I didn’t have a chance to read Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam memoir, The Things They Carried, before he came to Baylor earlier this year, so I’m reading it now. I’ve included a few passages that express the workings of memory, particularly as it relates to tragedy and trauma:

The bad stuff never stops happening: it lives in its own dimension, replaying itself over and over. (32)

In a way, I guess, she’s right: I should forget it. But the thing about remembering is that you don’t forget. (34)

Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. (38)