A pilot must have a memory developed to absolute perfection. But there are two higher qualities which he also must have. He must have good and quick judgment and decision, and a cool, calm courage that no peril can shake.
Even if we are occupied with important things and even if we attain honour or fall into misfortune, still let us remember how good it once was here, when we were all together united by a good and kind feeling which made us perhaps better than we are.
Rather than dwelling on the past, we should make the most of today, of the here and now, doing all we can to provide pleasant memories for the future…If you are still in the process of raising children be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled, will disappear all too soon, and that you will, to your surprise, miss them, profoundly.
It is in dreams that I have known the real clutch of stark, hideous, maddening, paralysing fear. My infant nightmares were classics, & in them there is not an abyss of agonising cosmic horror that I have not explored. I don't have such dreams now - but the memory of them will never leave me. It is undoubtedly from them that the darkest & most gruesome side of my fictional imagination is derived.
The first experience can never be repeated. The first love, the first sun-rise, the first South Sea Island, are memories apart, and touched a virginity of sense.
Washington is dead! This great man fought against Tyranny; he established the liberty of his country. His memory will always be dear to the French people, as it will be to all free men of the two worlds; and especially to French soldiers, who, like him and the American soldiers, have combated for liberty and equality.
History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquities.
I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.