“Remembering is my only job and it's hard work. We are natural-born amnesiacs, hardwired to let go of the past, to release ourselves from history; the only way to withstand our pain is to forget our pain. We may think we don't forget, but we do. Time wears down the rough edges of our memory, sure as a stone on the river bank is smoothed by the rushing current. And like the eroding stone, the memory fades so gradually we don't even feel it. We don't notice. Eighteen years fly by, whoosh, and we don't even realize that not long ago, we didn't all drink bottled water, the Soviet Union loomed as a threat, smoking was commonplace in restaurants, and Bono was just a rockstar. What I want... all I want... is not to forget. But it's an uphill battle. Over time, the image blurs, the scent dissipates, the memory fades. ”

Greg Olear

Greg Olear - “Remembering is my only job and it's hard...” 1

Similar quotes

“For the human memory is short, and even when we write it in stone we quickly forget and the stones crumble and even those stones then forget.”

Stant Litore
Read more

“We all came from our mothers' bellies. We all have hope in our veins. We don't want history to forget us, but the dead look after the afterwards.”

Henri Cole
Read more

“Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.”

Lewis B. Smedes
Read more

“Most times we're so focused on what we think we want that we can't appreciate how happy we already are. It's only when we forget about our problems and help others forget theirs that we realize how good we really have it.”

Glenn Beck
Read more

“The world forgets. We always forget. We say that we won’t forget, but we do. We go about our lives, and the daily petty details wipe our memories of the things we should never forget.”

Elizabeth C. Mock
Read more