyone had a face that was, somewhere etched in my mind.

If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. 'Patroclus,' he said. He was always better with words than I.

Even now, as she walks down the long corridor, the crude jokes, the lewd propositions, the stinging remarks, the jeering catcalls and the leering laughter echo in her ears. She can hear all the vile names she had been called post scandal. Hateful, ugly names that don’t stop resonating in her head even after so many years. They never would. Some memories are etched too deeply to be erased completely.

Jack,I've messed up enough of you life.There's nothing you can do about Cole.I'll handle him. You don't have to-" "Enough,Becks.This is what friends do. Before we got together, we were friends, remember? The friendship is still there,isn't it?" I didn't say anything for a moment. It was so much more than friendship on my side. Despite everything,I'd never stopped loving him. "Isn't it,Becks? I mean,you didn't completely forget about me in the Everneath,did you?" "No." Wasn't it obvious on my face? That he was the only thing I remembered? My memories of Jack should've been etched on my skin by now, for all the world to see. "Okay.Friends talk.Friends help each other." I nodded. "Friends don't eat friends' souls." I smiled. "Got it." "Can I ask you something else?" "Of course." "Why did you finally decide to tell me the truth?" I traced my finger along the lip of my coffee mug. "It's probably nothing, but Cole seems anxious to keep me away from you in particular. I wanted to see how he'd react, and maybe that would give me an idea as to why." He grimaced. "I have an idea." "What?" "He's in love with you." I wrinkled my forehead. "No he's not. He's not capable." Jack leaned forward. "Trust me, Becks. I know exactly what loving you looks like on a person.And he loves you." My face went warm and I looked away. If only Jack were talking about now,and not before. I shook my head. "There has to be something more to it." Jack put his chin on the palm of his hand. "Well,let's find out." "How?" Jack raised his eyes to meet mine, a shy little smile on his face, so different from his usual confident grin. "We'll spend time together. And let Cole know it.

Watching the way his body takes everything I’m giving him is something that will stay etched in my memory forever. The trembles, gasps, moans, and finally, the shudder of pleasure when I reach farther inside him.

They had no things. But they had their minds. The old ways, the harvest songs, the just-right mix of herbs etched in their memories. They had their bodies. Histories and bloodlines and drums pulsing in their veins.

We only really remember things for five years. After that, what we remember, what's actually etched in our brain is our memory of the thing, not the thing itself. And five years after that, what's left is our memory of the memory.

As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. 'Patroclus,' he said. He was always better with words than I.

Memories, they make us who were are, slowly etching themselves into our faces, one wrinkle at a time. Every wrinkle…a memory of someone we loved, of someone we lost, of the lives we wished we’d lived, of the things we did..both right and wrong

Rowan releases me from his embrace but holds my upper arms in his warm palms. And then lips are pressed to my neck where my pulse surges. My breath catches as the kiss lingers for a moment just long enough to etch itself into my memory for eternity.

Robert Louis Stevenson was right in saying that everybody lives by selling something. Once someone sold me her dreams! I am still holding them, etched in the lines of my right hand and wondering what to do with them. They are too heavy to hold, too precious to let go

Jack was behind it,waiting, with the corner of his lip pulled up in not quite a smile. "What?" he demanded. "What what?" I asked. He held my note up in front of my face. "What do you remember?" Everything. But I couldn't tell him that. I shrugged and said, "Things." Then I made a move to leave,but Jack's strong arm blocked my way,his hand pressing against the locker behind my back. "No you don't.You can't leave a note like this"-he waved the paper-"and then say 'things.' I want to know what, exactly, you remember." People in the hallway stared and I could feel my face going red. Jack noticed, and put his other arm up against the lockers,blocking me in. My pulse went nuts.It had to be visible on my wrists. Jack's face was inches from mine. His breath was minty, and I could smell the rustic scent of his aftershave,and whatever strong emotion he was feeling, it tasted sweet. I breathed it in, and the inhalation was embarrassingly loud. His eyes searched mine. "This is the first opening you've given me, and I'm not letting you get out of it." He paused. "What do you remember?" I looked behind him, at the curious spectators, and squinted my eyes shut, unable to bear the scrutiny anymore. "Say something,Becks. Say anything." "You," I said. "I remember you." I kept my eyes shut,and felt his hands drop. He didn't move back. "What do you remember about me?" There was strong emotion behind his voice. Something he fought to control. With my eyes closed,I could easily picture the other side of the century. "I remember the way your hand could cover my entire shoulder. The way your lower lip stuck out when you were working out a problem in your head. And how you flick you ring finger with your thumb when you get impatient." I opened my eyes,and the words no longer got stuck in my throat on their way out. They flowed. "And when something surprises you and you don't know what to say,you get a tiny wrinkle in between your eyebrows." I reached up to touch the divot,then hesitated and lowered my hand. "It showed on the day the coach told you you'd made first-string quarterback.And it's showing now." For a moment the space between us held no tension,no questions, no accusations. Finally he leaned back, a stunned expression on his face. "Where do we go from here?" "Nowhere,really," I whispered. "It doesn't change anything." Eyebrows still drawn together, he said, "We'll see." Then he turned and left. I tucked this moment away. In the dark,dank world of the Tunnels, I would call upon this memory. And there would be a flicker of candlelight. If only for a moment. I closed my eyes,as if my eyelids were the levers of a printing press,etching the fibers into my mind.Memories were outside Cole's reach.As long as I held them,memories were mine and mine alone.

There was silence then, and I did not care about the damp pallet or how sweaty I was. His eyes were unwavering, green flecked with gold. A surety rose in me, lodged in my throat. I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me. If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. "Patroclus," he said. He was always better with words than I.

The kingdom of God is, among other stated virtues, joy in the Holy Spirit. When you enjoy yourself, you are experiencing a Kingdom reality regardless of whether you know God or not. Being swept up in a Kingdom reality releases an eternal perspective of time. Time moves both swiftly and with a greater and richer quality that makes each moment feel deep and timeless. These moments pass quickly but are etched deeply in your memory so that you can relive each moment. To “enjoy” is to be fully “in” a past or present “joy.” You can live in the joy of the moment and enjoy (in-joy, re-live) a memory. In this sense, time both flies (moves quickly) and stretches (stands still).

Calisse, that’s a madhouse.” He sighs. “Alors, what are you doing after this?”  Going back to my room to relive tonight and etch it into my memories forever. Stare at my ceiling with a sixteen-year-old’s wonder, and remember what it felt like when he looked at me and smiled across the ice. I wear your number, too. “Umm, not much,” I mumble.

Lament For J Among the small graves a soft shaft of sunlight gently rains On a memory; etches, as a glittering finger, Golden corn field hair, ignites eyes sweet as the seas blue plains, Traces lips pink as Marys carnation tears and lingers Then is gone. Oh ancient sun above how shall I tell Of the hearts deep yearnings that the years can never quell?

Memories are curious things. We mistake them for perfect copies of life; experiences etched in crystal and tucked away for later. But they change on us when we least expect it. A detail is forgotten and a new reality scabs over the hole. History is scarred, the story reimagined. And the strange thing is we don’t even realize it’s happening. It just does.

I need her so much I feel like I’m going to disintegrate into a pile of lustful ash if I don’t touch her soon, but I force myself to stand still, memorizing this moment, etching each detail into my brain. This is a memory I want to keep for the rest of my life. This is one of the pictures I want to flash before my eyes when I’m fighting for my final breath. She’s

I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me. If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong.

Ephraim lifted the top of the trunk. Neatly stacked were mementoes from what seemed like hundreds of journeys. Right on top was an etching of the Eiffel tower next to an African mask that looked at him with surprised eyes. He reached in a little deeper and unearthed a small teapot decorated with blue drawings just like the kind his grandmother collected and kept in a locked china cabinet.

Memory was a different inflection of reality. There are moments like that in all our lives, moments so deeply etched in our mind that they are always present, never past. You are forever giving your first kiss and forever answering the phone to be told your mother is dead, as I will always be forever lost in the field with all the sounds dropping away except the wind and the tap, tap rising in the silence.

With our collective shock, what we saw seemed to be frozen into a state of suspended animation. Indelibly etched into our memories in terror, forever! My life was in slow motion, it was as if I was no longer in my body and this was a rather bad dream! It is almost impossible to describe with words what I saw, but I will try. This very experience is the one that has continued to shake me awake during the dense night of my lifetime.

There is a hidden materiality to texts—a word that originally meant “weaving,” a connection seen in “texture.” Forests haunt writing: The English word for “book” is related to “beech tree” by its Germanic root, and “library” comes from the Latin for “the inner bark of trees.” In most Indo-European languages, “writing” comes from carving and cutting. Language carries the memory of words etched into wood tablets, tree trunks, and bones.

Names etched on the head of a pin, one name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel. A blue name needled into the skin, names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers, the bright-eyed daughter, the quick son; alphabet of names in a green field, names in the small tracks of birds, names lifted from a hat or balanced on the tip of the tongue, names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory. So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

And there was the moon. A warm and visible greeting, a beacon of relief. Full, unshrouded, its edges crisp. It looked like an airy wafer- what were those crackers that came in the big green tin? She stared at the moon and thought about the fact that she was breathing. Fact of breathing, fact of life. This she could control: slow down and speed up her breathing, despite the pain in her throat. She'd never really looked at the moon, never really seen how intricate the etchings on its yellowy silver surface. Bowl of a spoon in candlelight. When she'd looked a long time- I see the moon, and the moon sees me- a glimmering ring like a rainbow materialized at the rim. In the memory she still retained, as clear as a framed snapshot, a portrait worn in a locket, Saga stared at the moon that way for hours, and it kept her company, it kept her sane, it kept her in one piece, it kept her alive. It was proof, fact, patience, faith.

I love you, pretty girl.” “I love you, Drake Pierce,” she replied. Drake lifted her chin with his finger and planted the sweetest, most gentle kiss on her lips. “What?” he asked, reading the look on her face when she pulled away from him. She broadened her smile and stared up at him like she was etching his face into her memory. Drake Pierce was her life. In all the time she’d had to come up with one word that embodied what he was to her, it had finally come to her. He was simply life. “I’m

Our eyes met and a never-before feeling entered our hearts. We gazed at each other longingly. We were indeed smitten by each other. Even before we realised, our lips locked. Ah, my first kiss. I had heard stories of how the first kiss is etched in one’s memory forever. This was absolute bliss. I felt a sense of belonging, a sense of togetherness. He took me by surprise with his proposal of love for me. Those magical words still linger in my heart. My dream of finding the right man had become a reality.

Accidentals Something out of place, seen where it doesn’t belong. A surprise on the water like Tundra Swans unexpected and flung far from the Arctic onto a Vermont pond. Me, driving home, seeing all that white with sinewy S-shaped necks out of the corner of my eye. Blessed is an ordinary Wednesday, now etched forever in memory as that Wednesday I went home another way and found myself far flung from work, from home, from whoever I was before black beaks beckoned me while four pairs of wings unfolded.

The One You Once Loved If the man or woman you once loved Exists now without the bestowal of your affection They, having once been endowed with that love, must still command the respect of that holiness. A residue of your righteous love will forever remain etched in their souls, an unfading aura of your once sacred bond. Permit that old love to persist in your soul -- do not erase, forget or nullify its existence. By affirming rather than negating of this memory, and you will become more whole and more holy.

When he tired of reading aloud, Tengo sat there, gazing at the form of his sleeping father and trying to surmise what kinds of things were going through his brain. Inside—in the inner parts of that stubborn skull, like an old anvil—what sort of consciousness lay hidden there? Or was there nothing left at all? Was it like an abandoned house from which all the possessions and appliances had been moved, leaving no trace of those who had once dwelled there? Even if it was, there should be the occasional memory or scenery etched into the walls and ceilings.

Keeping the police videos from the public and the press - along with Judge Cahill’s gag order, and his decisions and instructions about the body cam videos - allowed [Attorney General] Ellison and the prosecution to maintain control of the narrative. It might seem obvious now: without the police videos, there was nothing to compare to the viral Facebook video. Since there was no basis for comparison, the viral Facebook video - and freeze-frame screenshots that were used extensively by the media and the Left - were etched into the collective memory of just about everyone in America.

You've never ever in your life envied anybody else, or ever wanted to be someone else -but right now you do. You want more than anything to be that boy. Even knowing that at age twenty he was going to be smashed over the head with an iron pipe and beaten to death, you'd still trade places with him. You'd do it, to be able to love Miss Saeki for those five years. And to have her love you with all her heart. To hold her as much as you want, to make love to her over and over. To let your fingers run over every single part of her body, and let her do the same to you. And after you die, your love will become a story etched forever in her heart. Every single night she'll love you in her memory.

He is even more horrifically beautiful than I was able to recall. They're all beautiful, unless they're hideous. That's the nature of the Folk. Our mortal minds cannot conceive of them; our memory blunts their power. His every finger sparks with a ring. An etched and jeweled breast-plate in polished gold hangs from his shoulders, covering a frothy white shirt. Boots curl up at his toes and rise high over his knees. His tail is visible, curled to one side of his leg. I suppose he has decided it is no longer something he needs to hide. At his brow, of course, is the Blood Crown. He regards me with gold-rimmed black eyes, a smirk hovering at the corners of his mouth. His black hair tumbles around his face, unbound and a little messy, as though he's recently risen from someone's bed.

If you could step inside my world, here is what you would see...... A lifeless soul who is in constant search of not only someone to love but for someone to please show me how to love myself. Someone whose deepest wish is to feel what it is like to truly be loved for who I am. You would see a desperate being in a constant battle with her emotions. Praying no person could see the obvious envy that consumes her soul as she longingly observes the happiness and the joy that accompanies family and true friendships. A gathering of those who most certainly care about each other, to create cherished memories that will be forever etched in their hearts. Memories they have created to fondly look back on in the years to come. You would see the forced insincere smile that must be worn when in the public eye because being pleasant is a requirement amongst your peers, even though you are completely dying inside. You would see how i wake up every morning alone in the barely inhabitable box i reside in that hides me from having to share my pain and sadness with the world. And when the night skies appear, you would see me grateful that it is once again time for me to be reunited with the lonely, yet welcoming call of my bed in that same inhabitable box. You would see me, most eager to surrender to the sleep that would soon follow, for that is when my pain ceases to exist. My world....when most of you fantasize and anxiously anticipate what adventures lie before you when the sun comes up, i struggle hour by hour, wishing I could fast forward time, so the pain will cease to exist when the sun goes down.

Sometimes a sanctuary, sometimes a prison, that house on the hill has always been my home. I've spent my life yearning toward it, wanting to escapt it, paralyzed by its hold on me. (There are many ways to be crippled, I've learned over the years, many forms of paralysis.) Some sense memories fade as soon as they're past. Others are etched in your mind for the rest of your life. We should've sold this house when we had the chance. You're the inmate and I'm the warden. The words hand in the air between us. But as long as neither of us mentions them, we can pretend they were never said. The older I get, the more I believe that the greatest kindness is acceptance. There are many ways to love and be loved. Too bad it's taken most of a lifetime for me to understand what that means. Wyeth: Christina's World--The painting is more a psychological landscape than a portrait, a portrayal of a state of mind rather than a place. Like the house, like the landscape, she perseveres. As an embodiment of the strength of the American character, she is vibrant, pulsating, immortal.

A note of caution: epigenetics is also on the verge of transforming into a dangerous idea. Epigenetic modifications of genes can potentially superpose historical and environmental information on cells and genomes—but this capacity is speculative, limited, idiosyncratic, and unpredictable: a parent with an experience of starvation produces children with obesity and overnourishment, while a father with the experience of tuberculosis, say, does not produce a child with an altered response to tuberculosis. Most epigenetic “memories” are the consequence of ancient evolutionary pathways, and cannot be confused with our longing to affix desirable legacies on our children. As with genetics in the early twentieth century, epigenetics is now being used to justify junk science and enforce stifling definitions of normalcy. Diets, exposures, memories, and therapies that purport to alter heredity are eerily reminiscent of Lysenko’s attempt to “reeducate” wheat using shock therapy. Mothers are being asked to minimize anxiety during their pregnancy—lest they taint all their children, and their children, with traumatized mitochondria. Lamarck is being rehabilitated into the new Mendel. These glib notions about epigenetics should invite skepticism. Environmental information can certainly be etched on the genome. But most of these imprints are recorded as “genetic memories” in the cells and genomes of individual organisms—not carried forward across generations. A man who loses a leg in an accident bears the imprint of that accident in his cells, wounds, and scars—but does not bear children with shortened legs. Nor has the uprooted life of my family seem to have burdened me, or my children, with any wrenching sense of estrangement. Despite Menelaus’s admonitions, the blood of our fathers is lost in us—and so, fortunately, are their foibles and sins. It is an arrangement that we should celebrate more than rue. Genomes and epigenomes exist to record and transmit likeness, legacy, memory, and history across cells and generations. Mutations, the reassortment of genes, and the erasure of memories counterbalance these forces, enabling unlikeness, variation, monstrosity, genius, and reinvention—and the refulgent possibility of new beginnings, generation upon generation.

You, er..." He hesitated. "Not that I mind, but you may want to fix your frock." She glanced downward. Seeing her exposed breast, she quickly tucked it back in her stays. "See what I mean? Heaps of humiliations. Heaps." Gabe wondered if the past quarter hour went into her heaps of humiliations, or whether she regarded it as something else. He wondered, but he wasn't going to ask. On his part, he wouldn't be filing this memory under the heading of "Humiliations." Oh, no. It was going straight into the stash of "Fantasies" that every man kept under his mattress, figuratively if not literally. He was never going to forget the taste of her, pure and sweet. The way her skin moved liked satin under his hands, warming to his touch. And the way she'd responded to him? That was already etched on his brain. I think it's the urges, she'd said. The worrisome part of it was, their urges had gone unsatisfied. They would remain so, he told himself. This afternoon had been a mistake. An enjoyable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. Time to revive his judgement. Gabe could survive deprivation of all sorts, including this one. He would not put his hands on Lady Penelope Campion again. Absolutely not. Definitely not. Probably not. Damn.

The last refuge of the Self, perhaps, is “physical continuity.” Despite the body’s mercurial nature, it feels like a badge of identity we have carried since the time of our earliest childhood memories. A thought experiment dreamed up in the 1980s by British philosopher Derek Parfit illustrates how important—yet deceiving—this sense of physical continuity is to us.15 He invites us to imagine a future in which the limitations of conventional space travel—of transporting the frail human body to another planet at relatively slow speeds—have been solved by beaming radio waves encoding all the data needed to assemble the passenger to their chosen destination. You step into a machine resembling a photo booth, called a teletransporter, which logs every atom in your body then sends the information at the speed of light to a replicator on Mars, say. This rebuilds your body atom by atom using local stocks of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and so on. Unfortunately, the high energies needed to scan your body with the required precision vaporize it—but that’s okay because the replicator on Mars faithfully reproduces the structure of your brain nerve by nerve, synapse by synapse. You step into the teletransporter, press the green button, and an instant later materialize on Mars and can continue your existence where you left off. The person who steps out of the machine at the other end not only looks just like you, but etched into his or her brain are all your personality traits and memories, right down to the memory of eating breakfast that morning and your last thought before you pressed the green button. If you are a fan of Star Trek, you may be perfectly happy to use this new mode of space travel, since this is more or less what the USS Enterprise’s transporter does when it beams its crew down to alien planets and back up again. But now Parfit asks us to imagine that a few years after you first use the teletransporter comes the announcement that it has been upgraded in such a way that your original body can be scanned without destroying it. You decide to give it a go. You pay the fare, step into the booth, and press the button. Nothing seems to happen, apart from a slight tingling sensation, but you wait patiently and sure enough, forty-five minutes later, an image of your new self pops up on the video link and you spend the next few minutes having a surreal conversation with yourself on Mars. Then comes some bad news. A technician cheerfully informs you that there have been some teething problems with the upgraded teletransporter. The scanning process has irreparably damaged your internal organs, so whereas your replica on Mars is absolutely fine and will carry on your life where you left off, this body here on Earth will die within a few hours. Would you care to accompany her to the mortuary? Now how do you feel? There is no difference in outcome between this scenario and what happened in the old scanner—there will still be one surviving “you”—but now it somehow feels as though it’s the real you facing the horror of imminent annihilation. Parfit nevertheless uses this thought experiment to argue that the only criterion that can rationally be used to judge whether a person has survived is not the physical continuity of a body but “psychological continuity”—having the same memories and personality traits as the most recent version of yourself. Buddhists

My dear Marwan, in the long summers of childhood, when I was a boy the age you are now, your uncles and I spread our mattress on the roof of your grandfathers’ farmhouse outside of Hom. We woke in the mornings to the stirring of olive trees in the breeze, to the bleating of your grandmother's goat, the clanking of her cooking pots, the air cool and the sun a pale rim of persimmon to the east. We took you there when you were a toddler. I have a sharply etched memory of your mother from that trip. I wish you hadn’t been so young. You wouldn't have forgotten the farmhouse, the soot of its stone walls, the creek where your uncles and I built a thousand boyhood dams. I wish you remembered Homs as I do, Marwan. In its bustling Old City, a mosque for us Muslims, a church for our Christian neighbours, and a grand souk for us all to haggle over gold pendants and fresh produce and bridal dresses. I wish you remembered the crowded lanes smelling of fried kibbeh and the evening walks we took with your mother around Clock Tower Square. But that life, that time, seems like a dream now, even to me, like some long-dissolved rumour. First came the protests. Then the siege. The skies spitting bombs. Starvation. Burials. These are the things you know You know a bomb crater can be made into a swimming hole. You have learned dark blood is better news than bright. You have learned that mothers and sisters and classmates can be found in narrow gaps between concrete, bricks and exposed beams, little patches of sunlit skin shining in the dark. Your mother is here tonight, Marwan, with us, on this cold and moonlit beach, among the crying babies and the women worrying in tongues we don’t speak. Afghans and Somalis and Iraqis and Eritreans and Syrians. All of us impatient for sunrise, all of us in dread of it. All of us in search of home. I have heard it said we are the uninvited. We are the unwelcome. We should take our misfortune elsewhere. But I hear your mother's voice, over the tide, and she whispers in my ear, ‘Oh, but if they saw, my darling. Even half of what you have. If only they saw. They would say kinder things, surely.' In the glow of this three-quarter moon, my boy, your eyelashes like calligraphy, closed in guileless sleep. I said to you, ‘Hold my hand. Nothing bad will happen.' These are only words. A father's tricks. It slays your father, your faith in him. Because all I can think tonight is how deep the sea, and how powerless I am to protect you from it. Pray God steers the vessel true, when the shores slip out of eyeshot and we are in the heaving waters, pitching and tilting, easily swallowed. Because you, you are precious cargo, Marwan, the most precious there ever was. I pray the sea knows this. Inshallah. How I pray the sea knows this.

The key point is that these patterns, while mostly stable, are not permanent: certain environmental experiences can add or subtract methyls and acetyls, changing those patterns. In effect this etches a memory of what the organism was doing or experiencing into its cells—a crucial first step for any Lamarck-like inheritance. Unfortunately, bad experiences can be etched into cells as easily as good experiences. Intense emotional pain can sometimes flood the mammal brain with neurochemicals that tack methyl groups where they shouldn’t be. Mice that are (however contradictory this sounds) bullied by other mice when they’re pups often have these funny methyl patterns in their brains. As do baby mice (both foster and biological) raised by neglectful mothers, mothers who refuse to lick and cuddle and nurse. These neglected mice fall apart in stressful situations as adults, and their meltdowns can’t be the result of poor genes, since biological and foster children end up equally histrionic. Instead the aberrant methyl patterns were imprinted early on, and as neurons kept dividing and the brain kept growing, these patterns perpetuated themselves. The events of September 11, 2001, might have scarred the brains of unborn humans in similar ways. Some pregnant women in Manhattan developed post-traumatic stress disorder, which can epigenetically activate and deactivate at least a dozen genes, including brain genes. These women, especially the ones affected during the third trimester, ended up having children who felt more anxiety and acute distress than other children when confronted with strange stimuli. Notice that these DNA changes aren’t genetic, because the A-C-G-T string remains the same throughout. But epigenetic changes are de facto mutations; genes might as well not function. And just like mutations, epigenetic changes live on in cells and their descendants. Indeed, each of us accumulates more and more unique epigenetic changes as we age. This explains why the personalities and even physiognomies of identical twins, despite identical DNA, grow more distinct each year. It also means that that detective-story trope of one twin committing a murder and both getting away with it—because DNA tests can’t tell them apart—might not hold up forever. Their epigenomes could condemn them. Of course, all this evidence proves only that body cells can record environmental cues and pass them on to other body cells, a limited form of inheritance. Normally when sperm and egg unite, embryos erase this epigenetic information—allowing you to become you, unencumbered by what your parents did. But other evidence suggests that some epigenetic changes, through mistakes or subterfuge, sometimes get smuggled along to new generations of pups, cubs, chicks, or children—close enough to bona fide Lamarckism to make Cuvier and Darwin grind their molars.

And so, with a slow sweep of the arm that remained forever etched in my memory, he took out a match, lit it, and tossed it onto the pile of books. With a quiet huff...ff...ff the flames rippled over the pages, catching first the old books with the brown paper whose smell I loved so much. I vividly remember how Danko's Burning Heart was engulfed in flames that then licked at Luce's skirt who, desperately trying to protect herself from the fire in pages of Romain Rolland's book, held Pierre tightly to her breast. I watched as the fire spread to the intertwined lovers Pierre and Natasha, Heathcliff and Cathrine Earnshaw, Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, abelard and Heloise, Tristan and Isolde, Salaman and Absal, Vis and Ramin, Vamegh and Azra, Zohreh and Manuchehr, shirin and Farhad, Leyli and Majnun, Arthur and Gemma, the Rose and the Little Prince, before they had the chance to smell or kiss each other again, or whisper. "I love you" one last time.

He still read—Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Byron, Milton, Whitman—not from physical books, as they were banned, but from the lines etched into his memory, which he could retrieve, in meditation, accurate to the last punctuation mark.

Perhaps nowhere in life do the experiences of childhood seem more removed from the issues of adult health than in a hospital coronary care unit. Yet, one can see and hear there the linkages patients themselves make as they reveal bodies and hearts that are living repositories of pained memories from the distant past—pained memories etched in their hearts and never forgotten.

On that day, after a youth activity, another friend suggested we leave to go have some fun. I don’t remember where. Strange, that I’ve lost what this was about, though the rest of the scene is etched into the glacial part of my brain. One of us was old enough to drive, so we headed out to their car. Five seats. Six teens. They’d already counted. Without a word to me, the others climbed in. John gave me one hesitant look, then settled into the front passenger seat and closed the door. They left me on the curb. The car vanished, taillights flaring in the night like lit cigarettes. The memory settled in for the long winter. That night. Watching. Remembering John’s face, which was so strikingly conflicted. Half ashamed. Half resigned.

In a quiet abode, where shadows weep, Lived the saddest grandmother, her sorrow ran deep. Once a home filled with laughter and cheer, Now echoes silence, a symphony of tears. Her eyes, like windows to a weathered soul, Glistened with memories that took their toll. A tale unfolded of love's sweet refrain, Now stained with loss, an enduring pain. Beside the hearth where warmth once thrived, Loneliness lingered, love deprived. A husband's absence, a void untold, Left her heart shattered, bitter and cold. Her family, once a vibrant bouquet, Now scattered petals, drifting away. The echoes of laughter, a distant sound, In the vast emptiness that sorrow found. Photographs whispered of days long past, A love that forever seemed to last. But time, a cruel and relentless stream, Carved lines of grief in a once joyous dream. Through tear-stained letters and faded attire, The saddest grandmother stoked love's dwindling fire. A matriarch cradled in solitude's embrace, Longing for the touch of her love's warm grace. Her children, grown and scattered like leaves, Each carried a piece of the pain she conceives. Yet, united by grief, a bittersweet thread, Bound by the love that time hadn't shed. In twilight's embrace, she wept in despair, A tapestry woven with threads of wear. The saddest grandmother, weathered and gray, Whispered to the wind the words she couldn't say. For in the echoes of her silent plea, Lingered the remnants of love's decree. A tale of loss, etched in the lines, Of the saddest grandmother, where sorrow resigns.

enjoy the good times while they’re here. Revel in them, etch them into your memory, and they’ll light the way for you when the sky clouds over.

You admired my necklace last night,” she says. “But you didn’t read the inscription.” I study her face while I lift the gold bar and turn it over. Etched into the gold is the inscription “My heart broke loose on the wind.” For a second, the space of a heartbeat, I can’t breathe. This means so much to me I literally cannot breathe. “When did you get this?” My voice is hushed, reverent with the thought of what that night on the Ferris wheel must have meant to her, too. “Months ago.” She cups one side of my face. “We didn’t even seem to be a possibility when I ordered this.” “But why . . . even then?” Months ago, Bristol was deep freezing me, so it’s hard to imagine that night was on her mind then. That I was on her mind then. “Even if we hadn’t gotten together, I was still going to wear this next to my heart because I knew I would never love anyone else that way.” She shakes her head, eyes bright with conviction. “Not the way I felt that night. That night was awesome, magical, but it was just a glimpse of the man you would become. And I knew even if I couldn’t have you, I’d carry this piece of you with me. This piece of your prophecy.” That poem inspired me in a way I have only ever put into words for one person. The woman sitting in my lap. The woman who has held my heart for years when I wasn’t sure she even wanted it. And the whole time, this night, these moments, burned in her memory like they did mine. I’m torn between spreading her on the table and having my appetizer before the pizza arrives, or kissing her until she’s limp in my arms.

I say to you now,” he said in a new voice, “with complete honesty and in all sincerity, with no hope of anything at this moment beyond being heard: in this thorough darkness your face is more clearly etched upon my memory than that of every other woman I have met.

After you told me about the shirt cuff, I told you about the time I spilled ink on a map in my father's study." He shook his head, baffled. "It was a rare two-hundred-year-old map of the British Isles," Merritt explained. "I'd gone into my father's study to play with a set of inkwell bottles, which I'd been told not to do. But they were such tempting little etched glass bottles, and one of them was filled with the most resplendent shade of emerald green you've ever seen. I dipped a pen in it, and accidentally dribbled some onto the map, which had been spread out on his desk. It made a horrid splotch right in the middle of the Oceanus Germanicus. I was standing there, weeping with shame, when Papa walked in and saw what had happened." "What did he do?" Keir asked, now looking interested. "He was quiet at first. Waging a desperate battle with his temper, I'm sure. But then his shoulders relaxed, and he said in a thoughtful tone, 'Merritt, I suspect if you drew some legs on that blotch, it would make an excellent sea monster.' So I added little tentacles and fangs, and I drew a three-masted ship nearby." She paused at the flash of Keir's grin, the one that never failed to make her a bit light-headed. "He had it framed and hung it on the wall over his desk. To this day, he claims it's his favorite work of art." Amusement tugged at one corner of his mouth. "A good father," he commented.

Some sense memories fade as soon as they're past. Others are etched in your mind for the rest of your life.

In the tapestry of life, a good friend is the golden thread that weaves through the fabric of time, growing more precious with every shared laughter, every wiped tear. As the years unfold, their value transcends moments, becoming an enduring legacy etched in the heart’s cherished memories.

But memories are etched into skin like carvings on a tree.

You were the poem I wanted to write, But could not find words to write You were the melody I wanted to sing, But my voice failed me. You were the dream I wanted to see Yet sleep evaded me. But, etched in memory's silent space You will always whisper like a soul in the body

Life is a tapestry woven from moments of joy and sorrow, love and loss. And though our paths may diverge and our encounters may be fleeting, the memories we create and the connections we forge will forever remain etched in the fabric of our existence.

Mrs. Mayfield’s bakery still filled the streets with the smell of fresh bread, the barbershop still seemed empty, and the Dundurn Gazette building still looked dilapidated and about to crumble. Maybe this is what I need, Gen thought. She craved stability right now. Recently she had felt lost and overwhelmed, hating life at university and struggling with her course, but desperate to please her mother. Every Isherwood woman attended the University of Toronto; Gen couldn’t be the exception. There was only one major road entering and leaving Dundurn, and it quickly took them away from the bustle. Soon they could see the arch boldly displaying the farm’s name etched into the metal: The Triple 7 Ranch. Nothing about the ranch seemed to have changed: the barn behind the house, the farmland beyond it, or the wheat fields arranged in neat lines stretching into the distance. Gen waited to hear Whisky, their German shepherd, as they pulled in. She always came out of wherever she was and barked loudly when cars arrived. “Where’s Whisky?” she asked after a couple of seconds. “Oh, Whisky passed on last year, honey,” her mum said. “No! What happened?” “Some hooligans from Saskatoon ran her over, honey.” “Sheriff Liam says we have to be extra careful now that some new businesses have settled out there.” “Who would do such a thing?” It seemed some things changed after all. ><>< Gen turned the knob of the bedroom door, which creaked as it swung open. Peering into her old bedroom, memories flooded her senses; she travelled to a time when the world made sense. She heard giggling and the patter of running feet as she recalled a time when all that mattered was finding the best place to hide while playing with her grandfather. She had been an only child but had never felt the loneliness others in her position described. Her grandfather had been her friend, confidante,

I remember he said something like ‘this should be completely obvious to you’, and to me that was crushing… we had a conversation after the mid-term exam, in which the class had averaged 20 out of 90. It was 25 years ago, and I still remember what he said: ‘Frustration is necessary for learning. This idea that you can enjoy learning is a very American idea’.” Dan pauses, the memory of that conversation etched on his face. “I felt so offended by that claim. My professor felt that to learn, you had to push yourself. One of my dreams was to go back to Venezuela[7] and start a university, and I vowed that I would write in the walls of the university that frustration was not necessary for learning.