Daniel Levitin Quotes

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

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.

believe that you've had most of your important memories by the time you're thirty. After that, memory becomes water overflowing into an already full cup. New experiences just don't register in the same way or with the same impact. I could be shooting heroin with the Princess of Wales, naked in a crashing jet, and the experience still couldn't compare to the time the cops chased us after we threw the Taylors' patio furniture into their pool in eleventh grade.

Memory is the basis of every journey.

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

I have short-term memory loss. I know that some of the memories of the Super Bowl championships are fading.

I don't think forgetting is an important feature of human memory. I think it's important to be able to remember things accurately.

The hippocampus helps record both types of memories initially, and it helps retain them for the medium term. The hippocampus also helps us access old personal memories in long-term storage in other parts of the brain.

When the brain is working to remember something, similar patterns of neurons fire as they did during the perception of the original event. These networks are linked, and each time we revisit them, they become stronger and more associated. But they need the proper retrieval cues--words, smells, images-- for them to be brought back as memories

Memory is a gulf that a word can move to its lowest depths.

My memory is coming back. It is curious how it comes. Each day, a rush of pieces, loosely connected, unimportant bits, snake through me. They click, click, click into my brain, like links being snapped together. And then they are done. A small chain of memories that fill in one tiny part of my life. They come out of nowhere, and most are not important.

Memory is everything. Without it we are nothing.

It will take mind and memory months and possibly years to gather together the details, and thus learn and know the whole extent of the loss.

Memory. My poison, my food.

The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost are and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten.

Why does the brain retain the memory of the hurt from yesterday?

It sometimes occurs that memory has a personality of its own and volunteers or refuses its information at its will, not at mine.

It is a funny thing what the brain will do with memories and how it will treasure them and finally bring them into odd juxtapositions with other things, as though it wanted to make a design, or get some meaning out of them, whether you want it or not, or even see it.

The degree of slowness is directionally proportional to the intensity of memory. The degree of speed is directionally proportional to the intensity of forgetting.

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

Music is stored in our long-term memory. When we learn something through music, we tend to remember it longer and believe it more deeply. Dr. Joyce Brothers

Goldfish have no memory, I guess their lives are much like mine. And the little plastic castle is a surprise everytime.

Memory feeds imagination.

You know that old joke about potheads having bad memories? Well, the bad memories are like pain, discomfort, and fear. So you lose all that, and the body reacts by healing faster and stronger.

Some memories are best absorbed through your eyes in real time, even if you have no record of it later. Because then you can access that memory and how you felt in that moment. If you're looking at your cellphone screen, taking a video of something that is otherwise unforgettable, watching it later will not recover the emotion you would have had, had you witnessed it directly.