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

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.

The way to get better at a skill is to force yourself to practice just beyond your limits.

I hate everything about her except for the fact that I love everything about her.

I'd definitely be the kind of parent who enabled my child's dreams. I'd just watch and nurture and guide them. I have the blueprints of what not to do... I think I'd be a good parent, actually.

It's like a fugue of evaded responsibility.

Each one of us is not a divine afterthought.

It applies even more to politicians because they are living, breathing embodiments of the language that they use. And it's why how you start the conversation, and how you end it, matters so much.

Doch zittre vor der langsamen, Der stillen Macht der Zeit. Yet tremble at the slow, silent power of time.

Brian and I were both science students. You know science sort of math and physics side, you know.

The word genius was whispered into my ear, the first thing I ever heard, while I was still mewling in my crib. So it never occurred to me that I wasn't until middle age.

Even when I get the fried-chicken special of the day, I have to dig into it like it's filet mignon.

And so they are ever returning to us, the dead.