{"quotes":[{"text":"We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.","author":"Joan Didion","tags":["emotional-roots","identity","past","personal-history","self"],"id":30904,"author_id":"Joan+Didion"},{"text":"Ego is the central figure of our personal history, based upon the past and looking into the future. Ego is the deepest dream of the Consciousness.","author":"Frank Wanderer","tags":["consciousness","ego","personal-history"],"id":81284,"author_id":"Frank+Wanderer"},{"text":"The Englishman left months ago, Hana, he's with the Bedouin or in some English garden with its phlox and shit.","author":"Michael Ondaatje","tags":["english-gardens","memory","memory-loss","personal-history","phlox","the-past","war"],"id":92890,"author_id":"Michael+Ondaatje"},{"text":"Stored personal memories along with handed down collective memories of stories, legends, and history allows us to collate our interactions with a physical and social world and develop a personal code of survival. In essence, we all become self-styled sages, creating our own book of wisdom based upon our studied observations and practical knowledge gleaned from living and learning. What we quickly discover is that no textbook exist how to conduct our life, because the world has yet to produce a perfect person – an ideal observer – whom is capable of handing down a concrete exemplar of epistemic virtues. We each draw upon the guiding knowledge, theories, and advice available for us in order to explore the paradoxes, ironies, inconsistencies, and the absurdities encountered while living in a supernatural world. We mold our personal collection of information into a practical practicum how to live and die. Each day we define and redefine who we are, determine how we will react today, and chart our quest into an uncertain future.","author":"Kilroy J. Oldster","tags":["code-of-conduct","existential-angst","existentialism","historical","historical-novel","history","identity","know-thyself","legacy","legacy","legends","life-lessons","life-lessons","meaning-of-life","meaningful-life","meaningfulness","memories","memories","memory","memory","personal-history","personal-observation","philosophy-of-life","purpose-driven-life","purpose-of-life","purposeful","purposeful-living","sage-advice","sages","self-awareness","self-determination","self-development","self-identity","self-knowing","self-knowledge","self-realization","stories","storytelling","truth","truth-of-life","uncertainties-in-life","uncertainty","wisdom","wisdom"],"id":142167,"author_id":"Kilroy+J.+Oldster"},{"text":"The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral port.","author":"Anatole Broyard","tags":["ancestry","books","library","personal-history","portraits"],"id":151016,"author_id":"Anatole+Broyard"},{"text":"Our parents tell us the story of our beginning and they have total control over it--they know they've changed it, and we know they've changed it, but we just let them. They massage the details to reflect who we are now, so that there will be a sense to it: you are this because that. We gave you a blanket with birdies on it and now you're a pilot, how lovely! All so that we think of ourselves as being in . . . Not just a story, but a good story. One written in full command of their craft. Someone who abides by the contract with the audience, even if the audience is us. Everyone loves a system. Everyone relaxes.","author":"Catherynne M. Valente","tags":["personal-history","storytelling"],"id":175719,"author_id":"Catherynne+M.+Valente"},{"text":"The secret of our emotions never lies in the bare object, but in its subtle relations to our own past.","author":"George Eliot","tags":["emotions","personal-history"],"id":194769,"author_id":"George+Eliot"},{"text":"There's a phenomenology of being sick, one that depends on temperament, personal history, and the culture which we live in.","author":"Siri Hustvedt","tags":["culture","illness","personal-history","sickness"],"id":214535,"author_id":"Siri+Hustvedt"},{"text":"In many ways my life has been rather like a record of the lost and found. Perhaps all lives are like that.","author":"Lucy Foley","tags":["1920s","epic","family","great-love-stories","inspiration","life-story","lost-and-found","love-story","personal-history","words-to-live-by"],"id":228546,"author_id":"Lucy+Foley"},{"text":"Time stretches and calms, but still we reach, for we belonged then. We want to know. Sometimes that knowledge is painful, or inconvenient, or even damning. But it is essential. It exposes us for what we have been, and can be.","author":"Mark Mustian","tags":["personal-history","self","self-discovery","time"],"id":253640,"author_id":"Mark+Mustian"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":21,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}