Memory Haul Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Memory Haul. Here they are! All 40 of them:

The cord, a familiar voice said. Remember your lifeline, dummy! Suddenly there was a tug in my lower back. The current pulled at me, but it wasn't carrying me away anymore. I imagined the string in my back keeping me tied to the shore. "Hold on, Seaweed Brain." It was Annabeth's voice, much clearer now. "You're not getting away from me that easily." The cord strengthened. I could see Annabeth now- standing barefoot above me on the canoe lake pier. I'd fallen out of my canoe. That was it. She was reaching out her hand to haul me up, and she was trying not to laugh. She wore her orange camp T-shirt and jeans. Her hair was tucked up in her Yankees cap, which was strange because that should have made her invisible. "You are such an idiot sometimes." She smiled. "Come on. Take my hand." Memories came flooding back to me- sharper and more colorful. I stopped dissolving. My name was Percy Jackson. I reached up and took Annabeth's hand.
Rick Riordan (The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5))
A loving soul was always more beautiful over the long haul, but actual prettiness was fleeting.
Ann Brashares (My Name Is Memory)
Yes, and the body has memory. The physical carriage hauls more than its weight. The body is the threshold across which each objectionable call passes into consciousness—all the unintimidated, unblinking, and unflappable resilience does not erase the moments lived through, even as we are eternally stupid or everlastingly optimistic, so ready to be inside, among, a part of the games.
Claudia Rankine (Citizen: An American Lyric)
Memory is the grid of meaning we impose on the random and bewildering flux of the world. Memory is the line we pay out behind us as we travel through time--it is the clue, like Ariadne's, which means we do not lose our way. Memory is the lasso with which we capture the past and haul it from chaos towards us in nicely ordered sequences, like those of baroque keyboard music.
Angela Carter (Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories)
I know now with blind certainty that no matter what, eventually marriage is just two financially interdependent strangers staring across the kitchen table at each other. They have backpacks slung across their bodies, containing their sexual and romantic history and unresolved issues and family memories. And there´s nothing but cold cereal, because the days of flaky croissants and foamy cappuccino are over. Reality reclines on top of the refrigerator, leering down with a wry yet tender expression. And one day it all just collapses and the backpacks are hauled away to another kitchen table.
Suzanne Finnamore (Split: A Memoir of Divorce)
Growing up happens in a heartbeat. Once day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house, like a lot of houses. A yard like a lot of other yards. On a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back... with wonder. -Kevin from the finale of the Wonder Years
Daniel Stern
Yes, and the body has a memory. The physical carriage hauls more than its weight. The body is the threshold across which each objectionable call passes into consciousness—all the unintimidated, unblinking, and unflappable resilience does not erase the moments lived through, even as we are eternally stupid or everlastingly optimistic, so ready to be inside, among, a part of the games.
Claudia Rankine (Citizen: An American Lyric)
A Hard Life With Memory I’m a poor audience for my memory. She wants me to attend her voice nonstop, but I fidget, fuss, listen and don’t, step out, come back, then leave again. She wants all my time and attention. She’s got no problem when I sleep. The day’s a different matter, which upsets her. She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly, stirs up events both important and un-, turns my eyes to overlooked views, peoples them with my dead. In her stories I’m always younger. Which is nice, but why always the same story. Every mirror holds different news for me. She gets angry when I shrug my shoulders. And takes revenge by hauling out old errors, weighty, but easily forgotten. Looks into my eyes, checks my reaction. Then comforts me, it could be worse. She wants me to live only for her and with her. Ideally in a dark, locked room, but my plans still feature today’s sun, clouds in progress, ongoing roads. At times I get fed up with her. I suggest a separation. From now to eternity. Then she smiles at me with pity, since she knows it would be the end of me too.
Wisława Szymborska (Here)
You can pull a goat off into the field, but a memory you can only haul into the sun and hope it desiccates. Dries to something crumbled and odorless.
Peter Heller (The Dog Stars)
it was as if that long-healed wound was raw again; all the complex memories crowded once more to the forefront of her mind. An old despair should not feel so new, but a new despair could haul an old one out of hiding.
Sharon Shinn (Troubled Waters (Elemental Blessings, #1))
In the Golleschau quarry, stone-carriers were forced to haul huge blocks of limestone endlessly, from one mound to another and back again. During the torture, they carried their lives in their hands. The insane task was not futile only in the sense that faith is not futile. A camp inmate looked up at the stars and suddenly remembered that they’d once seemed beautiful to him. This memory of beauty was accompanied by a bizarre stab of gratitude. When I first read this I couldn’t imagine it. But later I felt I understood. Sometimes the body experiences a revelation because it has abandoned every other possibility.
Anne Michaels (Fugitive Pieces)
It's true, Christmas can feel like a lot of work, particularly for mothers. But when you look back on all the Christmases in your life, you'll find you've created family traditions and lasting memories. Those memories, good and bad, are really what help to keep a family together over the long haul.
Caroline Kennedy
I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow thin and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
City of Percepliquis Ever sought, forever missed Pick and shovel, dig and haul Search forever, fall the wall. Gala halted, city’s doom Spring warmth chilled with dust and gloom Darkness sealed, blankets all Death upon them, fall the wall. Ancient stones upon the Lee Dusts of memories gone we see Once the center, once the all Lost forever, fall the wall
Michael J. Sullivan (Heir of Novron (The Riyria Revelations, #5-6))
I wish I could tell you that the thought of deserting Vera never entered my mind, that my friend was in danger and I went to her rescue without hesitation. Truly, though, at that moment I hated her. I hated her for being clumsy at the worst possible time, for staring up at me with her panicked brown eyes, electing me to be her savior even though Grisha was the only one she had ever kissed. I knew that I could not live with the memory of those eyes pleading for me, and she knew it, too, and I hated her even as I jumped down from the gate, lifted her to her feet, and hauled her to the iron bars.
David Benioff (City of Thieves)
Amaranth" There are no starfish in the sky tonight, But there is one below your belly, And there are cold evenings in your eyes. If I could get to your house I would look under the bed of your childhood, The tongueless loafer without laces or eyes, The cave of your young foot With its odor of moon, its dampness Coming from underground, your shoe Which also bled and is now an island. You have to remember these are the memories Of a survivor, you have to remember. You could be looking for clay to haul away, Fill for the deep washouts of your love. All your old loves, they bled to death, too. Your hair is like a cemetery full of hands, Fingers in the moonlight. When you come down to the heart Bring your post-hole diggers and crowbar. Do not set a corner, a fence won’t last. Do not bury our first child there, Or set a post, Although I have tasted blood on the lips of a stranger, At night and in the rain.
Frank Stanford (What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford)
The strangest thing about her is her eyes. Though the rest of her body is putrid, her eyes are incongruously whole. They stare at the ceiling with a fierce intensity, as if somewhere inside her she is lifting impossible weights. People and places and a lifetime of memories. A thousand tons of raw human soul hauled up from the depths.
Isaac Marion (The Burning World (Warm Bodies, #2))
Absolutely. I remember.” “Funny, I thought you did.” “Ah, you assumed!” He laughed. “Your mother isn’t the only one with memory problems. Well, if I said it, then I was wrong, because I do think it’s important to have certain assumptions—for one thing, that the person who’s with you is there for the long haul, that he’ll take care of you and what comes with you, the whole package, mother and
Amy Tan (The Bonesetter's Daughter)
First novels are a lot like first children. You lavish all your love and attention on them, but you also make all your rookie mistakes on them. First novels teach you how to write. They are your initial opportunity to put into practice everything you’ve heard about long-haul narrative. They’re your primary attempt at trying to walk in the footsteps of the giant (and not so giant) writers you revere and adore.
Edwidge Danticat (Breath, Eyes, Memory)
Catarina hooked her hand around Magnus’s elbow and hauled him away, like a schoolteacher with a misbehaving student. They entered a narrow alcove around the corner, where the music and noise of the party was muffled. She rounded on him. “I recently treated Tessa for wounds she said were inflicted on her by members of a demon-worshipping cult,” Catarina said. “She told me you were, and I quote, ‘handling’ the cult. What’s going on? Explain.” Magnus made a face. “I may have had a hand in founding it.” “How much of a hand?” “Well, both.” Catarina bristled. “I specifically told you not to do that!” “You did?” Magnus said. A bubble of hope grew within him. “You remember what happened?” She gave him a look of distress. “You don’t?” “Someone took all my memories around the subject of this cult,” said Magnus. “I don’t know who, or why.” He sounded more desperate than he would’ve liked, more desperate than he wanted to be. His old friend’s face was full of sympathy. “I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “I met up with you and Ragnor for a brief vacation. You seemed troubled, but you were trying to laugh it off, the way you always do. You and Ragnor said you had a brilliant idea to start a joke cult. I told you not to do it. That’s it.” He, Catarina, and Ragnor had taken many trips together, over the centuries. One memorable trip had gotten Magnus banished from Peru. He had always enjoyed those adventures more than any others. Being with his friends almost felt like having a home. He did not know if there would ever be another trip. Ragnor was dead, and Magnus might have done something terrible. “Why didn’t you stop me?” he asked. “You usually stop me!” “I had to take an orphan child across an ocean to save his life.” “Right,” said Magnus. “That’s a good reason.” Catarina shook her head. “I took my eyes off you for one second.” She had worked in mundane hospitals in New York for decades. She saved orphans. She healed the sick. She’d always been the voice of reason in the trio that was Ragnor, Catarina, and Magnus. “So I planned with Ragnor to start a joke cult, and I guess I did it. Now the joke cult is a real cult, and they have a new leader. It sounds like they’re mixed up with a Greater Demon.” Even to Catarina, he wouldn’t say the name of his father. “Sounds like the joke has gotten a little out of hand,” Catarina said dryly. “Sounds like I’m the punch line.
Cassandra Clare (The Red Scrolls of Magic (The Eldest Curses, #1))
As a bucket let down or hauled up a well by a windlass touches the rope or the sides every now and then, there was not a personage, hardly even an event in my life, which had not at one time or another played different parts. If, after years I rediscovered the simplest social relationship or even a material object in my memory, I perceived that life had been ceaselessly weaving threads about it which in the end became a beautiful velvet covering like the emerald sheath of a water-conduit in an ancient park.
Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7])
The two first met in June 1822, at a company store on Mackinac Island, part of a trading post owned by the American Fur Company. St. Martin was a French Canadian voyageur—an indentured trapper—hauling pelts by canoe and on foot through the woodsy landscape of the Michigan Territory. St. Martin retained little memory of the pair’s historic meeting, lying, as he was, barely conscious on the floor. Someone’s gun had discharged accidently, spraying a load of duck shot into St. Martin’s side, and Beaumont, the army surgeon assigned to the nearby garrison, had been called down to help.
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
She saw the different times at sea—calm blue days, raw pea-green ones, others when the skies turned black and thunderbolts blasted the masts, and the galloping waves. The ship then leaned this way, another way, seeming to want to throw herself right over and upside down. Had Art ever been frightened? Maybe only once. One of the earliest memories, this. Molly standing braced, holding Art, two or three years old, in her arms. ‘What a spectacle!’ cried Molly. ‘Look—how beautiful it is!’ And then, ‘Don’t ever be afraid of the sea. She’s the best friend out kind have got. Better than any land, however fair. Respect the sea, yes, but don’t ever think what the sea does is cruel or unjust. People are that. The sea is only herself. And this ship—she’s lucky. She’s friends with this sea. They know how to behave with each other.’ Exactly then, a great green salt wave swamped the decks. Canvas was being hauled in, Molly’s crew clutching and swinging like monkeys along the masts. Art and Molly, soaked, and Molly saying, ‘And even if we went down, don’t fear that either. Those that the sea keeps sleep among mermaids and pearls and sunken kingdoms. You wouldn’t mind that, would you, love?
Tanith Lee (Piratica I)
I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry youeras too, and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixten inches of rain. And then the dry yars would come, and sometimes thre would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow thin and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
The Drunken Fisherman" Wallowing in this bloody sty, I cast for fish that pleased my eye (Truly Jehovah's bow suspends No pots of gold to weight its ends); Only the blood-mouthed rainbow trout Rose to my bait. They flopped about My canvas creel until the moth Corrupted its unstable cloth. A calendar to tell the day; A handkerchief to wave away The gnats; a couch unstuffed with storm Pouching a bottle in one arm; A whiskey bottle full of worms; And bedroom slacks: are these fit terms To mete the worm whose molten rage Boils in the belly of old age? Once fishing was a rabbit's foot-- O wind blow cold, O wind blow hot, Let suns stay in or suns step out: Life danced a jig on the sperm-whale's spout-- The fisher's fluent and obscene Catches kept his conscience clean. Children, the raging memory drools Over the glory of past pools. Now the hot river, ebbing, hauls Its bloody waters into holes; A grain of sand inside my shoe Mimics the moon that might undo Man and Creation too; remorse, Stinking, has puddled up its source; Here tantrums thrash to a whale's rage. This is the pot-hole of old age. Is there no way to cast my hook Out of this dynamited brook? The Fisher's sons must cast about When shallow waters peter out. I will catch Christ with a greased worm, And when the Prince of Darkness stalks My bloodstream to its Stygian term . . . On water the Man-Fisher walks.
Robert Lowell
A great flood of aromas swamped the noise, thick as soup and foaming with flavors: powdery sugars and crystallized fruit, dank slabs of beef and boiling cabbage, sweating onions and steaming beets. Fronts of fresh-baked bread rolled forward then sweeter cakes. Behind the whiffs of roasting capons and braising bacon came the great smoke-blackened ham which hung in the hearth. Fish was poaching somewhere in a savory liquor at once sweet and tart, its aromas braided in twirling spirals... The silphium, thought John. A moment later it was lost in the tangle of scents that rose from the other pots, pans and great steaming urns. The rich stew of smells and tastes reaching into his memory to haul up dishes and platters.
Lawrence Norfolk (John Saturnall's Feast)
Kaz had never been able to dodge the horror of that night in the Ketterdam harbor, the memory of his brother’s corpse clutched tight in his arms as he told himself to kick a little harder, to take one more breath, stay afloat, stay alive. He’d found his way to shore, devoted himself to the vengeance he and his brother were owed. But the nightmare refused to fade. Kaz had been sure it would get easier. He would stop having to think twice before he shook a hand or was forced into close quarters. Instead, things got so bad he could barely brush up against someone on the street without finding himself once more in the harbor. He was on the Reaper’s Barge and death was all around him. He was kicking through the water, clinging to the slippery bloat of Jordie’s flesh, too frightened of drowning to let go. The situation had gotten dangerous. When Gorka once got too drunk to stand at the Blue Paradise, Kaz and Teapot had to carry him home. Six blocks they hauled him, Gorka’s weight shifting back and forth, slumping against Kaz in a sickening press of skin and stink, then flopping onto Teapot, freeing Kaz briefly—though he could still feel the rub of the man’s hairy arm against the back of his neck. Later, Teapot had found Kaz huddled in a lavatory, shaking and covered in sweat. He’d pleaded food poisoning, teeth chattering as he jammed his foot against the door to keep Teapot out. He could not be touched again or he would lose his mind completely. The next day he’d bought his first pair of gloves—cheap black things that bled dye whenever they got wet. Weakness was lethal in the Barrel. People could smell it on you like blood, and if Kaz was going to bring Pekka Rollins to his knees, he couldn’t afford any more nights trembling on a bathroom floor. Kaz never answered questions about the gloves, never responded to taunts. He just wore them, day in and day out, peeling them off only when he was alone. He told himself it was a temporary measure. But that didn’t stop him from remastering every bit of sleight of hand wearing them, learning to shuffle and work a deck even more deftly than he could barehanded. The gloves held back the waters, kept him from drowning when memories of that night threatened to drag him under. When he pulled them on, it felt like he was arming himself, and they were better than a knife or a gun. 
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
Should have said, ‘shape of: a slab of memory foam,’” I grumbled as I hauled my flattened face up the wall.
James Crawford (Blood Soaked and Gone (Blood Soaked #3))
Paul Costelloe One of the most established and experienced names in British fashion, Irish-born Paul Costelloe has maintained a highly successful design label for more than twenty-five years. He was educated in Paris and Milan, and has since become known for his expertise in fabrics, primarily crisp linen and tweed. I was commuting to London from Ireland at the time when I got a call to come to Kensington Palace. I got a minicab and threw some garments in the back of the car, and the driver drove me to Kensington Palace. The police at the gate were surprised to see a battered minicab--it was no black cab, if you know the difference between a black cab and a minicab in London (a minicab is half the price of a black cab and always more battered). Anyway, they asked me who I was. I said, “I have an appointment to see Diana,” and they told me to wait. They were reluctant to let me through the gates--it was during the major troubles in Northern Ireland, during the mid to late seventies and early eighties, when Belfast was blazing--but I was soon met at the door. I remember hauling my garments up the stairs of the palace. I fell. Diana came halfway down the stairs and gave me a hand with the garments. Then we went into the living room and had a lovely cup of tea, and I met the children, William and Harry. She tried on some of the garments right there in front of me. I (being a confirmed heterosexual) found her very attraction. I came back down the stairs, and half an hour later she made her selection. She was a perfect size 10 (that would be a U.S. size 8), except she was tall, so a few things had to be lengthened. She was an absolute delight. Afterward, I went into Hyde Park for the afternoon and sat on a bench. I just couldn’t believe what had just happened!
Larry King (The People's Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, From Those Who Knew Her Best)
The dead goats multiply. You can pull a goat off into the field, but a memory you can only haul into the sun and hope it desiccates. Dries to something crumbled and odorless.
Peter Heller (The Dog Stars)
The healing message Sevens need to hear and believe is God will take care of you. I know, easier said than done. It will take courage, determination, honesty, the help of a counselor or a spiritual director, and understanding friends to help Sevens confront painful memories and to encourage them to stay with afflictive feelings as they arise in the present moment. If Sevens cooperate with the process, they’ll grow a deep heart and become a truly integrated person. Ten Paths to Transformation for Sevens Practice restraint and moderation. Get off the treadmill that tells you more is always better. You suffer from “monkey mind.” Develop a daily practice of meditation to free yourself from your tendency to jump from one idea, topic or project to the next. Develop and practice the spiritual discipline of solitude on a regular basis. Unflinchingly reflect on the past and make a list of the people who have hurt you or whom you have hurt; then forgive them and yourself. Make amends where necessary. Give yourself a pat on the back whenever you allow yourself to feel negative emotions like anxiety, sadness, frustration, envy or disappointment without letting yourself run away to escape them. It’s a sign you’re starting to grow up! Bring yourself back to the present moment whenever you begin fantasizing about the future or making too many plans for it. Exercise daily to burn off excess energy. You don’t like being told you have potential because it means you’ll feel pressure to buckle down and commit to cultivating a specific talent, which will inevitably limit your options. But you do have potential, so what career or life path would you like to commit yourself to for the long haul? Take concrete steps to make good on the gifts God has given you. Get a journal and record your answers to questions like “What does my life mean? What memories or feelings am I running from? Where’s the depth I yearn to have that will complement my intelligence?” Don’t abandon this exercise until it’s finished. Make a commitment that when a friend or partner is hurting, you will try to simply be present for them while they are in pain without trying to artificially cheer them up.
Ian Morgan Cron (The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery)
A memory comes back to him of the cover of a book he used to own, a popular edition of Play. It showed a chariot drawn by two steeds, a black steed with flashing eyes and distended nostrils representing the base appetites, and a white steed of calmer mien representing the less easily identifiable nobler passions. Standing in the chariot, gripping the reins, was a young man with a half-bared torso and a Grecian nose and a fillet around his brow, representing presumably the self, that which calls itself I. Well, in his book, the book of him, the book of his life, if that ever comes to be written, the picture will be more humdrum than in Plato. Himself, the one he calls Paul Rayment, will be seated on a wagon hitched to a mob of nags and drays that huff and puff, some barely pulling their weight. After sixty years of waking up every blessed morning munching their ration of oats, pissing and shitting, then being harnessed for th day's haul, Paul Rayment's team will have had enough. Time to rest, they will say, time to be put out to pasture. And if rest is denied them, well, they will just fold their limbs and settle down in their traces; and if the whip starts to whistle around their rumps, let it whistle.
J.M. Coetzee
That wasn’t how memory worked, of course. Just willing herself to remember something, pushing herself, was much more likely to generate a false recollection and add bad data to the set than it was to haul up some telling detail she’d failed to mention.
James S.A. Corey (Cibola Burn (The Expanse Book 4))
What remains to us here, behind the Yser, is not much more than a strip of land almost impossible to defend; a few rain-soaked trenches around razed villages; roads blown to smithereens, unusable by any vehicle; a creaky old horse cart we haul around ourselves, loaded with crates of damp ammunition that are constantly on the verge of sliding into a canal, forcing us to slog like madmen for every ten yards of progress as we stifle our warning cries; the snarling officers in the larger dug-outs, walled off with boards, where the privates have to bail water every day and brush the perpetual muck off their superiors’ boots; the endless crouching as we walk the trenches, grimy and smelly; our louse-ridden uniforms; our arseholes burning with irritation because we have no clean water for washing them after our regular attacks of diarrhoea; our stomach cramps as we crawl over heavy clods of earth like trolls in some gruesome fairy tale; the evening sun slanting down over the barren expanse; infected fingers torn by barbed wire; the startling memory of another, improbable life, when a thrush bursts into song in a mulberry bush or a spring breeze carries the smell of grassy fields from far behind the front line, and we throw ourselves flat on our bellies again as howitzers open fire out of nowhere, the crusts of bread in our hands falling into the sludge at the boot-mashed bottom of the stinking trench.
Stefan Hertmans (War and Turpentine)
You really told them you wanted to marry me?” I asked. The smile had taken over his whole face now. “I told you before: I fell under your spell before you even knew you had magic, before you saved a kingdom, back when there was no chance you would be allowed to marry me. Nothing’s really changed since then, except that now any children we have might be wizards themselves, and I’ll be hopelessly outnumbered. “So, yes, I want to marry you. Someday. If you’ll have me,” he said modestly. “Of course I will, you idiot,” I said with a shriek, and threw myself into his arms. Some things, though, never change, regardless of how many countries you save. I tripped at the last moment, and we both went down in a laughing heap. It didn’t stop me from kissing him for so long that we both were gasping by the time it ended. “So what should I call you now?” he said when we had our breath back. “Savior of Thorvaldor? Soon-to-Be-Master Wizard? Chief Councillor of Wise Words? My own love?” “Sinda,” I said, without the slightest twinge of old memories, or something lost, or regret. “Just Sinda. Though I like that last one almost as much.” Kiernan reached out and tucked a strand of escaping hair behind my ear. “I think I like Sinda best myself,” he said. We hauled ourselves up and, still laughing, brushed grass and sticks from our clothes. Then, arms around each other, we began the walk back to Philantha’s house to tell her that her scribe had just gotten a new job and become engaged in the same afternoon. I looked back up the hill once, toward the palace, and then turned away. I would go there tomorrow, but right now, it didn’t matter. Today I only had to walk with Kiernan, to visit Philantha, to finally be just myself. For once, for the first time, it was enough.
Eilis O'Neal (The False Princess)
some memories, too, might better be forgotten. didn't Obasan once say, "it is better to forget"? what purpose is served by hauling forth the jar of inedible food? if it is not seen, it does not horrify. what is past recall is past pain.
Joy Kogawa (Obasan)
Yoga is the effort to experience one's divinity personally and then to hold on that experience forever. Yoga is about self-mastery and the dedicated effort to haul your attention away from your endless brooding over the past and your nonstop worrying about the future so that you can seek instead a place of eternal presence form which may regard yourself and your surrounding with poise. it's all god in disguise but they yogis believe a human life is a very special opportunity because only in alumni from and only with a special opportunity because only in a human form and only with a human mind can God realization ever occur. is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen. a great yogi is anyone who has achieved the permanent state of enlightened bliss. A guru is a great yogi who can actually pass that state on to theirs. mantravirya the potency of the Enlighted consciousness capable of conscious inquiry a yearning to understand the nature of the universe. living spiritual master when I was nine, I couldn't do a thing with it except cry later over these years my hypersensitive awareness of times s led me to push myself to experience life at a maximum pace if I were going to have such a short visit on earth, I had to do everything possible e to experience it now hence all the traveling all the romances all the ambition all the pasta. On the other the Zen masters always say that you cannot see your reflection in running water only in still Ater so something was telling me it would be spiritually negligent to run off now then so much was happening right here in this small, cloistered place where every minute of the day is organized to facilitate self-exploration and devotional practice. vipassana mediation teaches that grief and nuisance are inevitable in this life but if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough you will in time experience the truth that everything. (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass. Man is neither entirely ap upper off the god and is not entirely the captain of his own destiny he is a little of both. But when they do show up again i can just send them back here back to this rooftop of memory back to the care of those two cool blue souls who already and always understand everything This is what rituals are for we do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place of our most complicated feeling of joy or trauma so that we don't have to have those feelings around with us forever weight us down. we have hands we can stand on them if we want to that's our privilege that is the joy of a moral body and that is because God needs us because God loves to feel things through our hands.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Moving on or forgiving those hurt you don't discount what you went through or make it "better" you have every reason to be angry or discouraged. But don't let that be all you are. The past is just that, and you are the only one is charge of which memories you take with you and which you haul overboard as your boat sails on. As for forgiveness, it's for you my dear. When you get caught in the past it's like you walking through concrete. Free yourself. You're the only one who can. I know it's easy to say, and just about the hardest thing to do. But the grace you bestow on them is really the gift you give yourself.
Alexis Jones (I Am That Girl: How to Speak Your Truth, Discover Your Purpose, and #bethatgirl)
But then, you probably have a greater variety of memories to choose from...One does not gather many unique memories, hauled out on a beach.
Robin Hobb (Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders, #1))
Noboru started awake as something ferociously strong hauled him out of the dresser by the seat of his pants. For a minute, he didn’t realize what had happened. His mother’s slender, supple hands were falling on his nose and lips and mouth and he couldn’t hold his eyes open. It was the first time she had ever laid a hand on him. He lay almost prostrate on the floor, one of his legs thrust into a tangle of shirts and underwear scattered when they had stumbled over the drawer. He hadn’t imagined his mother could muster such terrific strength. Finally he managed to look up at the panting figure glaring down at him. The skirts of her dark-blue robe were wide open, the fleshy swells of her lower body looked grotesquely massive and threatening. Soaring high above the gradually tapering trunk was her face, gasping, grieved, turned horribly old in an instant and drenched in tears. The bulb on the distant ceiling wreathed her bedraggled hair with a lunatic halo. All this Noboru took in at a glance and at the back of his icy brain a memory stirred: it was as if he had participated in this same moment a long time ago. This, beyond a doubt, was the punishment scene he had watched so often in his dreams.
Yukio Mishima (The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea)