If one no longer has land but has the memory of land, then one can make a map

--- Anne Michaels, in Fugitive Pieces: A novel (1998), via Helize van Vuuren, "Between the Stormberg Mountains and Timbuktu: Aucamp's ars poetica/Tussen die Stormberge en Timboektoe: Aucamp se kunsteorie" (2005)

Quote in context

There's no absence, if there remains even the memory of absence. Memory dies unless it's given a use. Or as Athos might have said: If one no longer has land but has the memory of land, then one can make a map.