Striking Sentences - 2.20.10

Striking Sentences is a relatively new meme that I have run across lately.  It is hosted by Becca at Bookstack and asks:

Don’t you just love when you’re reading along in your top-’o-the-stack book and a sentence jumps out at you – a sentence that makes you say “Aha!” or “Yes!” or “Why didn’t I think of that before?”  Or you stumble across a sentence  so perfectly written it resounds in your heart-strings for days? 

Each Saturday I’ll be celebrating those Striking Sentences, the ones that pierce the soul with their wisdom or humor or craft.  If you’d like to share a Striking Sentence (or sentences) from your current read, post about them on your blog, tell us why they strike your heart, and leave a link in the comments here so we may come visit. 

This week I would like to highlight one of the several quotes that I found while reading Melanie Benjamin's, Alice I Have Been.  This particular quote is found on page 335, and takes place between Peter Llewelyn-Davies, the inspiration for Peter Pan, and Alice Lidell:

"But people like to think life is a fairy tale, and it seems that I'm quite unable to shake it.  However have you managed to put up with Alice for such a long time?"

I smiled, and did not take offense at the impolite reference to my age.  He looked so very curious, touchingly hopeful; hopeful that somehow, I would be able to help him with merely a word or a handshake or  a kiss on the cheek.

"My dear boy, I'm sure I don't know how."  For to tell the truth, I was tired of being Alice in Wonderland.....

"......I suppose, at  some point, we all have to decide which  memories - real or otherwise - to hold on to, and which ones to let go.  I'm sure I haven't quite gotten the knack of it myself.  But soon, perhaps.  Perhaps, soon."

There is so much truth in this fictitious conversation between two adults who have been immortalized as childhood heroes.  Don't we all sometimes grow weary of the character role we play?  While we may not always have control over life's circumstances, don't we have some control over what we choose to consciously remember?  That is, what we choose to dwell on and rehash over and over again in our minds?  And isn't it possible that our recollection of what happened is somewhat distorted by our personal perspective?  I, too, am learning to choose which memories I care to hold to, and which ones are ready to be discarded so that I can move forward and no longer be held back by the tape recorder of the mind.