There should be an invention that bottles up a memory like a perfume, and it never faded, never got stale, and whenever I wanted to I could uncork the bottle, and live the memory all over again.

DAPHNE DU MAURIER
Rebecca, 1938



The memories of long love gather like drifting snow, poignant as the mandarin ducks who float side by side in sleep.

LADY MURASAKI
The Tale of Genii, ca 1008



Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
"Remember," 1862



Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"Music When Soft Voices Die," 1824



Love makes up for the lack of long memories by a sort of magic. All other affections need a past; love creates a past which envelopes us, as if by enchantment.

BENJAMIN CONSTANT
Adolphe, 1816



And the best and the worst of this is
That neither is most to blame,
If you have forgotten my kisses
And I have forgotten your name.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
"An Interlude", 1866



When the lamp is shattered,
The light in the dust lies dead-
When the cloud is scattered
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"Lines," 1824




Memory is to love what the saucer is to the cup.

ELIZABETH BOWEN
The House in Paris, 1935




I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses, riotously, with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind.

ERNEST DOWSON
"Non sum Qualis Eram," 1896



Happly I think on thee,- and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Sonnet 29, c 1598