Moiraine Damodred
(15 January 1990)
“Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. ”
“Already then something was lost forever, a basic trust.”
Source: Beatrice & Virgil (2010), p. 175
Context: I remember the first slap, just as I was being brought in. Already then something was lost forever, a basic trust. If there's an exquisite collection of Meissen porcelain and a man takes a cup and deliberately drops it to the floor, shattering it, why wouldn't he then proceed to break everything else? What difference does it make, cup or tureen, once the man has made clear his disregard for porcelain? With that first blow, something akin to porcelain shattered in me. It was a hard slap, forceful yet casual, given for no reason, before I had even identified myself. If they would do that to me, why wouldn't they do worse? Indeed, how could they stop themselves? A single blow is a dot, meaningless. It's a line that is wanted, a connection between the dots that will give purpose and direction. One blow demands a second and then a third and onwards.
“But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.”
IQ84 (2009-2010)
Variant: It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.
Source: 1Q84
Letter to Abigail Adams (17 July 1775)
1770s
Source: Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife
“This could but have happened once,—
And we missed it, lost it forever.”
Youth and Art, xvii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Nothing is lost. Nothing is forgotten.
It was in the blood, the flesh,
And now it is forever.”
Interphase: Thought Universe (p. 247; closing lines)
Blood Music (1985)
