Talking About the Past

A passage I have always loved from William Maxwell’s novel, “So Long, See You Tomorrow”:

“What we, or I, confidently refer to as memory, meaning a moment or a scene that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion—is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life to ever be wholly acceptable, and possible the work of the storyteller to arrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we take.”