Some memorizers arbitrarily associate each playing card with a familiar person or object, so that the king of clubs is represented by, say, Tony Danza. The grand masters associate each card with a person, an action, or an object so that every group of three cards can be converted into a sentence.

We're all just a bundle of habits shaped by our memories. And to the extent that we control our lives, we do so by gradually altering those habits, which is to say the networks of our memory. No lasting joke, or invention, or insight, or work of art was ever produced by an external memory. Not yet, at least.

Our ability to find humor in the world, to make connections between previously unconnected notions, to create new ideas, to share in a common culture: All these essentially human acts depend on memory.

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

When you want to get good at something, how you spend your time practicing is far more important than the amount of time you spend.

Monotony collapses time. Novelty unfolds it.

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