“It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.”

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 12
Context: 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, like ancient stars that have burned out, are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn. New styles, new information, new technology, new terminology... 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. And for me, what happened in the woods that day is one of these.

Source: For One More Day

Responding to a question from students at Shanghai's University of Fudan as to which experiences best prepared him for the presidency (30 April 1984), cited by Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Source: The God of Small Things

My Grandmother's Love Letters (l. 1-4). In The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, by Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair (1988)

Source: The Story of Us

Source: Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It (1993), p. 15

Source: The Winner Stands Alone

Coleman v. Wathen (1793), 5 T. R. 245.