Breakfast at Tiffany's Memory and the Past Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

"Like my brother Fred. We used to sleep four in a bed, and he was the only one that ever let me hug him on a cold night" (3.7).

Memories of Fred represent happy recollections of Holly's past. In the midst of her difficult childhood, her brother was a source of safety and security.

Quote #2

I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods (1.1).

These words open the novel and let us know that we'll be spending time in the past. The story is framed around the idea of looking back.

Quote #3

"You take a man that likes to walk, a man like me, a man's been walking in the streets going on ten or twelve years, and all those years he's got his eye out for one person, and nobody's ever her, don't it stand to reason she's not there" (1.32).

Joe Bell desperately wants to recapture the past, to go back to the chapter when Holly was in his life. He spends his days looking for the woman who can carry him back to a different time.