"I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.'" (SO, pp. 12)

「我認為這全在乎一個愛字：你愈愛一段回憶，它便愈是強烈愈是怪異。」

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"[I]magination is a form of memory...When we speak of a vivid recollection we are paying a compliment not to our capacity of retention but to Mnemosyne's mysterious foresight in having stored up this or that element which creative imagination may want to use when combining it with later recollections and inventions. In this sense, both memory and imagination are a negation of time." (SO, p. 78)

「想像即是某種形式的回憶。……每當我們談到生動的回想，我們稱讚的不是記憶力，而是霓夢思妮神秘的先見之明，早已東一點西一點將可能有用的元素預作儲存，俾由擅於創造的想像力日後憑借回想與發明將之組合起來。依此看來，回憶與想像都是對於時間的否定。*」

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【摘自《Strong Opinions》】


* VN 《Lolita》 書中 Humbert 曾有這樣的嘆語：「噢，霓夢思妮，最最甜蜜最最弄人的繆思！」（Oh Mnemosyne, sweetest and most mischievous of muses!）〔II:26〕霓夢思妮是司掌記憶的女神，與天神 Zeus 結合而生九繆思。對於回憶與想像，過目不忘卻始終不肯寫作回憶錄的錢鍾書亦曾說過：「回憶，是最靠不住的，一個人在創作時的想像往往貧薄可憐，到回憶時他的想像力常常豐富離奇得驚人。這是心理功能和我們惡作劇……。」（《錢鍾書散文》，浙江文藝出版社，586 頁）。