You want the story to be about something, have some deeper meaning, but there is also an emotional, almost instinctual, element, which is, does this story seize some part of you and compel you to get to the bottom of it?
David GrannRead
Memory is a code to who we are, a collection of not just dates and facts but also of epic emotional struggles, epiphanies, transformations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Memory shapes our identity through our experiences and emotions.
This quote emphasizes that memory is not merely a record of our past events, but a complex interplay of our emotional experiences and pivotal moments that define our identity. It suggests that who we are is deeply connected to the memories of our struggles, realizations, and changes over time.
Themes
MemoryIdentityExperiencesEmotionsTransformation
In practice
Example use cases
In a graduation speech, referencing this quote can highlight the importance of experiences in shaping students' lives.
More from David Grann
All quotes βIn Brazil, the history of the interaction between blancos and indios - whites and Indians - often reads like an extended epitaph. Tribes were wiped out by disease and massacres; languages and songs were obliterated.
David GrannRead
There's a tendency when we write history to do it with the power of hindsight and then assume almost god-like knowledge that nobody living through history has.
David GrannRead
I think you get into trouble as an author and a journalist when, rather than owning the gaps, you try to elide them.
David GrannRead
Heroes have always served as a reflection of their times, a template of who we are and what we want to be.
David GrannRead
The Osage have this lovely phrase: 'Travelers in the Mist.' It was the term for part of an Osage clan that would take the lead whenever the tribe was venturing into unfamiliar realms. And, in a way, we are all travelers in the mist. The challenge is that, as writers, we sometimes want to ignore this murkiness, or we want to write around it.
David GrannRead
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Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
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His words even imply that philanthropy has deeper depths than is generally realized. The great emotions of compassion and mercy are traced to Him; there is more to human deeds than the doers are aware. He identified every act of kindness as an expression of sympathy with Himself. All kindnesses are either done explicitly or implicitly in His name, or they are refused explicitly or implicitly in His name.
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"My insides don't match up with my outsides." "Do anyone's inside and outsides match up?" "I don't know. I'm only me." "Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and the outside."
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Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.
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The Divine was beyond description, beyond knowing, beyond comprehension. To say that the Divine was Creation divided by Destruction was as close as one could come to definition. But the puny of soul, the dull of wit, weren't content with that. They wanted to hang a face on the Divine. They went so far as to attribute petty human emotions - anger, jealousy, etc - to it, not stopping to realize that if God were a being, even a supreme being, our prayers would have bored him to death long ago.
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Flashbacks rarely involve language. Mine certainly didn't. They were visual, motor, and sensory, and they took place in a relentless, horrifying present.
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