Writing Quotes from Books

I have been reading and noting down words that catch up eye. It has been a habit for a couple of years now. I have filled notebooks full of sentences that touch me. Of course, what impresses me on my first read may not remain the same. Some of the quotes I read fill me with awe and then there are few that leave feeling rather lost. I go back to these words every now and then to seek comfort.

Cruel Time

I need the comforting today. It has been 13 years and I am angry with myself more than ever. Time seems to gloss over things. Time leaves a fine layer of rose on top of raw memories. No matter how hard I try to see beneath the layers, I see only the rose tinted version.

All the days and minutes of the past seem to have merged into one single event. I find myself categorising life as before my grandfather and after him. I try to seek specific memories, I can carry around. They are there but now I start doubting my own version of memories. Did it really happen? Especially in the way I think it did?

I will continue to fight this battle for the years to come. I dread to think what my emotions will be a decade from now.

Quotes for the day

Here are some quotes I went back to today. I have been seeking solace in words the past few years. I have found books and authors to be great friends in times of grieving.

Death, Shuba, death. No matter what we do, we’ll all die. ~ Akhil Sharma in Family Life.

No lines at all will be left… they’ll fade into oblivion, the paper thinning and thinning and turning to dust in somebody’s hands. ~ Peter Geye in Wintering

Sometimes survival is the worst alternative there is ~ Joanne Harris in Chocolat

Funny really, it seems like both an eternity and the blink of an eye all at the same time ~ Hellen Simonsson in Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

How dare he abandon us like that. How dare he abandon me? ~ Ruth Reichl in Delicious!

With every good memory comes the memory of a mistake. A parallel memory. A darker recollection ~ Steven Rowly in Lily and the Octopus

History and memory aren’t the same thing. History doesn’t abide acts of imagination but memories depend on it. And memories are as much what we’ve forgotten as what we recall. History cannot be forgotten. ~ Peter Geye in Wintering.

4745 days have gone….

Written in memory of my grandfather