Ben

“Memory is a wilful dog. It won't be summoned or dismissed but it cannot survive without you. It can sustain you or feed on you. It visits when it is hungry, not when you are. It has a schedule all of its own that you can never know. It can capture, corner you or liberate you. It can leave you howling and it can make you smile.”
― Elliot Perlman

“Florence exists to educate our memory.”
― Glenn Haybittle, The Way Back to Florence

“I had a strong sudden instinct that I must be alone. I didn’t want to see any people at all. I had seen so many people all my life -- I was an average mixer, but more than average in a tendency to identify myself, my ideas, my destiny, with those of all classes that came in contact with. I was always saving or being saved -- in a single morning I would go through the emotions ascribable to Wellington at Waterloo. I lived in a world of inscrutable hostiles and inalienable friends and supporters.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up

“The natural state of the sentient adult is a qualified unhappiness.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up