For as long as I can remember I’ve had a sort of love affair with words. Words, to me, are like plants in the garden. Endless combinations and ways to group them. Just when you think you’ve seen every possible combination – you realize you’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. You might hear someone say something on the subway, you might hear song lyrics on the radio, you might read a passage in a book, magazine, or on the internet, and you’re struck by the clever, brilliant, or poignant way someone has captured the essence of some intangible thought, feeling, or emotion. Yes, I am waxing philosophic, it’s one of the things I do best.
I love quotes. All sorts. The funny, serious, heartfelt, emotional, irreverent, sarcastic and every kind in between. When I was in college, which wasn’t as long ago as you might think, I made it a point to end every paper I wrote with a quote befitting the subject matter. It took some doing to find just the right one but I covered a lot of ground and read plenty of others I didn’t use in my search for the Holy Grail. I learned a lot from them, the used and the discarded. I pondered a’plenty. They caused me to read, and research, and reflect, search some more, to question, and inquire about other people’s perceptions, positions, and personal beliefs. Yes, I get a bit carried away with the actual quotes and my discourse about them.
I used to believe, and I guess in a way I still do, that to have some one (but preferably a whole bunch of some ones) quote something I said and to have it live on in infamy (as a hastily scrawled inspiration on a bathroom stall or in print bound in leather and trimmed in 24k gold) would be a true measure of becoming a literary success. Of course, nowadays the media/paparazzi/tabloids, et al quote the darnedest people saying the damnedest things. Some of which shouldn’t be said out loud in mixed company let alone be quoted in print (not even in hieroglyphics on a cave wall) for all eternity. Still every once in awhile I’ll see something and be so moved by it I become misty-eyed and wistful and wish I had been brilliant enough to have coined the phrase.
I’m going to post some quotes (whilst practicing self-restraint and not going ridiculously overboard) that I enjoy and urge anyone reading to post a favorite one in the comments section. Make me laugh. Make me cry. Make me determined to someday see my name in print (in a tiny font so small I’ll need reading glasses in the next magnification) below some uber brilliant quotable collection of words. I’m begging for inspiration here, people. Help a sister out!
Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas—a place where history comes to life.
—Norman Cousins
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
—John F. Kennedy
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
—Bertrand Russell
A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take from you.
—Ramsey Clark
Poetry is man’s rebellion against being what he is.
—Branch Cabell
Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
—Thomas Jefferson
Honest poverty lives happily; ill gotten wealth worries.
—Chinese proverb
Happy 4th of July!!!!
Say it loud - Say it proud
God Bless America – Land that “I” Love <3
Tags: Love Affairs, Quotations, Quotes, Sayings, Words, Writers, Writing
