“On memory and forgetting: “In other words, to use an image from computers, an individual remembers by making a backup file that is different than the original. The act of recall cannot take place without corrupting this original file in some way, because the backup writes over the earlier data. It is a binary with a life of its own, a blemish in a quadrant. This blemish erases the original as soon as memory is activated or even while the ‘file’ is inert.” –Norman M. Klein, The History of Forgetting

“Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about everyday, too many new things we have to learn. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.” –Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“The pain, or the memory of pain, that here was literally sucked away by something nameless until only a void was left. The knowledge that this question was possible: pain that turns finally into emptiness. The knowledge that the same equation applied to everything, more or less.” –Roberto Bolano, 2666