"Part of the function of memory is to forget; the omni-retentive mind will break down and produce at best an idiot savant who can recite a telephone book, and at worst a person to whom every grudge and slight is as yesterday's."

Memory, Forgetfulness, Burden, Mind

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"Part of the function of memory is to forget; the omni-retentive mind will break down and produce at best an idiot savant who can recite a telephone book, and at worst a person to whom every grudge and slight is as yesterday's."

Exlpore more Memory quotes

"Memory is a few lines snipped from a larger story that we are privileged to tuck away between the pages of our minds."

Craig D. Lounsbrough, American Author

Memory, Truth, Wisdom, Inspirational

"Only later, much later, too late, did I understand how small she (Mrs Winterson) was to herself. The baby nobody picked up. The uncarried child still inside her."

Jeanette Winterson, British Novelist

Memory, Understanding, Self, Isolation, Past

"Freud, one of the grand masters of narrative, knew that the past is not fixed in the way that linear time suggests. We can return. We can pick up what we dropped. We can mend what others broke. We can talk with the dead."

Jeanette Winterson, British Novelist

Memory, Past, Time, Narrative

"He lives vividly in her recollections, however, and his memory is etched on her soul."

Dean Koontz, American Author

Memory, Love, Soul, Emotion

"Scent is the strongest tie to memory."

Maggie Stiefvater, American Author

Memory, Emotion, Past, Connection

"Some of my anger has faded, but it isn't hard to call back. All I have to do is think about how cold the air was and how loud the laughter was. Look at her. She's a child."

Veronica Roth, American Author

Memory, Anger, Cold, Laughter

"People never forget two things, their first love and the money they wasted watching a bad movie."

Amit Kalantri, Indian Author

Memory, Love, Money, Forget

"It's not that I can't remember. It's that I prefer not to remember, which means that I prefer not to remember what not remembering did to me the last time I did it."

Craig D. Lounsbrough, American Author

Memory, Truth, Power, Wisdom

"The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before."

John Green, American Author

Memory, Loss, Life, Emotion

"Tell me about your family," I said. And so she did. I listened intently as my mother went through each branch of the tree. Years later, after the funeral, Maria had asked me questions about the family - who was related to whom - and I struggled. I couldn't remember. A big chunk of our history had been buried with my mother. You should never let your past disappear that way."

Mitch Albom, American Writer

Memory, Family, Funeral, History

Explore more quotes by Christopher Hitchens

"The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind."

Intellect

"Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of 'the flock."

Religion

"I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness."

Hypocrisy

"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will provide plenty of time for silence."

Skepticism

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law."

Governance

"Beware what you wish for, unless you have the grace to hope that your luck can be shared."

Wisdom

"If you say you're a unifier, you expect and usually get applause. I'm a divider. Politics is division by definition, if there was no disagreement there would be no politics. The illusion of unity isn't worth having, and is anyways unattainable."

Politics

"Control over the production and distribution of oil is the decisive factor in defining who rules whom in the Middle East."

Politics

"I had become too accustomed to the pseudo-Left new style, whereby if your opponent thought he had identified your lowest possible motive, he was quite certain that he had isolated the only real one. This vulgar method, which is now the norm and the standard in much non-Left journalism as well, is designed to have the effect of making any noisy moron into a master analyst."

Politics

"I am sorry for those who have never had the experience of seeing the victory of a national liberation movement, and I feel cold contempt for those who jeer at it."

Politics