Memory never captures the essence, the present intensity, the concrete reality of an experience. It is, as it were, the corpse of an experience, from which the life has vanished.

the remembrence of things past is not nessecarly the remeberance of things as they were

What was stored in memory was distinct from what was deliberately remembered,

Memories are what you no longer want to remember.

Knowledge about a thing is not the thing itself.

You have your wonderful memories,” people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember. Memories are what you no longer want to remember.

The name of a thing is not the thing.

Memory, instead of being a duplicate, always present before one's eyes, of the various events of one's life, is rather a void from which at odd moments a chance resemblance enables ones to resuscitate dead recollections, but even then, there are innumerable little details which have not fallen into that potential reservoir of memory, and which will remain for ever unverifiable.

Information is not knowledge.

You don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.

Like words, memories never really succeed in “catching” reality.

Memory is the diary that chronicles things that never happened or couldn't possibly have happened.

Your memory is a monster; you forget — it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you — and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!

The town was paper, but the memories were not.