Last week when I described creating a memoir by placing old family photos in a book and copying a favorite quote next to it that epitomized that scene, I started thinking about my quotation collection hobby.
I love a well-turned phrase or a beautifully written passage that says what I think in a way I couldn’t have said it. For years as I read, I wished that I could actually cut out some sentences and passages from books I was reading and paste them into notebooks to keep to savor again. But I didn’t want to desecrate my own books, and my librarian friends don’t take kindly to getting a shredded book back.
One day I was reading one of the Mitford novels by Jan Karon about Father Tim Kavanaugh, an Episcopal priest in the Appalachian town of Mitford. Father Tim kept a notebook of quotations from which he read occasionally for inspiration. That gave me my idea. I would copy the passages from my reading that inspired me.
I grabbed one of the blank books that I also collect for writing, filled my Mount Blanc fountain pen with the black ink I prefer, and began a habit that I have maintained for at least 20 years. The physical act of cursive writing is pleasurable to me, so I have now filled 10 or 15 of these notebooks with other people’s thoughts and words I have collected.
Thinking that I would just collect quotations, I began with the simple, succinct ones like “Do one thing every day that scares you.” — Eleanor Roosevelt. Then I realized that some of the thoughts I wanted to keep were longer passages in which the thoughts and wording were beautiful, accurate descriptions that I wished I had written.
My test for a “good” book became whether it contained any sentences worth copying. If not, I judged the book as not especially well written, only worth a quick read for its story or facts.
I certainly found wonderful quotations in the books I was reading. But I also began to keep a small notebook with me and copied statements from monuments, museum exhibits and even signs and objects.
For example, from a card placed with a piece of handmade jewelry that I found in Wyoming, I copied, “If all the animals were gone, man would die of a great loneliness of spirit.” — Chief Seattle
From a garden stone I found in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., I copied “Make the child for the path; do not make the path for the child.”
One of my favorite sentences came from Ocean Springs artist Walter Inglis Anderson, displayed under one of his paintings in the Oriental Expressions exhibit at the Mississippi Museum of Art: “Dress bravely and be sure there is an eye to see it and the powers that be will see that you live up to your clothes.”
For a chick who loves clothes, that one is a keeper!
Many of my quoted passages relate to writing, like this one: “If only people could travel as easily as words. Wouldn’t that be something? If only we could be so easily revised.” — Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, Therese Anne Fowler.
I’ve copied so many passages about animals that I’ve recopied many of them into their own book Here’s one of them:
“Animals enhance our lives in ways we’re only beginning to understand, and no piece of furniture, however treasured—is worth more than an animal’s life” — Julia Szabo. (Her Yorkie must have just chewed up a chair leg.)
I’m also attracted to passages about children and parents, having been both:
“Fathers can easily suffocate their sons.” — Us Against You by Fredrik Backman.
“I believe that parents, if they love you, will hold you up safely above their swirling waters, and sometimes that means you’ll never know what they endured, and you may treat them unkindly, in a way you otherwise wouldn’t.” — For One More Day by Mitch Albom.
“Her mother wrote back, Just be careful. That was her mother’s standard response to everything. Be careful of WHAT? she wanted to ask, but she never did. She already knew the answer. Be careful of life.” — In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume.
Many passages attract me simply because they perfectly recall what I’ve seen or experienced:
“On the anvil of August, the city lay paralyzed, stunned into stupidity by the heat. The sidewalks shrank under the sun. It was a landscape of total surrender.” Does that remind you of Mississippi? — White Oleander, Janet Fitch.
If words give you joy, try the simple hobby of copying them to keep. It’s much easier than quilting, and it’s cheaper than collecting antique cars.
