Rediscovering quotations

with a hefty dollop of lyrics, teenage version

Wall art, Paris, France

I found a notebook of collected quotations when I was back in California last month. It was originally a blank journal, covered in a sombre black textured cover which is so unlike me. I have always gravitated towards colours; perhaps it was a gift? The book is filled with quotations I liked and started copying down when I must have been 11 or 12 years old. The cover inside says “Sayings and short prose”  I don’t know why only the word Sayings is underlined. Maybe I used that word first, adding the rest later when I began including longer passages? 

Sombre black sayings book

I numbered and filled the pages up to page 96, when the last entry appears. The book encompasses my middle school years (ages 11-13), my high school years (14-18), my college/university years, and possibly into young adulthood.

When I read a book I loved, I wrote out quotations in my book, and the same for so many poems that spoke to me. There are poems from younger students in elementary school that charmed me, favourites tucked within the many picture and poetry books we had at home, as well as the scads we studied in high school. When I was in college, I copied long passages out of my text books, from American environmental writers to Chinese philosophers. (I had a very eclectic university education).

In the first part of the book, the quotations are short, carefully copied down onto the pages with my big swirly writing at the time. Over the years, my handwriting got smaller and smaller. Also more precise and I’d like to think, thoughtful. 

For the first 20 pages I was in middle school. It tracks through my God phase when I was exploring my catholic faith which I eventually shed, and reflects my influence from pop-culture, poster quotations: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” and “Suppose they gave a war and nobody came” phase. 

Perhaps those smiley faces were a form of early emojis?

Then I got to high school, and suddenly, the printing is smaller, using serious black ink—not happy blue—and straight away, there it is: John Donne: No man is an island. I think every 13 year old reads that, or at least everyone in my school had to read it. Everything afterwards gets serious and a bit dark for awhile. Soon though, the colours begin to show up again and vary from entry to entry, a little bit of joyful and playfulness comes back. A flurry of Shakespeare quotes flow in, like: 

“I do remember well where I should be, and there I am”

-Romeo and Juliet

There are batches of quotations that came from the senior graduate pages of our high school yearbook each year. These ranged from Grateful Dead¹ lyrics:

A box of rain 

will ease the pain

And love can see you through.

Just a box of rain

Wind and water

Believe it if you need it

If you don’t 

just pass it on… 

To simple philosophical advice:

Fear less, hope more;

Eat less, chew more;

Talk less, say more’

Hate less, love more;

And all good things are yours. 

-Swedish proverb

And all throughout there are pages and pages of song lyrics I loved over the years (very much dating myself here!): Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkle, Crosby, Stills and Nash with and without Neil Young, George Harrison and the Beatles, James Taylor, Carole King, John Mayall, Jesse Colin Young and the Sons of Champlin (the latter two local and very beloved bands), Jerry Herman (various Broadway musical lyrics), Elton John, and many more…(For links to YouTube videos of a few of the lyrics in my journal, check the footnote below.)²

Wonderfully, there are a few poems that still make me smile with delight at the rhythm of the words, the imagery, the pacing.

Dark, dark night

The trees. The river.

One more day;

For so slow goes the day.

Before the end

the world goes round

once more.

The world begins the day.

The night has gone.

The day for the end of the world

once more begins.

Once more begins the sun.

Slow, so slow.

Go on world, live.

Begin, sweet sun.

Begin, sweet world.

The people live and die

people die alive

      alive

alive

By John Pearson

I also reclaimed the rest of a sentence that has pulsed in a chant-like refrain in my head whenever we walk next to the sea, almost every day since we moved a year ago. Frustratingly, I could only remember the first half, and then was delighted when I recently found it in my book:

“At the edge of the sea, life first came to the land and comes still; comes to the man who rests there unhurried, who pauses to learn what belongs there, to enjoy it for what it is.”

-possibly from Rachael Carson?

I’ve known that sentence since I was young, having spent most of my life near the sea. It is a constant, almost unconscious refrain that plays every time I approach the waves and hear the rhythmic swoosh-pause-swoosh-pause...

I haven’t counted, but besides song lyrics, the most dominant theme of quotations throughout the book is praise for the natural world. There are poems by native Americans, and many quotations from the writings of John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and more…..

When I see the handwriting, I can remember when I wrote some of the words and why they were important at the time. The hand-written lines chronicle what my friends and I were talking about, larger political influences, books I was reading, and an ever-evolving point of view on my path from childhood to young adulthood.

I appreciate even more now the time it took to carefully (and legibly!) write all those words, compared to now when we can so easily copy, paste and reprint anything quickly. Writing it down meant it was important enough to take that time, and use up that ink and space in the book to memorialise it.

Some words now seem so trite and small. Others so very dated. But they resonated in me at the time, and for that I am so thankful to ‘earlier me’ for keeping this journal at all, and treasuring it enough to save it year after year, move after move. 

I was always a prolific writer: I kept journals starting when I was a girl, wrote detailed letters to my friends and family many of which I inherited back, and scads of poems and even song lyrics. For decades, a large red wooden trunk held the paper evidence of my accumulated writing. At one point in the years when I was getting rid of kipple (click or see the post below for more about kipple),

Turning kipple into treasure

in a moment of extreme cleansing, and with a bit of frustration, I threw away ALL my journals and letters and writing from my childhood up through young adulthood that lived in the red box.

At the time I wondered if I would ever regret throwing it all away, but decided I wouldn’t regret it more than the desire I had to be rid of that very heavy weight of my past.

I might have enjoyed reading through some of it again. But I am very glad not to have the weight of it, still, begging me to pay attention. I’m struggling now to look at the pages of writing from my parents that I’ve saved. I can’t imagine having more of my own words still weighing me down.

Would I have gained any new insight from the time spent re-reading old letters or journals? I’m willing to risk that any gains would have been limited. There are other ways to uncover perspective from past experiences, and for me, spending time writing is the best way to process and learn from digging into those rich memories.

In a way, finding this quotation book is a perfectly sized glimpse of my early thoughts. Just enough detail to trigger some memories, but not so much to get lost in a rabbit hole of times and events long passed.

However, those song lyrics, that is another matter! I can’t tell you the delightful hours I’ve spent watching and listening to old favourites whilst preparing this post. I hope you enjoy the few slightly off-beat snippets below!

Carlos Santana, Montreux, Switzerland

If you liked reading this, feel free to click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏

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And now I’d love to hear your thoughts!

• Did you collect quotations you liked?

• Did you keep a journal?

• Have you thrown anything away that you created and regretted it later?

• Did you memorise poetry or song lyrics?

• Do you ever get snippets of quotations stuck in your head or that pop-up consistently when you are in a certain situation?

• Did this trigger anything else for you?

Thank you, as always, for reading and commenting. Your feedback is what keeps me going!

1. The Grateful Dead were a very popular band, with an astonishing history and lore associated with them. If you haven’t heard of them, here is one place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grateful_Dead, and here is the link to the song whose lyrics I quoted above:

2. Here are a few of the songs I wrote down the lyrics to:

John Mayall:

Jesse Colin Young:

Joni Mitchell:

Elton John: