Quotes from David Carr

that explains everything and excuses nothing.

But I've seen enough to know that we all carry a measure of guilt and innocence among us.

The eyes that saw too much because they did not close enough.

In the Ebbinghaus curve, or forgetting curve, R stands for memory retention, s is the relative strength of memory and t is time. The power of a memory can be built through repetition, but it is the memory we are recalling when we speak, not the event. And stories are annealed in the telling, edited by turns each time they are recalled...People remember what they can live with more often than how they lived.

Coming from Minnesota, a land of white people who eat white food in a frequently white landscape, Chocolate City, with its black middle class, political leadership, and cultural legacy was a complete mystery to me.

I'm nice—friendly, even—but I am a maniac who simply enjoys the fruits of acting normal.

Personal narrative is not simply opening up a vein and letting the blood flow toward anyone willing to stare. The historical self is created to keep dissonance at bay and render the subject palatable in the present.

Truth is singular and lies are plural, but history - the facts of what happened is both immutable and mostly unknowable.

No one is going to give a damn about your résumé; they want to see what you have made with your own little fingers.

When people fear for their futures, they like to gather in a dark room and stare at a screen, holding hands against the gloom.

Most stories about one's past could fairly and adequately be told in a single sentence, and a short one at that: Everyone did the best they could.

Each sober breath you draw is an act of grace, my friend said. You are making amends every day you do not use. I found enough comfort in what he said to forgive myself…

I now inhabit a life I don't deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn't end any time soon.

Being normal has some significant practical upsides.

We live in an age where there is a firehose of information, and there is no hierarchy of what is important and what is not. Where the truth is often fashioned through a variety of digital means. Are you your avatar? Who are you in social media? What face do you turn toward the world? How much does it have in common with who you actually are?