Over the past few decades I have read with avidity and, as I have read,
I would underline the thoughts that touched me, motivated me,
or reinforced my own beliefs.
I would also jot them down on napkins, on bank receipts, on 3 x 5 cards,
or in a small notebook I usually keep at hand.
I remember rattling off some of the best to my daughter when she lived at home
and was, more or less, an unwilling recipient of my treasures.
One day, with a tone of exasperation, she said:
"Mom! You have a quote for e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!"
A few minutes later, she was looking for a button when I remembered
something Napoleon had penned.
Carla, realizing a quote was coming, stared at me down and accosted me with this:
"DON'T tell me you have a quote about buttons!"
Indeed, I did. Napoleon had noted that men were willing to go to war
because it got them out of the button factories.
And this leads me to my point. After forty years or so of collecting them,
I find it quite hard to lay hands on a particular quotation I may especially want
or need, for myself or for others (some people actually enjoy my quotes, Carla!)
One of my favorite quotes, by one of my favorite writers, addresses this issue,
and, although I am nowhere near a scholar, I still have his problem:
"I suppose every scholar has had the experience of reading something
in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never
find again. Sure he is that he read it there; but no one else ever read it,
nor can he find it again."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
And Samuel Johnson sums up my dilemma this way:
"The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it."
And so, I have decided to undertake this Herculean effort of not only categorizing
all of my quotes, but hand-lettering them as I go.
Granddaughter, Jessi, seems to prefer my gifts be done in my version of calligraphy.
As intimidating as that my sound, I can actually sit in bed of a morning and copy
ten or fifteen quotes by hand, while drinking coffee and listening to Josh Groban
or some good instrumental music.
To date, I have almost filled a large 3-inch binder,
and I haven't begun to make a dent in my collection.
At this rate, I will have Volume One through Volume One-Hundred-One
before it's over.
My gift to posterity.
My daughter must be feeling ever so grateful.
The photos above were shot through plastic sleeves and are a bit distorted,
but I'm too lazy to take them over again.
