“It is not the literal past, the “facts” of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.”
—Brian Friel (b. 1929)
“The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.”
—René Magritte (1898–1967)
“It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past.... Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)