“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams.” Susan Sontag “There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen them, the inside of yourself when you tell them.” Greta Garbo “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” Marie Curie

At least ten years ago a friend gave me a hand-made journal that she had constructed herself, and it seemed to call out for some perfect assignment. It became my Quote Journal, and it is bursting with snippets I have saved (plus my own attempts at poetry and lyrics). At first, I wanted the completed book to be beautiful and perfect, so all the early passages were copied with a dip pen in black India ink. Well, OK, then. But, typical of me, the urge to save the quotes (before they evaporated in the midst of a hectic day) became more important than the “perfection” of the journal. So, looking at it now I see a book that is bulging with papers/xeroxes tucked in as bookmarks, passages that have been clipped from sources and glued in, hand-writing/scribbling in Sharpies, laundry pens, pencil -anything at hand. Snippets from emails, printed out and stapled in, etc. But, to me, it is a fine selection. Here are a few: “A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.” - Robertson Davies “Being with real people who warm us, who endorse and exhault our creativity, is essential to the flow of the creative life. Otherwise, we freeze — when women are out in the cold, they tend to live on fantasies instead of action.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estes “The poet, they say, borrows nothing that is foreign or unfamiliar to himself. He takes back what was his to begin with - those things, precisely, in which he recognizes himself.” - Wallace Fowlie “The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and the passage sweet.” - Annie Dillard

Judith Martin, you are a beacon of light in this coarse, crude Internet universe.

Does anyone ever do "If its and ands were pots and pans/there’d be no work for tinkers"? I used to say that to my kids when they were wishing for whatever they felt they needed.

I have 2 young daughters(5 & 2 years old) and we’ve already collected a few literary quotes, although ours are of the Dr Seuss variety.

From Horton the Elephant we took "I meant what I said and I said what I meant" to refer to being truthful in our interactions.

From the Cat in the Hat Comes Back, we use "Somebody, somebody has to you see. So she picked out two somebodies Sally & Me" to refer to having to do things we don’t want to do, but must be done.

I’ve always LOVED books and reading. I hope my children will as well.

Here’s a quote I’ve liked for years and use quite often these days: "steal a little and they put you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king!" (Dylan - Sweetheart Like You) This was penned in 1983, long before Enron and Madoff!