Quotes about Forgetting

Education is what you have after you have forgotten everything you learned in school.

“... But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me everywhere I went.  She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station.  It’s there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back and make sure of it.  But why should you?”

The ecstasy is so short but the forgetting is so long.

Look at the man, I thought. He remembered his car, but he can't remember his granddaughter... Perhaps he, too, moved through his life as distracted as me. Perhaps only after he forgot his granddaughter did he remember his Hotchkiss... Something deep inside him was sorting out his life as it was about to end. And that is what frightens me the most. I'm afraid that deep down I am built on a much smaller scale than the surface of my mind aspires to. When something finally comes back to me with real force, perhaps it will be a luxury car hanging on a crane or the freshly painted wall of a new dry-cleaning store or the faint buzz of the alarm clock beside my bed. Deep down, secretly, I may be prepared to betray all that I think I love the most.