Memory and the Past Quotes in The Danish Girl

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

She thought of them all: Greta and Hans and then Carlisle, whose flat, persistent voice was good at sorting things out; she thought of frightened Einar, lost in his baggy suit, separated from the rest of them, somehow away—permanently away. (21.120)

Here we see the final result of Lili cutting Einar off for so long: He's separate and lost, even in his—now her own—memory. Einar isn't invited to the Lili party.

Quote #8

Of course they could no longer live as man and wife, now that they were both women and Einar lay in memory's coffin. (24.8)

"Memory's coffin" is a rich turn of phrase. Now Greta seems to be doing the same thing Lili does: locking her memories of Einar away in a little box, not to be forgotten, but to be buried.

Quote #9

It didn't bother Lili, what she remembered and what she didn't. She knew that most of her life, her previous life, was like a book she had read as a small child: it was both familiar and forgotten. (25.6)

Lili is still like a small child in a way, a child who thinks she has been reincarnated from a past life and still retains memories of it.