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.
Ever since Darwin, we've been familiar with the stupendous timespans of the evolutionary past. But most people still somehow think we humans are necessarily the culmination of the evolutionary tree. No astronomer could believe this.
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
The good news is the gospel of God, about Christ, according to Scripture, for the nations, unto the obedience of faith, and for the sake of the Name.
Anybody who is one with what he or she does is building the new earth.
Accidents, try to change them - it's impossible. The accidental reveals man.
To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist; he must abandon the subjective line; he must know that dungheaps play a very respectable part in a landscape, and that evil passions are as inherent in life as good ones.
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