How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Very true, indeed, my dears, but you are blessed with wonderful memories, and your poor cousin has probably none at all. There is a vast deal of difference in memories, as well as in everything else, and therefore you must make allowance for your cousin, and pity her deficiency" (2.28).
Mrs. Norris is once again ridiculously mean to Fanny, here implying that Fanny is a total moron. However, Mrs. Norris's comments on the "difference in memories" is rather accurate in this novel. Fanny's own long memory is often contrasted with those of characters who prefer to live in the present, such as Henry.
Quote #2
But he had ended his speech in a way to sink her in sad mortification, by adding, "If William does come to Mansfield, I hope you may be able to convince him that the many years which have passed since you parted have not been spent on your side entirely without improvement – though I fear he must find his sister at sixteen in some respects too much like his sister at ten" (3.64).
Fanny is frequently described as, or associated with, the term "constancy." Fanny herself is very slow and reluctant to change, even as she is here embarrassed by her lack of change as she grows up. Sir Thomas is actually really accurate here – Fanny is really similar to the child-version of Fanny we meet at the start of the book.
Quote #3
It was not in Miss Crawford's power to talk Fanny into any real forgetfulness of what had passed. When the evening was over, she went to bed full of it, her nerves still agitated by the shock of such an attack from her cousin Tom, so public and so persevered in [...] (16.1).
Just as Fanny feels words in her "nerves," she also obsesses over past events and words and has a physical reaction to the stresses of just remembering things.
Quote #4
[S]he could scarcely see an object in that room which had not an interesting remembrance connected with it. Everything was a friend, or bore her thoughts to a friend [...] (16.2).
Fanny seems to personify her objects and trinkets here, turning them into friends and companions. Fanny also seems to turn memory itself into a sort of friend or companion.
Quote #5
The table between the windows was covered with work-boxes and netting-boxes which had been given her at different time, principally by Tom; and she grew bewildered as to the amount of the debt which all these kind remembrances produced (16.3).
Past "remembrances" create obligations and duties for Fanny. In a way, Fanny's memories are almost binding and greatly influence the way she acts and thinks long after.
Quote #6
"How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!" And following the latter train of thought, she soon afterwards added: "If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. [...]. We are, to be sure, a miracle every way – but our powers of recollecting and forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out" (22.12).
This is probably the best and clearest thematic statement about memory and the past in the entire book. What is particularly notable here is that Fanny is the one who says this. Since Fanny rarely speaks, and almost never speaks at such length, this section really stands out. It's notable that of all the themes and concepts with which to associate Fanny, memory is the one to which she's most explicitly tied. What might this say about Fanny's character?
Quote #7
Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power which no subsequent connections can supply; and it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement [...] if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived (24.18).
The huge impact of childhood on an adult's personality is a major theme in Mansfield Park. Here, childhood bonds and memories of childhood are crucial in linking Fanny and William, even though they have spent most of their lives apart.
Quote #8
Nothing remained of last night but remembrances, which she had nobody to share in (29.4).
Fanny's shyness often means that she's very lonely. Here she's unable to share her memories with anyone and must carry them around by herself. Though these memories are happy, this section implies that memories not shared can become a burden.
Quote #9
"I am aware, more aware than Crawford can be, that the man who means to make you love him [...] must have very uphill work, for there are all your early attachments and habits in battle array; and before he can get your heart for his own use, he has to unfasten it from all the holds upon things animate and inanimate, which so many years' growth has confirmed, and which are considerably tightened for the moment by the very idea of separation" (35.21).
Edmund gives a right-on-the-money assessment of Fanny and her total reluctance to change or evolve. Fanny is highly in touch with memory and the past, which can be a good thing. But she also seems practically tied down by the past, which is bad. Fanny doesn't exist fully in the present and she doesn't change or evolve in a healthy way.
Quote #10
"If I had the power of recalling any one week of my existence, it should be that week, that acting week. Say what you would, Fanny, it should be that; for I never knew such exquisite happiness in any other" (36.9).
It is very significant that Mary recalls the "acting week" over any other memory, or would recall it perfectly if she had the power to do so. Mary essentially picks for her most clear memory a week of fantasy and make-believe as opposed to a real event. This suggests that Mary might want to recall the emotions of that week with perfect clarity. The emotions she remembers don't need to be linked with "real" events after all.
Quote #11
She had never been able to recall anything approaching to tenderness in his former treatment of herself. There had remained only a general impression of roughness and loudness; and now he scarcely ever noticed her, but to make her the object of a coarse joke (39.3).
Once again, the power of childhood memories is linked to Fanny. This is appropriate given that the only thing Fanny has had of her real family are memories and "general impressions" of people.
Quote #12
"I firmly believe it. It is an attachment to govern his whole life. Accepted or refused, his heart is wedded to her for ever" (44.4).
Fanny here is referring to the power of memory – no matter what the future holds for Edmund and Mary, his remembrance of his love for her will remain with him for the rest of his life. Since Fanny is often incapable of moving on from the past, she assumes that others must have the same problem.
Quote #13
There was everything in the world against their being serious but his words and manner. Everything natural, probable, reasonable, was against it; al their habit and ways of thinking, and all her own demerits. How could she have excited serious attachment in a man who had seen so many, and been admired by so many, and flirted with so many [...] (31.25).
Fanny has already judged Henry by his past behavior and refuses to consider him in a new light in the present moment. The same holds true for other characters. Fanny loves Edmund because he was nice to her as a child and she has a really difficult time getting over her fear of Sir Thomas because he was cold to her before.