Quotes & Sayings About Commonplace Books

It had never occurred to Giles that there was something perfectly sensible about wanting to hold onto innocence. He had always gone in for the idea that since we only pass this way once, experience counts for everything. — Andrew Norman Wilson

Not everything that can be extracted appears in anthologies of quotations, in commonplace books, or on the back of Celestial Seasonings boxes. Only certain sorts of extracts become quotations. — Gary Saul Morson

For anyone addicted to reading commonplace books ... finding a good new one is much like enduring a familiar recurrence of malaria, with fever, fits of shaking, strange dreams ... — M.F.K. Fisher

Social media is not new. It has been around for centuries. Today, blogs are the new pamphlets. Microblogs and online social networks are the new coffee houses. Media-sharing sites are the new commonplace books. They are all shared, social platforms that enable ideas to travel from one person to another, rippling through networks of people connected by social bonds, rather than having to squeeze through the privileged bottleneck of broadcast media. The rebirth of social media in the Internet age represents a profound shift - and a return, in many respects, to the way things used to be. — Tom Standage

While I'm on foreign soil, I - I just don't feel that I should be speaking about differences with regards to myself and President Obama on foreign policy, either foreign policy of the past, or for foreign policy prescriptions. — Mitt Romney

Stop drifting. You're not going to re-read your Brief Comments, your Deeds of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the commonplace books you saved for your old age. Sprint for the finish. Write off your hopes, and if your well-being matters to you, be your own savior while you can. — Marcus Aurelius

She suspects the day of greyness
this is not commonplace but
frequent gets up
holds the ordinary day in her heart
for a moment - it leaps and kicks
this is familiar not ordinary
She put the day down
picks herself up
tries to breathe
this is habitual but hard
breathes out suspects that day
of holding up her life
longs to be held
holds tight to her books and her letters
repeats her name
suspects her bag of weighing more than she does
relies on it
her ordinary life
hopes her heart will go on beating
hopes her life will not mind her questions. — Caroline Griffin

Since I was a kid, I've liked to see how things are done. Sometimes when you see how things are done, it's like watching a 'making of' within the story. You see the physical aspect, the construction of things. — Michel Gondry

Over the last fifty years," the tall man declared, "our sins against Mother Nature have grown exponentially." He paused. "I fear for the soul of humankind. — Dan Brown

In books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace people is very high; in reality, very low. — Aldous Huxley

Those we hold dear leave a part of themselves with us when they return to their eternal Home. As they move on to partake of the one Great Love that unites us all, the love they leave with us as they depart remains forever in our hearts. — Joyce Hutchison

Exposure and attention make a work famous - the more you talk about it, the more attention it gets, the more validity it achieves. — Andy Warhol

Resentment is anger looking for payback. It's also a high-interest-earning emotion. Each new resentment is added to the ones from before. Long marriages have ended in ruin over tiny and insignificant grievances that were never properly aired and instead grew into a bitter barnacle of hatred. — Augusten Burroughs

The commonplace books of the old Puritans were invaluable to them. They would never have been able to compile such works as they did if they had not been careful in collecting and arranging their matter under different heads. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

In the white man's world, language, too
and the way which the white man thinks of it
has undergone a process of change. The white man takes such things as words and literatures for granted, as indeed he must, for nothing in his world is so commonplace. On every side of him there are words by the millions, an unending succession of pamphlets and papers, letters and books, bills and bulletins, commentaries and conversations. He has diluted and multiplied the Word, and words have begun to close in on him. He is sated and insensitive; his regard for language
for the Word itself
as an instrument of creation has diminished nearly to the point of no return. It may be that he will perish by the Word. — N. Scott Momaday

You may want to keep a commonplace book which is a notebook where you can copy parts of books you think are in code, or take notes on a series of events you may have observed that are suspicious, unfortunate, or very dull. Keep your commonplace book in a safe place, such as underneath your bed, or at a nearby dairy. — Lemony Snicket

Letting go is one of the most difficult experiences to deal with whether it's right or wrong. So make the most of every moment you've been gifted with. To whoever you initiate contact with and wherever, try to leave a positive impression. To whoever you have the power to make smile, exploit that power as often and best as you can, because when every other material thing fades, it's those memories that keep us alive — Ufuoma Apoki

The gnomes are getting smarter. — Skylar Dorset

That was the chief difference between literature and life. In books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace people is high; in reality, very low. — Aldous Huxley

BY DISPOSITION OF ANGELS
Messengers much like ourselves? Explain it.
Steadfastness the darkness makes explicit?
Something heard most clearly when not near it?
Above particularities,
these unparticularities praise cannot violate.
One has seen, in such steadiness never deflected,
how by darkness a star is perfected.
Star that does not ask me if I see it?
Fir that would not wish me to uproot it?
Speech that does not ask me if I hear it?
Mysteries expound mysteries.
Steadier than steady, star dazzling me, live and elate,
no need to say, how like some we have known; too like her,
too like him, and a-quiver forever. — Marianne Moore

For obvious reasons, I never told you about my notebook, with a cover as green as mansions long ago, which I use as a commonplace book, a phrase which here means 'place where I have collected passages from some of the most important books I have read. — Lemony Snicket

They're just friends." This time it came out a little sharper. If I squeezed the mayo any harder, it was likely to explode. "She's helping him learn control."
He waggled his eyebrows at me. The thin silver barbell above his right eye danced. "Control? Is that what the kids are calling it these days? — Jus Accardo

Extended discourse, whether in the form of novels or expository treatises, presents the mind with a category of stimuli that can guide thinking though a long, complex, and coherent line of reasoning. Books structure ideas almost uniquely: The vocabulary and thought forms that are commonplace in book-length texts are rare in daily conversations. Books present a much wider range of vocabulary, concepts, and inferences than can be found in our daily banter with friends and family members. — Michael E. Martinez

fate is the ultimate preexisting condition. — Mark Leyner

When, after a week, Jubal had had no other message, he sent a stat care of Ben's office: "What
the hell are you doing?" Ben's answer came back, somewhat delayed: "Studying Martian and the rules for
hopscotch -- fraternally yours -- Ben. — Robert A. Heinlein

( ... ) perfectly ordinary books, printed on commonplace paper in mundane ink. It would be a mistake to think that they weren't also dangerous, just because reading them didn't make fireworks go off in the sky. Reading them sometimes did the more dangerous trick of making fireworks go off in the privacy of the reader's brain. — Terry Pratchett

The greatest experience open to man then is the recovery of the commonplace. Coffee in the morning and whiskeys in the evening again without fear. Books to read without that shadow falling across the page. — Peter De Vries