Recollection is not something that I can summon up, it simply comes and I am the servant of it.
Interpretation
Memories cannot be forced; they emerge naturally, and we must accept and serve them.
This quote by Edna O'Brien reflects the idea that memories and recollections are not under our direct control. They arise spontaneously and shape our experiences, suggesting that we play a passive role in recalling our past and must acknowledge the power of these memories in influencing our present and future.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about how memories shape our identity.
Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, where no one sees it, where it is lost from sight, and ultimately people die with that secret buried inside their souls.
That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.
Cities, in many ways, are the best repositories for a love affair. You are in a forest or a cornfield, you are walking by the seashore, footprint after footprint of trodden sand, and somehow the kiss or the spoken covenant gets lost in the vastness and indifference of nature. In a city there are places to remind us of what has been.
Darkness is drawn to light, but light does not know it; light must absorb the darkness and therefore meet its own extinguishment.
Oh, love, what an unreasoning creature it grew to be.
It was the first time that I came face to face with madness and feared it and was fascinated by it.
I don't want to be immortal through my works. I want to be immortal by not dying.
I believe that very much of current Arminianism is simply ignorance of gospel doctrine; and if people began to study their Bibles, and to take the Word of God as they find it, they must inevitably, if believers, rise up to rejoice in the doctrines of grace.
Science, philosophy and religion are bound to converge as they draw nearer to the whole.
Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement.
Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.
I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supranational organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?".
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