In reflection of e-mail retention policies, I bring you this quote I kept from a long-ago Wired article:

"Thinking is based on selection and weeding out; remembering everything is strangely similar to forgetting everything.  Maybe most things that people do shouldn't be remembered. Maybe forgetting is good."  - Rob Jellinghaus, of the Xanadu Project

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html

(Ironically, this quote would not have been retained by most email retention policies. :))