John Irving Quotes

Memory, in my opinion, is a complete noodle. It hangs on the silliest things but forgets the stuff that really matters.

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

The only thing more painful than being an active forgetter is to be an inert rememberer.

Why do people have memories? It would be easier to die - anything to stop remembering.

Memory is a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past.

People are machines of forgetfulness

The very effort to forget teaches us to remember.

Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.

I have a good memory. But I would be interested in memory even if I had a bad memory, because I believe that memory is our soul. If we lose our memory completely, we are without a soul.

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

Short term memory is not good.

The function of memory is not only to preserve, but also to throw away. If you remembered everything from your entire life, you would be sick.

Why do we remember stuff from when we were 5 years old but not important facts that are more recent?

I can remember weird things from way back, but not what I had for breakfast.

If I forget, then it might as well never have happened. Memory is liberty.

Memory is not just the imprint of the past time upon us; it is the keeper of what is meaningful for our deepest hopes and fears.

For someone who can’t remember very much, there seems to be a lot I can’t forget.

I feel that there is no such thing as ultimate forgetting; traces once impressed upon the memory are indestructible.

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

Memory is the basis of every journey.

I knew that I would know more dead people. The bodies pile up. Could there be a space in my memory for each of them, or would I forget a little of Alaska every day for the rest of my life?

People's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive.

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.

Do we soon forget the things we cannot see?

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.