Joshua Foer Quotes

People sometimes forget when you remember, but they always remember when you forget.

The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them.

Remembering is the most overrated thing. Forgetting is far superior.

...forgetting is vastly underrated as a mental operation.

Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence.

Memory is the thing you forget with.

Memory sometimes makes merciful deletions.

For once a thing is known, it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten.

Why is it that we are born remembering, and live forgetting?

To forget is the secret of eternal youth. One grows old only through memory. There's much too little forgetting.

Mind is memory, not intelligence.

Memory is so crazy! It's like we've got these drawers crammed with tons of useless stuff. Meanwhile, all the really important things we just keep forgetting, one after the other.

Forgetting and remembering are governed by laws, but we cannot find out what they are.

Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, dont you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

I spend all my time trying to keep thoughts away and ignore them....But here you are, trying to remember your own life, writing your thoughts down so that you don't forget. I suddenly realized what it would be like not to know, not to remember.

You know how it is: as soon as you decide to forget something, your brain comes to the conclusion that it's the most fascinating thing in the world.

Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition of our existence. If the lore of the transmigration of souls is a true one, then these, between their exchange of bodies, must pass through the sea of forgetfulness.

Tip-of-the-tongue syndrome is when people almost remember something but need a computer, or someone else, to help them find it. The problem is, our brains have always been terrible at remembering details. They were like that way before the Internet came along.

One of the strangest aspects of living with certain kinds of memory loss is knowing that the forgetting is happening.

Memory is man's greatest friend and worst enemy.

If it's hard to remember, it'll be difficult to forget.

When I need names they drop out of my head; when I don't need them they drop back.

I have a hard time recalling the titles of books.

Short term memory is not good.

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.