sebald on memory and reading (or, the book i read said these things)

"...he lived in the conviction that he could remember every detail of that ride, and particularly of the town of Ivrea, which he beheld for the first time from some three-quarters of a mile away, in a light that was already fading. There it lay, ot the right, where the valley gradually opens out into the plain, while on the left, in the far distance, the mountains arose, the Resegone di Lecco, which was later to mean so much to him, and at the furthest remove, the Monte Rosa. It was a severe disappointment, Beyle writes, when some years ago, looking through old papers, he came across an engraving entitled Propetto d'Ivrea and was obliged to concede that his recollected picture of the town in the evening sun was nothing but a copy of that very engraving. This being so, Beyle's advice is not to purchase engravings of fine views and prospects seen on one's travels, since before long they will displace our memories completely, indeed one might say they destroy them."

and

"Once I am at leisure...I take refuge in prose as one might in a boat. All day long I am surrounded by the clamour on the editorial floor, but in the evening I cross over to an island, and every time, the moment I read the first sentences, it is as if I were rowing far out on the water."

--w.g. sebald, vertigo