Quote

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?

Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person.

Memories are just stories we tell ourselves about our past; and that's often why they don't match when we've shared the same experiences with someone.

Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories - and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.

It's probably why I'm a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time.

Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.

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

The second time is the one we remember, where memory begins. Putting the moments in order is only half the story. What matters is the weight of the moments as they accumulate.

I've forgotten what it's like to remember. I've lost the mindless confidence that a moment, an idea, a thought will be there for me later, the bravado of breezing through experience in the certainty that it will become part of my self, part of my story.

A lot of people can't remember things because they weren't actually there to begin with - they don't take it all in.