Experts step outside their comfort zone and study themselves failing.

If you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.

Our lives are the sum of our memories. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by … not paying attention?

Memory is like a spiderweb that catches new information. The more it catches, the bigger it grows. And the bigger it grows, the more it catches.

What makes things memorable is that they are meaningful, significant, colorful.

The more we remember, the better we are at processing the world. And the better we are at processing the world, the more we can remember about it.

To the extent that experience is the sum of our memories and wisdom the sum of experience, having a better memory would mean knowing not only more about the world, but also more about myself.

...who we are and what we do it is fundamentally a function of what we remember.

As bad as we are at remembering names and phone numbers and word-for-word instructions from our colleagues, we have really exceptional visual and spatial memories.

Invented languages have often been created in tandem with entire invented universes, and most conlangers come to their craft by way of fantasy and science fiction.

Memory training is not just for the sake of performing party tricks; it's about nurturing something profoundly and essentially human.

Close your eyes, and think of someone you physically admire, and let me kiss you.

Life was a series of greetings and farewells, one was always saying good-bye to something, to someone.

Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.

I have to say that Donald Trump is on probably about the 13th minute of fame.

I feel like I have re-created myself on every album. I try to do that. It's like playing a game with yourself, trying to compete with yourself.

But how do we even get to the land of the dead?” I asked. “I mean…without dying.

Never be afraid of a cliché, if it expresses what you wish to say.

That's really my goal now. I'm trying to be a positive role model to my kids and to just enjoy this ride, because it's hard. It's hard to enjoy it when you're in it.

I'm no Kenneth Branagh or Ben Stiller. I'm not that single-minded: 'I'm producing it, directing it, and starring in it' kind of person; that's not me.