“If I forget, then it might as well never have happened. Memory is liberty.”

“Memory is the diary that chronicles things that never happened or couldn't possibly have happened.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Regrets and apologies are all very well, but there's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them. They're like brands.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

“In politics, what's not reported might as well not have happened.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

“There's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

“Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory”

James Stephens book Irish Fairy Tales

“I had only one desire: to leave, to walk, to die, whatever. I wanted to get away, never come back, disappear, melt away into the forest, the clouds, no longer have memories, forget, forget.”

Ágota Kristóf (1935–2011) Hungarian Swiss writer

“Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Well, most grown-ups forget what it was like to be a kid. I vowed that I would never forget.”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

“Let us never forget that the deep things that are American are the soul and the spirit. The Statue of Liberty is not tired, and not because it is made of bronze. It is because no matter what happens, here the individual is dignified because he is created in the image of his God. Let us not forget it.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)