Quotes & Sayings About Selective Memory

She wonders if memory is little more than this: a series of erasure and perfected selections. — Cristina Garcia

Sometimes forgetting is the gift that we give ourselves — Dathan Auerbach

Because his memory is so selective, he has no scars from prior experience, said Vinny. — Michael Lewis

When the voice of your friend or the page of your book sinks into democratic equality with the pattern of the wallpaper, the feel of your clothes, your memory of last night, and the noises from the road, you are falling asleep. The highly selective consciousness enjoyed by fully alert men, with all its builded sentiments and consecrated ideals, has as much to be called real as the drowsy chaos, and more. — C.S. Lewis

Rarely did events play out as imagined, in any case. The order of future events was transient. In the same way that the past was reconfigured by selective memory, future events, too, were moving targets. One could only act on instinct, grab hold of an intuited perfect moment, and spring into action. — James Luceno

To begin with, our perception of the world is deformed, incomplete. Then our memory is selective. — Claude Simon

Frankie was beginning to realize that the kind of selective memory exhibited by Dean, Star, and their ilk was neither stupidity nor poor recollection. It was a power play - possibly subconscious on the part of the player - but nevertheless intended to discomfit another person who was in some way perceived as a threat. — E. Lockhart

I suppose being the kind of creatures we [people] are, we like to censor the past, and are selective, or want to be selective about the things that we remember. If you want to destroy people, destroy their memory, destroy their history. — Desmond Tutu

[ ... ] and Mary with her wonderful memory for forgetting was happy too and without any problems. She could forget in the loveliest and most complete way of anyone I ever knew. She could carry a fight overnight but at the end of week she could forget it completely and truly. She had a built-in selective memory and it was not built entirely in her favor. She forgave herself in her memory and she forgave you too. She was a very strange girl and I loved her very much. — Ernest Hemingway,

Memory is so selective; wishful thinking presses it into service all the time. — Fay Weldon

Memories are not always the best measure of things. — Amy Neftzger

Selective memory is surely one of nature's most effective ways of ensuring the survival of our species. — Nigel Hamilton

Neither is a memoir the same as a biography, which aims for the most objective, factual account of a life. A memoir, as I understand it, makes no pretense of denying its subjectivity. Its matter is one person's memory, and memory by nature is selective and colored by emotion. Others who participated in the events I describe will no doubt remember some details differently, though I hope we would agree on the essential truths. I have taken no liberties with the past as I remember it, used no fictional devices beyond reconstructing conversations from memory. I have not blended characters, or bent chronology to convenience. And yet I have tried to tell a good story. — Sonia Sotomayor

The selective activation of compatible memories explains anchoring: the high and the low numbers activate different sets of ideas in memory. The estimates of annual temperature draw on these biased samples of ideas and are therefore biased as well. — Daniel Kahneman

Selective memory is one of the chief sins of the old, and I don't have time for it. — Stephen King

We as Americans and as humans have very selective hearing and very selective memory. We only hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest. — Frank Luntz

Life isn't memorable enough to remember everything. It's not like there are explosions all the time, or dog smoking cigarettes. — Donald Miller

What part of our history's reinvented and under rug swept? What part of your memory is selective and tends to forget? — Alanis Morissette

Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them - never become even conscious of them all. — C.S. Lewis

Emerson has what I believe is called a selective memory. He can recall minute details of particular excavations but is likely to forget where he left his hat. — Elizabeth Peters

I can understand that memory must be selective, else it would choke on the glut of experience. What I cannot understand is why it selects what it does. — Virgilia Peterson

I learned that I never really know the true story of my guests' lives, that I have to content myself with knowing that when I'm interviewing somebody, I'm getting a combination of fact and truth and self-mythology and self-delusion and selective memory and faulty memory. — Terry Gross

My selective memory of what drinking was like told me that standing at the bar in a pub, on a summer's evening with a long, tall glass of lager and lime was heaven, and I chose not to remember the nights on which I had sat with a bottle of vodka, a gram of coke and a shotgun, contemplating suicide. — Eric Clapton

Everything you do, every thought you have, every word you say creates a memory that you will hold in your body. It's imprinted on you and affects you in subtle ways - ways you are not always aware of. With that in mind, be very conscious and selective. — Phylicia Rashad

The sense organs, which are limited in scope and ability, randomly gather information. This partial information is arranged into judgments, which are based on previous judgments, which are usually based on someone else's foolish ideas. These false concepts and ideas are then stored in a highly selective memory system. — Laozi

I think the secret to a hoppy life is a selective memory. Remember what you are most grateful for and quickly forget what your not. — Richard Paul Evans

The selective memory isn't selective enough. — Blake Morrison