I guess I have a “good” memory, a better-than-average memory, but when it comes to anything besides academic stuff that I deliberately memorized, the main reason I remember stuff well is echolalia.

I don’t have to try to memorize song lyrics, because if I give any song a chance, it will “get stuck in my head” and repeat endlessly in the background, and through repetition I’ll have memorized it without meaning to.

And I sometimes do something similar with quotes from books or TV– I’ve realized that I don’t do this as much anymore, because I don’t give myself as much time to repeat things. When I was younger, I’d read a line in a book that I really liked and get up and pace around for a little bit, just thinking about it. Or I’d close my book and sit there in silence thinking about it. During advertisements on TV, I’d pace around in the same way.

There was a period of time (when I was in middle school, I think) when I was super-excited about the final season of my favorite TV show, and I would literally go outside and run laps around my house during the advertising breaks just to burn off that nervous excited energy.

Now, I’m less likely to get up and pace, and more likely to be distracted by other things (and with Netflix et al. the nice consistent breaking-up of TV by advertisements is much less consistent) so I don’t usually think about things for long enough to automatically absorb them.

This is actually partly a good thing, because the other thing I used to do besides run around was go to the kitchen and get snacks. I eat more at meals and less in snacks now, which is probably good for me.

It just means I have a smaller store of Cool Witty Lines From Things than I used to.