Alex Garland Quotes

Women forget all the things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget.

Memory is the greatest of artists, and effaces from your mind what is unnecessary.

The mistakes you made you tend to conveniently forget

isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so.

The pen will never be able to move fast enough to write down every word discovered in the space of memory. Some things have been lost forever, other things will perhaps be remembered again, and still other things have been lost and found and lost again. There is no way to be sure of any this.

Estragon: I'm like that. Either I forget right away or I never forget.

Statesmen remember things selectively.

I don’t keep a travel diary. I did keep a travel diary once and it was a big mistake. All I remember of that trip is what I bothered to write down. Everything else slipped away, as though my mind felt jilted by my reliance on pen and paper. For exactly the same reason I don’t travel with a camera. My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost.

People forget years and remember moments.

The good thing about painting from memory is that so much is forgotten.

Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a thousand things that must first be forgotten. Memory is not fully itself when it reaches only into the past. A memory that is not alive to the present does not remember the here and now, does not remember its true identity, is not memory at all. He who remembers nothing but facts and past events, and is never brought back into the present, is a victim of amnesia.

The memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases.

It occurs to her that she should record this flash of insight in her journal - otherwise she is sure to forget, for she is someone who is always learning and forgetting and obliged to learn again.

Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

Without doubt, keep a diary. From the day you're born, keep a diary, because we all forget things so quickly.

Most people think that 'I don't recall' is a clever answer. But it isn't that clever. You might not recall that you had bacon and eggs for breakfast- but if you killed your mother, you'll remember it.

I have a terrible time remembering exactly when my birthday is. Age is totally boring.

Few have wished for memory so much as they have longed for forgetfulness.

He who forgets will be destined to remember.

Thank God for novelists. Thank God there are people willing to write everything down. Otherwise, so much would be forgotten.

Isn't it fortunate how selective our recollections usually are.

The names are the first things to go, after the breath has gone, and the beating of the heart. We keep our memories longer than our names.

My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember.

As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.

I have a remarkable memory; I forget everything. It is wonderfully convenient. It is as though the world were constantly renewing itself for me.