Friday, December 21, 2007

Book Quote

"If you take a book with you on a journey, an odd thing happens: The book begins collecting your memories. And forever after you have only to open that book to be back where you first read it. It will all come into your mind with the very first words: the sights you saw in that place, what it smelled like, the ice cream you ate while you were reading it . . . yes, books are like flypaper -- memories cling to the printed page better than anything else."

-- Mo (from Inkheart by Cornelia Funke)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this quote! It´s very true.
I like the surprises one can get anywhere, because of the enormous memory storage that can be in a smell! You know it, I´m sure:

Going about one´s daily business one can suddenly get a whiff of some certain scent or other and wack! -be back in the day when one first smelled it, with all that was in that moment. The light through a window, the shadow of a glass vase on the floor, the sound of grandma´s slippers in the hallway… :-)

Heidi said...

Yes! And I do think smell is the sense with the greatest power for this. I too can be transported to my grandmother's house or to a childhood camping trip simply through a certain scent. Cool!

I do have it with books too, remember my dating days with a book David and I read together then, find myself mentally transported to Pismo Beach when rereading Timeline, etc.

Good stuff! :-)