There was a time when I could claim to have memorized several hundred words of various texts that I cared about. These have mostly faded, and I even missed a word of the pledge of allegiance when I tested myself. Memorization, like penmanship, has become an arcane skill in today's ever-connected lifestyle. I aim to start with some passages I love well enough to recall roughly and build up an inventory of internalized language. You never know when such stores might come in handy.

Here's my first attempt.

Titular pretentions, I know it well, are a vanity. But they do no harm when uttered on a laughing lip, and in any case serve to distinguish one Jack from his fellow. Remember me, therefore, as Sir Thomas Moore.

And the correct original, with some context:

"Mr. Browne, I've left my purse behind. I've not got a penny. I can't pay for the ticket. Will you take my watch, please? I am in the most awful hole."

"Tickets on this line," said the driver, "whether single or return, can be purchased by coinage from no terrene mint. And a chronometer, though it had solaced the vigils of Charlemagne, or measured the slumbers of Laura, can acquire by no mutation the double-cake that charms the fangless Cerberus of Heaven!" So saying, he handed in the necessary ticket, and, while the boy said "Thank you," continued: "Titular pretensions, I know it well, are vanity. Yet they merit no censure when uttered on a laughing lip, and in an homonymous world are in some sort useful, since they do serve to distinguish one Jack from his fellow. Remember me, therefore, as Sir Thomas Browne."