Joshua Foer Quotes

A collection of quotes by Joshua Foer.

Joshua Foer is an American journalist, author, and memory champion. Born on September 23, 1982, in Washington, D.C., he initially gained prominence for winning the USA Memory Championship in 2006, a competition he had entered as a journalist on assignment. This unexpected victory led him to explore the science of memory, ultimately resulting in his debut book, "Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything," published in 2011.

Foer's book became an international bestseller, delving into the extraordinary feats of memory and showcasing the techniques used by memory champions. It received critical acclaim for its engaging storytelling and insightful exploration of the human memory. Foer's work in this field has greatly influenced cognitive research and memory studies, making him a prominent figure among scientists and memory enthusiasts alike.

As a journalist, Foer has contributed to various reputable publications, including National Geographic, Esquire, and The New Yorker. He has covered a wide range of topics, including science, culture, and technology, always with a keen intellectual curiosity and a unique perspective.

Apart from his journalistic pursuits, Foer is also the co-founder of the digital publishing platform, "Atlas Obscura," which explores and highlights the world's most unusual and intriguing places. He continues to write thought-provoking articles and books, and his contributions have made a significant impact on the way we perceive memory and its abilities.

Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercis

Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next - and disappear. That's why it's so important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.

Science Memory Psychology

Invented languages have often been created in tandem with en

Invented languages have often been created in tandem with entire invented universes, and most conlangers come to their craft by way of fantasy and science fiction.

Science

Just as we accumulate memories of facts by integrating them

Just as we accumulate memories of facts by integrating them into a network, we accumulate life experiences by integrating them into a web of other chronological memories. The denser the web, the denser the experience of time.

Experience

Many memory techniques involve creating unforgettable imager

Many memory techniques involve creating unforgettable imagery, in your mind's eye. That's an act of imagination. Creating really weird imagery really quickly was the most fun part of my training to compete in the U.S. Memory Competition.

Imagination

When I climb into my car, I enter my destination into a GPS

When I climb into my car, I enter my destination into a GPS device, whose spatial memory supplants my own. I have photographs to store the images I want to remember, books to store knowledge and now, thanks to Google, I rarely have to remember anything more than the right set of search terms to access humankind's collective memory.

Car

Our subjective experience of time is highly variable. We all

Our subjective experience of time is highly variable. We all know that days can pass like weeks and months can feel like years, and that the opposite can be just as true: A month or year can zoom by in what feels like no time at all.

Experience

One of the great challenges of our age, in which the tools o

One of the great challenges of our age, in which the tools of our productivity are also the tools of our leisure, is to figure out how to make more useful those moments of procrastination when we're idling in front of our computer screens.

Age

Our ability to find humor in the world, to make connections

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.

Humor

No one who set out to design a form of communication would e

No one who set out to design a form of communication would ever end up with anything like English, Mandarin, or any of the more than six thousand languages spoken today.

Communication

The fact that books today are mostly a string of words makes

The fact that books today are mostly a string of words makes it easier to forget the text. With the impact of the iPad and the future of the book being up for re-imagination, I wonder whether we'll rediscover the importance of making texts richer visually.

Future

We've outsourced our memories to digital devices, and the re

We've outsourced our memories to digital devices, and the result is that we no longer trust our memories. We see every small forgotten thing as evidence that they're failing us.

Trust

Someday in the distant cyborg future, when our internal and

Someday in the distant cyborg future, when our internal and external memories fully merge, we may come to possess infinite knowledge. But that's not the same thing as wisdom.

Future