I took in your critique of the novel you have just read. Allow me to respond. At the hand of a conscientious writer, synchronicity of incident might contribute to an indispensable sense of verisimilitude in a work of fiction. In the hand of a less conscientious writer, it may seem too much contrivance, meaning less original. The only question is, does the work as a whole allow one to taste the bitterness and sweetness of life. If the answer is a resounding yes, then to point out examples of so-called contrivance strikes me as prosecutorial, carping and undignified.
—Chekhov, in a letter to a friend in the theater
I can see two people being swept up by an atmosphere.
—Myrna Loy to William Powell, in Double Wedding
My friend Astrid said, “I envy people with repressed memories.” (Of course, she lived through the Blitz.) But I said, too bad we can’t choose which to repress. We had a good laugh. But her expression belied her laughter.
—Marghanita Laski
Good Lord, I simply cannot recall Stephen’s face, my great love. I can’t remember it. It is driving me mad. But I refuse to rely on photographs. And now all these autumn leaves are falling. How can they? How can they abandon their trees like that? This is all too much for me. I’m taking to my bed.
—Oleander Martin, British artist and writer
After my shell-shock during the war, the way I defeated concussion and amnesia was at an excruciating slow pace to piece together, like a jig-saw puzzle the size of a gymnasium floor, everything I remembered about the life of my trench-mate those many weeks, Robert Meyers-Brittman. What a gift, then, that Bobby was such a talker. In the trenches we stood apart at a distance no more than three meters. One morning, on a charge through barbed wire, Bobby was blown to pieces by artillery in the mud. Yet still I feel him at that former proximity now. I hear the exact timbre of his voice. Quite clearly hear it, drumming of rain on his helmet and mine notwithstanding.
—Michael Hoyd, World War I soldier and memoirist
On ward rounds I saw a fellow banging his head against a wall. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” I think he was trying to banish a memory that wouldn’t allow it.
—Stewart Plate, hospital orderly, Washington, D.C., during the American Civil War
To travel all one needs to do is close one’s eyes.
—Emily Dickinson, American poet
In this remote and strange place, sometimes it is close to overwhelming, how deep my desire for my old life; though perhaps not for all of it.
—Marcus Densmore, Canadian diarist, 1866
Today I fell to the ground at the pull of memory. There quite seemed a permanence to my defeat. And here I thought, in their profound tug-of-war, present and future would, by sheer shouldering force of will and superior numbers, win out over the past. How wrong I was.
—Marghanita Laski