Déjà vu

“We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time — of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances — of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it!”

“Madness is the déjà-vu of death.”

“Often on the highway, weary and wary, we spurn the unknown and cheerfully drive on for the promise of a Howard Johnson's and its familiar déjà vu.”

“The essential of the déjà vu is rather the negation of the present than the affirmation of the past.”

“We wallow in nostalgia but manage to get it all wrong. True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories … but American-style nostalgia is about as ephemeral as copyrighted déjà vu.”

“Good evening. Tonight on 'It's the Mind,' we examine the phenomenon of déjà vu. That strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before. That what is happening now has already happened tonight on 'It's the Mind,' we examine the phenomenon of déjà vu. That strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived— (pause for realization) Anyway, tonight on 'It's the Mind,' we examine the phenomenon of déjà vu. That strange...”

“When some French were assembling an encyclopedia of paranormal experiences, they decided to leave déjà vu out, because it was so common it could not be considered paranormal.”

“They all seem to have experienced paramnesia, the sensation of déjà vu, the total recollection which does not appear to be recollected; they all aimed at least at the total exclusion of the past from the present by a perfect absorption in the present, as if time stood still and became eternity.”