Forgetfulness Quotes

“The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.”
― Alain de Botton

“Isn't love the emanation of desire or just a statement of emptiness in expectation? As we long for what is missing and finally hold it, could it be that we may not crave it anymore in the end? Still, if we learn to "enjoy" the precious moments of its presence, it can remain a captivating experience and a mesmerizing adventure. If it keeps on overwhelming us with "joy," love can turn into a magic prism and make it possible to discover a rainbow of twinkles and enchanting sceneries. As our imagination constantly discerns new qualities, the sparkle of love does not expire in the boredom of forgetfulness. (“Twilight of desire“)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“When love slides into the edge of unconcern or vanishes in the cornfield of forgetfulness, our mind must loosen the knots that tie us to the barren fields of a lost past. ("The Internet rescue")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“While walking down the memory lane, we may discover in the remains of our early days, surprising little details that have been eclipsed under the mantle of forgetfulness or inattention. Those loose shreds in our remembrance can highlight the importance of the fundamentals that steer our daily lives. But they may also entice us to crack the particular value that we impart to trivial matters or quirky actions. Then, we are capable of discerning the uprightness and the truth behind the appearances. ("Dirty bike")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Everything he had ever done that had been better left undone. Every lie he had told — told to himself, or told to others. Every little hurt, and all the great hurts. Each one was pulled out of him, detail by detail, inch by inch. The demon stripped away the cover of forgetfulness, stripped everything down to truth, and it hurt more than anything.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“He looked haggard and careworn, like a Borgia who has suddenly remembered that he has forgotten to shove cyanide in the consommé, and the dinner-gong due any moment.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Carry On, Jeeves

“The only thing faster than the speed of thought is the speed of forgetfulness. Good thing we have other people to help us remember.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“Every novel is like this, desperation, a frustrated attempt to save something of the past. Except that it still has not been established whether it is the novel that prevents man from forgetting himself or the impossibility of forgetfulness that makes him write novels.”
― José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon

“The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.”
― Billy Collins

“Happiness: being able to forget or, to express in a more learned fashion.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life

“Forgetting happens. If you stress about it, it'll happen even more.”
― Lisa Genova, Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting

“I know I do everything. I've been doing everything for an awfully long time, and I've seen and lived as hard as I could, and it's been unbelievable, I tell you, unbelievable. But now I have the feeling everything is gliding away from me, and I don't remember, and I don't care, and yet now is right when I need it.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“I had a chat with May and I had a sweet talk with April but the lovely conversation that left me to ponder was the long talk I had with June. Mathematics came to tell me that May is 3, June is 4 and April is 5. ‘ This should have been the counting order’ Mathematics said to me, and added, if you add 3 and 5 you shall surely get 8 and if you find the mid of 8 you will get 4 which is June. Ask June why the disorder! So I quickly called June and asked, why have you change the order? June said, ‘my brother, in this era, you should least give men things which are in order. Let them ponder and put things in order and they will learn something better’. I had to ponder and wonder. Then June added, those who will ponder to know why I have change the order to be at the mid of the other shall get to the mid of the other and wonder why they are at the mid of the other and end the other in wonder but, those who would never see why they must ponder when they get to the mid of the other to know why I am there shall end the other in disorder. They shall end the other and wander in the end! I was quick to ask June, which other? June calmly said, the twelve disciples of the year. Disciples’? I asked. June quickly said, I mean months! In your journey of life, take a break as you journey and ponder over the journey; June concluded!”
― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

“Sprites glitter in air that stinks of freshly spilled blood. The revel will go on, I realize. Everything will go on.

But I am not sure that I can.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“So much is buried in our lives that we forget what we have learned.”
― Harley King

“All the girls feared their Father less than they did their Mother, because she sometimes remembered things and he did not. Lord Brightlingsea was swept through life on a steady amnesiac flow.”
― Edith Wharton, The Buccaneers

“You heard me. I am the caretaker.”

“And what do you take care of?”

“What people throw away, what history rejects, what memory denies. The smile of a starving child, the tears of its dying mother. The silent prayers of the condemned man and the cries of his friend: I gather them up and preserve them. In this city, I am memory.”
― Elie Wiesel, The Forgotten

“You know, I always erase everything... And lately, my memory loss is erasing what time hasn't.”
― Rolf van der Wind

“You can't be serious. Your temple was destroyed two thousand years ago and you're grieving today?” Yes, as if it had happened only yesterday. “A lot of people have told me the Jews were crazy,” she said. “They were right.” Yes, we're crazy. “It's human nature to forget what hurts you, isn't it? Wasn't forgetfulness a gift of the gods to the ancient world? Without it, life would be intolerable, wouldn't it?” Yes, but the Jews live by other rules. For a Jew, nothing is more important than memory. He is bound to his origins by memory. It is memory that connects him to Abraham, Moses and Rabbi Akiba. If he denies memory he will have denied his own honor. “So you insist on keeping all your wounds open?” Those wounds exist; it is therefore forbidden and unhealthy to pretend that they don't.”
― Elie Wiesel, The Forgotten

“...I often took the critics at their word. So when a reviewer wrote 'Feyerabend says X' and then attacked X, I assumed that I had indeed said X and tried to defend it. Yet in many cases I had not said X but its opposite. Didn't I care about what I had written?”
― Paul Karl Feyerabend, Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend

“Never forget... um... always remember that... er... something... or the other”
― Aegelis, Specks of Shadows, Flecks of Light

“I hate being hated even though I
provoke it, not by committing major wrongs
like murder, more like a regular
pattern of being selfish or forgetful,
which is another word for selfish.”
― Carmen Giménez

“Funny what you remember and what you don't.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Borne

“Five minutes ago escapes him
as he chases 1934, unaware

of the present beauty out the window,
the banks of windswept snow—

or his wife, humming in the kitchen,
or the twilit battles in Korea, or me

when he remembers that I am his son.”
― Anthony Walton

“I always put my left sock on first. When I put my right sock on first, I've left without a sock on.”
― Aegelis

“I know: even the most eminent doctors are sometimes wrong. I sometimes wonder if the diagnosis is correct. I wonder if my father is suffering from amnesia or some other disease. He may know everything that's happening to him, everything said in his presence, everything going on around him and within him, and he may want to react, to respond, but he may be incapable of it. Or he may not want to. He may be disappointed in mankind. And in its language. He may reject our worn and devalued words. He may need others altogether. And as there are no others, he may be choosing to feign forgetfulness so that he can remain speechless.”
― Elie Wiesel, The Forgotten

“Who was it said, ‘We forget because we must’? He was right.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blythes Are Quoted