“I was waiting for the longest time, she said. I thought you forgot.
It is hard to forget, I said, when there is such an empty space when you are gone.”
“Michael’s gift is that the Good Lord gave him the ability to forget. He’s mad at no one and doesn’t really care what happened. His story might be sad, but he’s not sad.”
“All too often women believe it is a sign of commitment, an expression of love, to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and forget. In actuality, when we love rightly we know that the healthy, loving response to cruelty and abuse is putting ourselves out of harm’s way.”
“And then one day, after the longest (and somehow, shortest) nine months of your life you get to take part in a miracle. It’s a blur of pain (which you promptly forget) and joy (which you remember forever). And then, suddenly, you’re cradling a tiny bundle in your arms.”
“When we picked up my dad at his office he said that I couldn’t play with his copying machine, but I forgot. He also said to watch out for the books on his desk, and I was careful as could be except for my elbow. He also said don’t fool around with his phone, but I think I called Australia. My dad said please don’t pick him up anymore. ”
“Well, now
If little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you
Little by little
If suddenly you forget me
Do not look for me
For I shall already have forgotten you
If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life
And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots
Remember
That on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms
And my roots will set off to seek another land”
“The garden always made Mog very excited. She smelled all the smells. She chased the birds. She climbed the trees. She ran round and round with a big fluffed-up tail. And then she forgot the cat flap”
“I want to pull Finny out of my mind like a splinter so that I can adore Jamie the way he deserves to be adored. And even more than that, because I am a selfish, bad creature, I want to feel that adoration. I want to be free of this guilt.”
“My mother named me Autumn. People say to me “Oh how pretty,” and then the name seems to glide away from them, not grasping all the things that the word should mean to them, shades of red, change, and death.”
″‘Hmm?’ said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd.”
‘Did you forget what you were supposed to buy?’ ‘Sort of.’ ‘That can happen to anyone. But you must not lie anymore,’ says Grandma. No, Molly will never do that again.
Grandma asks Molly if she would like to go and get them each a Danish pastry for tea. Yes, she can do that. Now she is on top of things and strong again, and pastries are easy to carry.”
“The bakery is not far. Pastry, pastry, pastry, you can’t forget pastry!
When Molly gets there, she hasn’t forgotten the pastry. But now there’s something else. The coin purse. It’s gone! Molly runs back to Grandma as fast as possible. How could this happen? She cries very quietly.”
For months, I’ve tried to forget what happened, but it comes back in flashes and specks, no matter how much I try to drown it out [...] There’s so much I wish we could both unsee.
“When you want to change places or wander about, or feel like getting the guinea-pig out, Never forget, the message is this: ‘Our teacher always lets us, Miss!‘”
Then, when your teacher returns next day and complains about the paint or clay, remember these words, you just say this: ‘That other teacher told us to, Miss!‘”
“It’s all fine to say, “Time will heal everything, this too shall pass away. People will forget”—and things like that when you are not involved, but when you are there is no passage of time, people do not forget and you are in the middle of something that does not change.”
The children travel together because it is easier than being alone. As they forget their own family in the war zone that Afghanistan has become, their resilience, imagination and luck help them survive.
“Then I hear my dad again: ‘Forget about being fancy. Forget about Michael effin’ What’s-his’face. Mohammed Ali, there’s your man. Never take your eye off the enemy.′ Then I star praying, ‘Please, God, whoever you are, I’m sorry I don’t go to church, or say prayers every night neither, but could you please let me bust up Stacey Straun’s fat face? Just this once? ”
Just as she is losing hope of ever finding a home, and forgetting all she once loved, Halinka sees something that reminds her that everyone needs some beauty in their lives, like they need air, or food . . . and maybe a friend.
“There are some things you never forget. Never, ever, ever shall I forget that first evening in the kitchen at Knights Farm, how wonderful it was and what it felt like to lie talking to Jonathan just as before.”
“No matter where their journey took them, the children on the Oregon Trail each had experiences they would never forget. Many of them suffered hardships, but many also made new, lifelong friends and many discovered more courage and strength in themselves than they ever knew they had.”
“I like the Screaming Parrots part,′ she says, ‘but I think we should forget the South America bit.’ I look at Moopsy, and he looks at me. We laugh. Ms. Radcliff is radical! ‘The Screaming Parrots it is then,’ says Mopps. ‘Fantastic!”
“No, no, it is not man’s nature. I will not allow it to be more man’s nature than woman’s to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or have loved.