When we see in everyday life things that are petty, ordinary, and banal, we generally fail to remember them, because the mind is not being stirred by anything novel or marvelous. But if we see or hear something exceptionally base, dishonorable, unusual, great, unbelievable, or ridiculous, that we are likely to remember for a long time. . . . Ordinary things easily slip from the memory while the striking and the novel stay longer in the mind.

Ad Herennium , An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks