Memory Craft Quotes

“The important lesson for all of those wanting to memorise huge amounts of information is that the Navajo store this knowledge in their mythology. In stories. Vivid lively stories make information more memorable.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“You can repeat a string of facts over and over endlessly in your head but they’ll disappear as soon as you stop that repetition. If you deploy lively characters to act out that knowledge you’ll need far fewer repetitions to retain the knowledge, and you’ll retain it for longer. It is why all indigenous cultures tell stories and why we should too. I’ll explain it all in Chapter 4”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“cannot emphasise enough how useful this is.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“One of the most important lessons I have learned from indigenous cultures is the value of strong characters in stories.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“This common factor is why cultures all over the world have developed similar methods: they are working with the same brain structure. The neuroscience explains how we benefit from repetition and music, and in particular the value of memory palaces.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“Why do these memory methods work so well for everyone? In Chapter 3, I’ll explain how these methods correlate with the most recent discoveries in neuroscience, which show that associating memory with place is hardwired into our brains.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“In Chapter 2, we’ll get to the most powerful memory method of all, that of memory palaces. It is also known as the method of loci, the art of memory, memory journeys, songlines and many other terms. Memory is hugely enhanced by associating information with physical locations such as your home, neighbourhood or any other familiar place. Anything that you can put in order can be memorised using a memory palace.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“in a list or any particular order. I mostly use my medieval bestiary to remember people’s names, but it can be used to memorise anything that you can spell.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“The table of memory methods in Appendix A gives you a smorgasbord of memory methods and what sort of information they best suit. It’s then up to you to choose.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“Throughout the book, I’ll give you examples of how I have implemented each of the techniques, just to make my explanations clearer.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“I’ll then build up to the more complex techniques from indigenous cultures, where you can start to choose which method, or even combination of methods, suits your particular need.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“It’s from this time of early literacy that we get the easiest starting point for us to learn the memory arts. We’ll start with the critical role of the imagination. I’ll show you how to use your playful and creative inventiveness to memorise information with very straightforward medieval techniques.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“am convinced that we are very much poorer for not using our memories effectively anymore.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“The thorough examination by archaeologists, anthropologists and memory experts of both my thesis and the resulting book gave me the authority to take these ideas to the mainstream reader with the book The Memory Code (2016).”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“I knew very little about it except that non-literate cultures—who had built ancient monuments all round the world, including Stonehenge, Easter Island moai, the Nasca Lines and the many monumental sites across the Americas—had always used memory methods closely related to the way the brain works. It became clear to me that a significant proportion of the purpose of sacred places was to do with memorising and conveying critical knowledge.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“And even more exciting, especially for someone over 60, as I am, is that current neuroscience research on the plasticity of the brain indicates that it doesn’t have to decline with age.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“If these memory methods are so effective and universal, they must be directly related to the way the brain works.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“The memory methods used by indigenous cultures the world over have a great deal in common.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“few hundred years of Western society that we have lost the ability to memorise vast amounts of information. We use writing and technology to do the job for us. But memory, writing and technology can all enhance each other. This book is about how to do just that. I want to convince you that learning the memory arts is hugely worthwhile and great fun.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world

“Aboriginal stories tell exactly what happened to the landscape after the last ice age. I was astonished that they could retain information so accurately over such an incredibly long passage of time.”
― Lynne Kelly, Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world