Quotes about forgetting
page 9

“We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth

“Mom! This is Haruhi! We'll adopt her someday so don't forget!

~Hikaru and Kaoru”

Bisco Hatori (1975) Japanese manga artist

Source: Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 6

Moms

“Our stories are so fundamental to us that it’s easy to forget that we choose them.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Here I Am

Source: Here I Am

“When you started thinking it was easy, you were forgetting what it cost.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Thinking

“The art of reading consists in remembering the essentials and forgetting non essentials.”

Adolf Hitler book Mein Kampf

Source: Mein Kampf

Art, Reading

“Forget the chicken-nugget smoke screen. Percy wanted Leo to invent an anti-dream hat.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Dreams

“There's an old saying about those who forget history. I don't remember it, but it's good.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

History

“Life must go on; I forget just why.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Life

“But what humans forget, cells remember. The body, that elephant”

Jeffrey Eugenides (1960) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

“These are hard times. The world hurts. We live in fear and forget to walk with hope. But hope has not forgotten you. So ask it to dinner. It's probably hungry and would appreciate the invitation.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 428

World, Fear, Hope, Time

“It seems to me people tend to forget that we are to love our enemies, not to satisfy some standard of righteousness but because God their Father loves them.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Love, God, People

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Truth, History, Thinking, Freedom

“After all, how many of us had tried to forget something traumatic… only to find it printed on the back of our eyelids, tattooed on our tongues?”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

Tattoo

“you'll see, jane,' he promised her. 'you'll forget me, and it won't hurt tomorrow. besides, you said it yourself: love means you cαn never be apart. so we'll never be apart, jane, becαuse i love you so much. i'll always, always love you.”

James Patterson book Sundays at Tiffany's

Source: Sundays at Tiffany's

Love, Hurt

“If she wanted my money, I'd give her every cent. If she wanted another man, I'd make her forget him”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Captivated by You

Money

“Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to life as long as God himself”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

Life, God

“There are beautiful sounds in rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most songs. Just dig the noise, and you've got your sound… We're musical primitives.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Beauty, Music

“God is more powerful than anybody's past, no matter how wretched. He can make us forget - not by erasing the memory but by taking the sting and paralyzing effect out of it”

Jim Cymbala (1959) author, pastor

God, Memory, Past

“Sometimes I wish I knew how to go crazy. I forget how.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

“It’s a lost art,” Hank said. “Maybe there’s an instruction manual on it.”
Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 4 (p. 56)

“But I don't give up; I forget why not.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“And the things you can’t remember tell the things you can forget, that history puts a saint in every dream.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

"Time", Rain Dogs (1985).

Dreams, History

“I was very grateful to have heard it again. Because I guess we all forget sometimes. And I think everyone is special in their own way. I really do.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Way, Thinking

“Trust your luck, Taran Wanderer. But don't forget to put out your nets!”

Lloyd Alexander book Taran Wanderer

Source: Taran Wanderer

“There's a huge seal called 'impossibility' pasted all over this world. And don't ever forget that we're the only ones who can tear it off once and for all.”

Yukio Mishima book The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

Source: The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

World, Tear, Past

“We received our colouring from the Norsemen, hairy savages who hacked their gods to pieces and hung the flesh from trees. We are the ones who sacked Rome. Fear only feeble old age and death in bed. Don't forget who you are.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Death, God, Age, Fear

“Help me to withstand your beauty as it stands out of reach. Give me the capacity to forget ever having felt your touch.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Beauty, Help

“Let them go, I tell myself. Say good-bye and forget them. I do my best, thinking of them one by one, releasing them like birds from the protective cages inside me, locking the doors against their return.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Katniss, p. 189
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

Bird, Thinking

“What happens when we get back?
I don't know. I guess we try and forget.
I don't want to forget.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Happiness, Smile, Music, Light

“We forget that IMPOSSIBLE is one of God's favorite words”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions

God

“I want to feel all there is to feel, he thought. Let me feel tired, now, let me feel tired. I mustn't forget, I'm alive, I know I'm alive, I mustn't forget it tonight or tomorrow or the day after that.”

Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine

Source: Dandelion Wine

Feeling

“Ha! to forget. How childish! I feel you in my bones. Your silence screams in my ears. You may nail your mouth shut, you may cut out your tongue, can you keep yourself from existing? Will you stop your thoughts.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Inès reiterating to Garcin that they cannot ignore one another, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)
Source: No Exit and Three Other Plays

Feeling, Silence

“I'm insane, not forgetful.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Last Breath

“Don't forget this, too: Rumors aren't interested in the unsensational story; rumors don't care what's true.”

John Irving In One Person

Source: In One Person

“You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

“Like it takes so little not only to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Way, Change

“We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Pleasure, Time

“Time moves in one direction, memory another. We are that strange species that constructs artifacts intended to counter the natural flow of forgetting.”

William Gibson book Distrust That Particular Flavor

"Dead Man Sings," published in Forbes ASAP, November 30, 1998.
Source: Distrust That Particular Flavor

Nature, Memory, Time

“There are those who seek the love of a woman to forget her, to not think about her.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Source: The Aleph and Other Stories

Love, Thinking

“You must try to forget all you have learned,' said the old man. 'You must begin to dream. From this time on you must shut your ears to the roaring of the voices.”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

Dreams, Learning, Time

“If we forget who we lost, then we forget who we once were, and if we forget who we once were, we lose sight of who we are now.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“When you remembered to forget, you were remembering. It was when you forgot to forget that you forgot.”

Ann Brashares book Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

“Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“Mr. Wonka: "Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted."
Charlie Bucket: "What happened?"
Mr. Wonka: "He lived happily ever after.”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

“How beautiful is forgetting! What relief it would be for the world to lose some of its contents.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Tree of Codes

Source: Tree of Codes

World, Beauty

“If you forget everything else about me, please remember this. I walked down that street and I never looked back and I love you. I love you. I love you so much that I shall hate you for ever for today.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

Love, Hate

“If you never tell anyone the truth about yourself, eventually you start to forget.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Truth

“They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

God, Thinking, Country

“Wherever we go we do harm, forgiving
ourselves as wheels do cement for wearing
each other out. We set this house
on fire, forgetting that we live within.

(from "To a Meadowlark," for M. L. Smoker)”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Forgiveness, Housing

“Most times we're so focused on what we think we want that we can't appreciate how happy we already are. It's only when we forget about our problems and help others forget theirs that we realize how good we really have it.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2008-11-11
Threshold Editions
141659485X
52
2000s
Source: The Christmas Sweater

Happiness, Problem, Thinking, Time

“He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful graces of God.”

William Kent Krueger book Ordinary Grace

Source: Ordinary Grace

Wisdom, God, Pain, Sleep

“We all yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes, we forget what we have.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget…”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

“Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

Children

“Ivan tells Anna: "I used to imagine that being embraced by a woman… as something so wonderful that it would make me forget everthing… [But] happiness, it turns out, will be to share with you the burden I can't share with anyone else.”

Vasily Grossman (1905–1964) Soviet writer and journalist who originally trained as an engineer

Source: Everything Flows

Happiness, Imagination

“Never forget that God is your friend. And like all friends, He longs to hear what's been happening in your life. Good or bad, whether it's been full of sorrow or anger, or even when you're questioning why terrible things have to happen.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Life, God, Question, Anger

“I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me.”

Margaret Atwood book Lady Oracle

Source: Lady Oracle

Sleep, Waiting, Past

“It is a terrible thing to be happy! How pleased we are with it! How all-sufficient we think it! How, being in possession of the false aim of life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Life, Happiness, Thinking, Falseness

“You forget your victories, but you remember the losses.”

Ann Brashares book My Name is Memory

Source: My Name Is Memory

Loss, Victory

“The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Love

“Do not forget, some give little, and it is much for them, others give all, and it costs them no effort; who then has given most?”

Knut Hamsun (1859–1952) Norwegian novelist and Nobel Prize recipient

Source: Pan: From Lieutenant Thomas Glahn's Papers

Effort

“Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

God, Home

“And you know, I agree to everything:
I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy,
Darkness will be light and sin lovely.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Source: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

Love, Light

“He's like Super Librarian, y'know? Everyone forgets, Willow, that knowledge is the ultimate weapon.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Knowledge

“I'm not sure there are enough white roses in the world to make me forget Richard." I held up my hand before she could interrupt. "But I'm not sure there are enough cozy afternoons in all eternity to make me forget Jean-Claude.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Burnt Offerings

Source: Burnt Offerings

World

“Good writing is remembering detail. Most people want to forget. Don't forget things that were painful or embarrassing or silly. Turn them into a story that tells the truth.”

Paula Danziger (1945–2004) American children's writer

Pain, People, Truth

“Even needing to get to Angel, we couldn’t forget the basic necessity of eating.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Angels

“Does he write to you? Never a line. Does he send you a message? Never a word. It is because he loves you, poor fool, and is trying to forget you, since you are not free to listen to him or to belong to him.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Love, Fools

“I never said I do not remember, my grandmother corrects. I said I prefer to forget.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

“A Proper Tea is much nicer than a Very Nearly Tea, which is one you forget about afterwards.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Tea

“When someone dies, you don't get over it by forgetting; you get over it by remembering, and you are aware that no person is ever truly lost or gone once they have been in our life and loved us, as we have loved them.”

Leslie Marmon Silko (1948) American writer

Love, Life, Personality

“Every time someone forgets, someone else disappears,' my brother wrote.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Incantation

Time

“I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.”

William Lyon Phelps (1865–1943) American author, critic and scholar

Reading

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Life, Soul, Star, Birth

“We remember the good times and the bad ones, forgetting that most times are neither good nor bad. They just are.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

Time

“That was what she really wanted. To forget so thoroughly she'd never have another memory again, the bitter so bitter you gave up the sweet.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

Memory

“The only way to have eternal love is to never let your heart forget what it’s like to live without it.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Night Play

Love, Way, Heart

“IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Flying

“Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Fools

“Sometimes… you have to try to forget people you love just so you can keep living.”

Jacqueline Woodson (1963) American writer

Source: Between Madison and Palmetto

Love, People

“I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

Way, Imagination, Revenge

“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Happiness, Secret, World

“Part of the function of memory is to forget; the omni-retentive mind will break down and produce at best an idiot savant who can recite a telephone book, and at worst a person to whom every grudge and slight is as yesterday's.”

Christopher Hitchens book Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays

Source: Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays

Books, Memory, Parting, Personality

“… when we say we're looking for a spiritual adviser, we're really looking for someone to tell us what to do with our bodies. Decisions of the flesh. We forget to learn from pleasure as well as pain.”

Anne Michaels book Fugitive Pieces

Source: Fugitive Pieces

Pain, Pleasure, Decision, Learning

“I'm riding you with a slack rein, my pet, but don't forget that I'm riding with curb and spurs just the same.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

“To me, beauty is looks you can never forget. A face should jolt, not soothe.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Source: Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste

Beauty

“To be able to forget means sanity.”

Jack London book The Star Rover

Source: The Star Rover

“For awhile I taped soap operas and watched them at night when I thought I might be forgetting what it was like to be human. After a while I stopped, because from the examples I saw on those shows, forgetting humanity was a good thing.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead Until Dark

Source: Dead Until Dark

Night

“It was heaven. Forget angels, forget St. Peter and glittering harpsichords. Heaven was a dance in the arms of one's true love.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Love, Angels, Dance

“We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget.”

Mary Roach book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Source: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Death, Birth

“Buttercup's mother whirled on him. 'Did you forget to pay your taxes?' (This was after taxes. But everything is after taxes. Taxes were here even before stew.)”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

“I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: On Love

Feeling, Kiss

“Some people feel love in their hearts, Julie. Some of us feel it all way into our souls. We're the ones who can't forget.”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Source: Paradise

Love, People, Way, Feeling

“Percy blinked. “So your brother is a winged horse. But you’re also my half brother, which means all the flying horses in the world are my…You know what? Lets’ forget it.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

World, Horse, Flying

“To grow up is to wonder about things; to be grown up is to slowly forget the things you wondered about as a child.”

Henning Mankell (1948–2015) Swedish crime writer, children's author, leftist activist and dramatist

Source: When the Snow Fell

“This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Books, Time

“I thought if I quit looking around for you, I would forget you. I thought if I avoided you, I could get you out of my head. But it didn’t work.”

Rachel Gibson (1961) American writer

Source: See Jane Score

“Harry Dresden: Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: The Dresden Files, White Night (2007), Chapter 31

Pain, Feeling, Dead

“Hey, aren’t we forgetting something? (Savitar)
Your dignity? (Takeshi)
No, you have me confused with you again. Aren’t you supposed to be training him? (Savitar)
So you admit my superiority by deflecting my attention to the neophyte. (Takeshi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Training

Quotes about forgetting page 9

Quotes about forgetting
page 9