What we, or at any rate, I, refer to confidently as a memory - meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion - is really a form of stoytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the story-teller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.
WILLIAM MAXWELL. So Long, See You Tomorrow

'It is true that I danced the following night -  but dance to me, as you know, is every emotion perfectly crystallised, not just celebration, but death, futility and loneliness too.
                                                                    ******** June 1964, Rudik'