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| I usually include a quotation at the end of my emails in my signature file (.sig file for short). I keep a collection of quotations that speak to me, so here it is, organized into a series of categories.... the profound "...some closing of the gates is inevitable after thirty, if the mind itself is to become a creative power" EM Forster, Howards End, p. 300 EM Forster is my favorite author. This struck me as profound when I turned 30, maybe not so much anymore. "the middle is by no means an average; on the contrary, it is where things pick up speed" -- Deleuze and Guattari. Can't remember where this is from, but I love this claim. "Everything here is something" � Marge Simpson Marge captures the basic insight I gained as an anthropology graduate student in four words. Brava, Marge! "Flash! Flash! I love you! But we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!" -- Flash Gordon's girlfriend (whose name I can't remember) Why profound? Well, there's just something about the fact that she says she loves him before she reminds him that there's limited time to save their planet and their species. I just like her priorities. "Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but, Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes." -Dave Eggers in the 2004 Summer issue of "The Harvard Advocate." Eggers' memoir is "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius." This one is a bit long, but given all authors' experiences with critics, I still like it. "It is extremely difficult to spread joy. It is extremely easy to spread information" � Harvey Sacks, "On doing 'being ordinary'" p.426 This just strikes me as right on. "I did everything Fred did, only backwards and in high heels" � Ginger Rogers (cited in Schwartz and Rutter 1998:14) As does this. the unintentionally profound and/or humorous "A quality of life threatening disease" � guest on the Today Show speaking of infertility, week of 9/23/02 . I just love this because it brings together two great American obssessions in one short phrase. �Alien of Extraordinary Ability� (INS category) The category that provoked my interest in aliens... I really don't know anymore whether this is funny or not. "Imagination has no boarders" � from a student�s email After I picked myself off the floor from laughing so hard, I swore never to reveal this person's identity, but I still wonder if there's a "vacancy" sign swinging somewhere in his/her imagination. �Many loud children leave the train.� -- woman on the MetroNorth Train, sometime in 2002 I believe this woman was someone whose first language was not English. A huge crowd of noisy teens had just gotten off at a station, and she said this out loud, to no-one in particular. It sounded like a translation exercise sentence, but it struck me as utterly true, and somehow, as profound. the humorous "If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher" � Hamlet (From Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde, p. 76) Very true, Oh Prince of Denmark. "What if the hokey-pokey is what it's all about?" I saw this somewhere, and it just cracked me up. By the way, in the Anglo world we call it the hokey-cokey, and we have a whole other section to the song you USers don't have. "Thirty Helens agree: you can't pay too much for a good pair of shoes. " From the eternally funny and unsurpassed Kids in the Hall. "I will not expose the ignorance of the faculty" � Bart Simpson , writing lines on the board during the opening credits of some episode. Good boy, Bart. You keep it up. "... that long succession of waves of which history is chiefly composed..." � From 1066 and All That by Sellar and Yeatman, p 12 1066 and All That is a history of Britain culled from student exams in the 1930s. The whole book is great, but this captures the spirit well. swallows and amazons Some of my most often used quotations come from a series of children's books authored between the 1920s and 1940s by Arthur Ransome. I love them primarily because Ransome so brilliantly paints his characters with very few words. Here are some of my favorites: "What are the other books?" asked Dorothea "Pocket Book of Birds," said Dick, "and Common Objects of the Countryside..." "Oh," said Dorothea. "Nothing to read at all?" (From Pigeon Post) This interchanges says all you need to know about Dick and Dot, and is a great lesson for writers about how to say a lot without saying very much at all. "Never any of you start writing books. It isn't worth it. This summer has been harder work for me than all the thirty years of knocking up and down that went before it." -- Captain Flint , from Swallows and Amazons Captain Flint speaks the truth, so if you have any sense, the advice after the quote above should never concern you. "Gosh," said Dick. One of these days I'm going to register www.goshsaiddick.com, since this is perhaps my single favorite phrase of all time. .... and more to come |