Looking repeatedly into the past, you do not necessarily become fascinated with your own life, but rather with the phenomenon of memory. Patricia Hampl More Quotes by Patricia Hampl More Quotes From Patricia Hampl We store in memory only images of value. The value may be lost over the passage of time, but that's the implacable judgment of feeling. Patricia Hampl feelings may memories You can’t put much on paper before you betray your secret self, try as you will to keep things civil. Patricia Hampl self secret trying Planes are my foxhole. I'm always on my knees in them. Patricia Hampl foxholes knees flying landscape, that vast still life, invites description, not narration. It is lyric. It has no story: it is the beloved, and asks only to be contemplated. Patricia Hampl landscape beloved stories French was the only language we had in common, and even that was like a dialect we had picked up at a rummage sale, rusty and missing a lot of essential parts. Patricia Hampl dialect essentials missing poetry is the sung voice of accurate perception. Patricia Hampl voice poetry perception The materials of true poetry are always humble, absolutely idiosyncratic, the autobiographical tatters that, in gifted hands, are made into the memoir that fits us all. Patricia Hampl poetry humble hands Fundamentally, [prayer] is a position, a placement of oneself. Patricia Hampl placement position prayer Silence was the first prayer I learned to trust. Patricia Hampl silence prayer firsts I could tell you stories-if only stories could tell what I have in me to tell. Patricia Hampl ifs stories