Quotes about forgetting
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“Some people you will always have about you whom you can trust, and no man these days can boast of more than that. Remember them; forget the others.”

Hugh Lofting (1886–1947) British author, trained as a civil engineer

People

“In the immortal words of Maya Angelou … people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will
never forget how you made them feel.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Inferno

People, Angels, Feeling

“Be happy, honey. No
one deserves it more. But don't forget… I'm
keeping one little piece of your heart for myself.
And if you ever want it back… you know
where to find it.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Happiness, Heart

“What are you? (Nick)
Completely perplexed. You remember everything that happened. (Acheron)
Yeah. Duh. Not like you’re going to forget the killer zombie stalkers and psyched-out kitchen staff. What kind of freak show is this? (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

“Spiritual realization is theoretically the easiest thing and in practice the most difficult thing there is. It is the easiest because it is enough to think of God. It is the most difficult because human nature is forgetfulness of God.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

Source: Spiritual Perspectives And Human Facts

God, Nature, Thinking

“You have to forget about what other people say, when you're supposed to die, or when you're supposed to be loving. You have to forget about all these things. You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Love, People

“How many kids are in the Graveyard?"
"A bunch."
"Who sends your supplies?"
"George Washington. Or is it Abraham Lincoln? I forget."
"How often do you receive new arrivals?"
"About as often as you beat your wife.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnWholly

“The heart never forgets, never gives up, the territory marked off for those who came before.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

Heart

“On Gandhi: Don’t ever forget, that we were not lead by a saint with his head in clouds, but by a master tactician with his feet on the ground.”

Shashi Tharoor book The Great Indian Novel

The Great Indian Novel (1989)

“Forget the self and you will fear nothing, in whatever level or awareness you find yourself to be.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: The Active Side of Infinity

Fear

“I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.

--From the poem "Mad Girl's Love Song”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Love, Way, Girl, Madness

“Then there you are, then. The day Howl forgets to do that will be the day I believe he's really in love, and not before."
Michael to Sophie about wether or not Howl is really in love with Lettie. pg, 170”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Love

“When most of us talk to our dogs, we tend to forget that they're not people.”

Julia Glass (1956) Novelist, journalist, editor

People, Dogs

“There are more than two chances– many more. I know now, after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning, never stops. The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? (2011), p.38
Source: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Life, Chance

“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.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Thinking

“Memory is the only afterlife I have ever believed in. But the forgetting inside us cannot be stopped. We are programmed to betray.”

Michael Ignatieff book Scar Tissue

Source: Scar Tissue

Memory

“But really, the term “forgive and forget” doesn’t make sense to me. Forgiving does allow us to stop dwelling on an issue, which isn’t always healthy. But if we forget, we don’t learn from our mistakes. And that can be deadly.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Abandon

Forgiveness, Sense, Learning

“However many years she lived, Mary always felt that 'she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow'.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden

Source: The Secret Garden

“I allowed myself to forget how totally I had fallen in love with Lestat's iridescent eyes, that I'd sold my soul for a many-colored and luminescent thing, thinking that a highly reflective surface conveyed the power to walk on water.”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

Love, Color, Soul, Thinking

“A man’s memory might have only a hundred clear days in it and he has lived thousands. Can’t do much about that. We have our store of days and we spend them like forgetful drunkards.”

Sebastian Barry (1955) Irish author

Source: Days Without End: A Novel

Memory

“I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them, and forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Happiness, Pleasure, Solitude, Appearance

“I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Love

“Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Books, Way, Time

“You forget who submits, Eva,” he said gruffly. “I’ve given up control for you. I’ve bent and adjusted for you. I’ll do anything to keep you and make you happy. But I can’t be tamed or topped. Don’t mistake indulgence for weakness.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

Happiness

“Such is human memory… you forget the truth and believe what makes you feel better.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Truth, Feeling, Memory

“Don't forget that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else……. above all dont forget to follow your destiny through to its conclusion”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“Laughter opens your heart and soothes your soul. No one should ever take life so seriously that they forget to laugh at themselves.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams Reaching Your Destiny

Life, Soul, Laughter, Heart

“I wanted to paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that it was made of paint. I wanted it to creep into them like a bar of music and mushroom there like a soft bullet.”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

Source: The Complete Works of O. Henry

People, Music, Painting

“Good words," I replied. "But deeds must prove it also; and after he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Fear

“I cover my face with my arms because this isn't happening. It isn't possible. For someone to make Peeta forget he loves me… no one can do that.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Love

“Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it's there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Love, Life, Death, Hate

“The pain was so deep and so raw. There were days I would have died just to forget. The problem was, I couldn't figure out how to get her out of my mind. How do you kill that kind of pain?”

Ted Dekker book Kiss

Source: Kiss

Pain, Problem

“Do not
forget duty. But choose love when you can.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Gray Wolf Throne

Love

“Memory is identity…. You are what you have done; what you have done is in your memory; what you remember defines who you are; when you forget your life you cease to be, even before your death.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: Nothing to Be Frightened Of

Life, Death, Memory

“So I got off the plane and I forget to take off my seat-belt and I’m dragging the plane through the terminal… The wings are knocking people over…”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

People

“I have spent weeks in the desert, forgetting to look at the moon, he says, as a married man may spend days never looking into the face of his wife. These are not sins of omission but signs of pre-occuopation.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

“[…][I]f you adapted too much in order to deal with them, you ran the risk of forgetting who you were and you could end up being neither and nothing.”

Anne Bishop book Written in Red

Source: Written in Red

“And for the rest of the night, he couldn’t quite forget the smell of her perfume. Or maybe it was the soft sound of her chuckle. Or maybe it was neither of those things. Maybe it was just her.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: It's in His Kiss

Night

“Never forget what Jesus did for you. Never take lightly what it cost Him. And never assume that if it cost Him His very life, that it won't also cost you yours.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Lufkin, Texas http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/lufkin-texas-jul1997-full.html (July 19, 1997) <br class="br">In Concert

Life

“Life sure is easier when you're rich."
"And a natural born charmer. Don't forget that part."
"How could I?" she retorted. "It's the only thing we have in common.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Natural Born Charmer

Life, Nature, Parting

“Choices will continually be necessary and -- let us not forget -- possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Discipline: The Glad Surrender

God, Error, Feeling, Strong

“There was love expressed in the places you usually forget to look.”

Ann Brashares book The Last Summer

Source: The Last Summer

Love

“My whole life is about forgetting. It's my most valuable job skill.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

Life

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) American political scientist

Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), Ch. 2 : Civilizations in History and Today, § 10 : Relations Among Civilizations, p. 51

World, Religion, Idea

“Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say.
"It must be. The sensation is completely new. How have you managed it all these years?" he asks.
"Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it," I say.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Life, Time

“Saying good night to the mountains, the sun throws his most beautiful rays to them, that they may not forget him till the morning.”

Johanna Spyri book Heidi

Source: Heidi

Beauty, Mountain, Sun, Night

“We certainly do not forget you, so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Fate, Help

“Forget the noose. Forget the Iron Maiden. Forget the electric chair or the guillotine. The mind was mankind's most painful torture chamber, the blessed liberty to cogitate offering either doom or salvation, depending on one's disposition.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Pain, Dependency

“Desire consumes you, it takes you over. You forget yourself completely. All you can think about is the other, the one you desire, your self is just a fire.”

Marilyn French (1929–2009) Novelist, critic

Source: Her Mother's Daughter

Thinking

“This ability to exist in pieces is what some adults call resilience. And I suppose in some way it is a kind of resilience, a horrible resilience that makes adults believe children forget trauma.”

Lynda Barry (1956) Cartoonist

Source: One Hundred Demons

Children, Way

“I love you so much, so incredibly much," he went on, "and I forget when you're close to me, I forget who you are. I forget that you're Jem's. I'd have to be the worst sort of person to think what I'm thinking right now. But I am thinking it.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Variant: Will-"
"I love you so much, so incredibly much," he went on, "and when you're this close to me, I forget who you are. I forget you're Jem's. I'd have to be the worst sort of person to think what I'm thinking right now. But I am thinking it.
Source: Clockwork Princess

Love, Thinking, Personality

“But then she was not awkward, she was slow-flowing, graceful, seductive - a seductiveness that had nothing to do with breast and hips and legs, but was an invitation to forget the world in the recesses of the body”

Bernhard Schlink book The Reader

Source: The Reader

World

“So that is the design process or the creative process. Start with a problem, forget the problem, the problem reveals itself or the solution reveals itself and then you reevaulate it. This is what you are doing all the time.”

Paul Rand (1914–1996) American graphic designer

Problem, Time

“Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Source: The Waste Land

Winter

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

Source: The Call of the Wild

Life

“Keep this and perhaps remember me."
Kieran's hands tightened on the arrowhead, his knuckles whitening. "The stars will go out before I forget you, Mark Blackthorn.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Star

“Conrad calling me again—that was enough to make me forget how to breathe.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

“Let us cry for the, by all means, if by doing so we learn how to avoid spilling any more. Let us cry for the, and remember how, and where, and why, we spilt it. Much wisdom is learnt through tears, but none by forgetting our lessons.”

María Amparo Ruiz de Burton (1832–1895) Mexican-American writer

Source: The Squatter and the Don

Wisdom, Tear, Learning, Cry

“How do you forget something? You just walk away from it, those who are still alive. There are so few clearings in our hearts and minds, so few places where something can't grow on top of whatever happened to us before, and this is love too.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Source: Adverbs

Love, Heart

“My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn’t believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I’m agnostic.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

“I know there are people who believe you should forgive and forget. For the record, I'd like to say I'm a big fan of forgiveness as long as I'm given the opportunity to get even first.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: V is for Vengeance

People, Forgiveness

“He's the kind of liar who totally forgets what he told you the last time, but he believes every single lie with such conviction that sometimes he can convince you of it.”

Holly Black book White Cat

Source: White Cat

Lie, Time

“I have tried to keep memory alive… I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Memory, Fight

“Jason once told me that eye contact is the most intimacy two people can have -- forget sex -- because the optic nerve is technically an extension of the brain, and when two people look into each other's eyes, it's brain-to-brain.”

Douglas Coupland Hey Nostradamus!

Source: Hey Nostradamus!

People, Sex

“She had to go on this quest. The fate of the world might depend on it. But part of him wanted to say: Forget the world. He didn’t want to be without her.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Fate, World, Parting, Dependency

“If we experience any failures or setbacks, we do not forget them because they offend our self-esteem. Instead we reflect on them deeply, trying to figure out what went wrong and discern whether there are any patterns to our mistakes.”

Robert Greene book Mastery

Source: Mastery

Failure

“Even after all this time, I keep forgetting that heroes can be found in unlikely places and persons -- like mechanics who can turn into coyotes.”

Patricia Briggs book Blood Bound

Source: Blood Bound

Time, Personality

“It's funny how you never think about the women you've had. It's always the ones who get away that you can't forget.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Women, Thinking

“You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

“Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Life, Fear, Hope

“O little one,
My little one,
Come with me,
Your life is done.

Forget the future,
Forget the past.
Life is over:
Breathe your last.”

Clive Barker book Abarat

Source: Abarat

Life, Past, Future

“Well…… That's what you always forget, isn't it? I mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same as not being here and now.”

Aldous Huxley book Island

Source: Island

“Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Lie

“Regrets and apologies are all very well, but there's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them. They're like brands.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

Source: Mutiny on the Bounty

Life, Memory, Heart, Personality

“They chose the olive"
"They must really like olives"
"Forget it"
"Now if she invented pizza that i can understand"
-Percy to Annabeth in the lightning theif”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Understanding

“And make sure you tell daddy
That I'm still his little girl
Yeah I still feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be
But don't forget to remember me”

Carrie Underwood (1983) American country music singer

Feeling, Girl

“This endured absence is nothing more or less than forgetfulness. I am, intermittently, unfaithful. This is the condition of my survival.”

Roland Barthes book A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Source: A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Unfaithfulness

“Whoa, what is this? Battle of the Sarcastic and Pissed? Should I make popcorn? Forget American Idol, man. This is much more entertaining. (Kish)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

“I can always tell when you're thinking about food. You forget to be the Serious Wolf and you get this dreamy look in your eyes. You know, most people would think you were thinking about a girl. They have no idea that her name is bacon.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Stars

People, Food, Girl, Idea

“I'm a conundrum. Or an enigma. I forget which.”

James A. Owen book The Shadow Dragons

Source: The Shadow Dragons

“Bright star,” Magnus said, and his eyes were thoughtful, as if he were remembering something, or someone. “Those of you who are mortal, you burn so fiercely. And you fiercer than most, Will. I will not ever forget you.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Star

“Where we belong is often where we least expect to find ourselves—a place that we may have willed ourselves to forget, but that the heart remembers forever.”

Emily Giffin book Where We Belong

Source: Where We Belong

Heart

“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”

Milan Kundera book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Memory

“Crying wasn't like riding a bike. Give it up, and you quickly forget how it's done.”

Alice Hoffman book The Ice Queen

Source: The Ice Queen

Cry

“Well, most grown-ups forget what it was like to be a kid. I vowed that I would never forget.”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

“Poems are a hotline to our hearts, and we forget this emotional power at our peril.”

Andrew Motion (1952) poet, novelist and biographer from England

Heart

“We are frightfully concerned with our own deaths, sometimes so much so that we forget the real purpose of our lives”

Brian L. Weiss

Source: Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives

Death

“199. For to wish to forget how much you loved someone—and then, to actually forget—can feel, at times, like the slaughter of a beautiful bird who chose, by nothing short of grace, to make a habitat of your heart.”

Maggie Nelson (1973) American writer

Source: Bluets

Love, Beauty, Feeling, Bird

“To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

“The way her fingers flutter through the space around her. Each a thing he hopes never to forget.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Hope, Way

“I think now that being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligation but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.”

Jeanette Winterson book The Passion

Source: The Passion

Love, Thinking

“It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Journals IV A 164 (1843)
See Phenomenology: Critical Concepts in Philosophy, by Dermot Moran (2002)
Variants:
We live forward, but we understand backward.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s

Life

“And for a second, just for a second I forget. I forget that this isn't real.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before