Quotes from Jonathan Nolan

Time eventually convinces most of us that forgiveness is a virtue. Conveniently, cowardice and forgiveness look identical at a certain distance.

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.

How can you forgive if you can't remember to forget?

For a few minutes of every day, every man becomes a genius. This is the tragedy of life.

Everybody else needs mirrors to remind themselves who they are. You're no different.

I can't be your ghost right now. I need to exist

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.

Not too many professions out there that value forgetfulness. Prostitution, maybe. Politics, of course.

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?

Lists are the only way out of this mess.

You will be late for your own funeral.

Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots.

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.

The secret, of course, to any list is to keep it in a place where you're bound to see it.

For a few moments, the secrets of the universe are opened to us. Life is a cheap parlor trick. That's the miserable truth.

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.'

We used to look up in the sky and wonder at our place in the stars; now, we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.

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.

It's not so much that you've lost your faith in time as that time has lost its faith in you

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?'

Your advantage in forgetting is that you'll forget to write yourself off as a lost cause.

To me, Joss Whedon is a god. I'm just a huge fan of his work; I love his work on TV.

Books are a time machine.

I always love it best when you have a project where there is this commingling of the subject matter and the way in which you're recording that subject matter.