Memento Mori Quotes

“Believing the lie that time will heal all wounds is just a nice way of saying that time deadens us.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Time is an absurdity. An abstraction. The only thing that matters is this moment. This moment a million times over. You have to trust me. If this moment is repeated enough, if you keep trying — and you have to keep trying — eventually you will come across the next item on your list.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“You're different. You're more perfect. Time is three things for most people, but for you, for us, just one. A singularity. One moment. This moment. Like you're the center of the clock, the axis on which the hands turn. Time moves about you but never moves you. It has lost its ability to affect you. What is it they say? That time is theft? But not for you. Close your eyes and you can start all over again. Conjure up that necessary emotion, fresh as roses.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Time eventually convinces most of us that forgiveness is a virtue. Conveniently, cowardice and forgiveness look identical at a certain distance.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Everybody is waiting for the end to come, but what if it already passed us by? What if the final joke of Judgment Day was that it had already come and gone and we were none the wiser? Apocalypse arrives quietly; the chosen are herded off to heaven, and the rest of us, the ones who failed the test, just keep on going, oblivious. Dead already, wandering around long after the gods have stopped keeping score, still optimistic about the future.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Here's the truth: People, even regular people, are never just any one person with one set of attributes. It's not that simple. We're all at the mercy of the limbic system, clouds of electricity drifting through the brain. Every man is broken into twenty-four-hour fractions, and then again within those twenty-four hours. It's a daily pantomime, one man yielding control to the next: a backstage crowded with old hacks clamoring for their turn in the spotlight. Every week, every day. The angry man hands the baton over to the sulking man, and in turn to the sex addict, the introvert, the conversationalist. Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“How can you forgive if you can’t remember to forget?”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“For a few minutes of every day, every man becomes a genius. This is the tragedy of life.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Everybody else needs mirrors to remind themselves who they are. You’re no different.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Not too many professions out there that value forgetfulness. Prostitution, maybe. Politics, of course.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Here's the truth: people, even regular people, are never just any one person with one set of attributes. It's not that simple. We're all at the mercy of the limbic system, clouds of electricity drifting through the brain.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Lists are the only way out of this mess.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Of course, weakness is strong. It’s the primary impulse. You’d probably prefer to sit in your little room and cry. Live in your finite collection of memories, carefully polishing each one. Half a life set behind glass and pinned to cardboard like a collection of exotic insects. You’d like to live behind that glass, wouldn’t you?”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“You will be late for your own funeral.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“The only way out of this mess, of course, is to take steps to ensure that you control the idiots that you become. To take your chain gang, hand in hand, and lead them. The best way to do this is with a list.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“The secret, of course, to any list is to keep it in a place where you’re bound to see it.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Why bother reading something that you won’t remember?”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“If time and fear aren’t enough to dissuade people from their revenge, then there’s always authority, softly shaking its head and saying, 'We understand, but you’re the better man for letting it go. For rising above it. For not sinking to their level. And besides,' says authority, 'if you try anything stupid, we’ll lock you up in a little room.'”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“For a few moments, the secrets of the universe are opened to us. Life is a cheap parlor trick. That's the miserable truth.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Time is theft, isn't that what they say? And time eventually convinces most of us that forgiveness is a virtue. Conveniently, cowardice and forgiveness look identical at a certain distance. Time steals your nerve.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“They tried to teach you to make lists in grade school, remember? Back when your day planner was the back of your hand. And if your assignments came off in the shower, well, then they didn’t get done. No direction, they said. No discipline. So they tried to get you to write it all down somewhere more permanent.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“Your advantage in forgetting is that you'll forget to write yourself off as a lost cause.”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“It's not so much that you've lost your
faith in time as that time has lost its faith in you”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

“According to the schedule, the entire block from 8:00 to 8:30 has been labeled BRUSH YOUR TEETH. Earl laughs again and walks over to the bathroom. [...] 'Who needs half an hour to brush their teeth?'”
― Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori