my quote book

Those closest to me know that I am a lover of words. I believe it to be one of the reasons I keep this little blog up and running - to continue to challenge myself to squeeze more of the goodness out of the American language that is often forgotten in daily chatter. I have a dear friend named Tammie whom I served with on the Pine Cove Shores leadership team nearly two summers ago. She's this rock star English grad and now a teacher to classrooms full of very fortunate children. I will always remember how I hung on each of Tam's well placed and considered words and marveled at her gi-freaking-normous vocabulary. Its friends like Tammie, and many of my favorite authors, who inspire this challenge.

They also make me want to read the dictionary.

In high school, I bought a bunch of frames, did a terrible job spray painting them silver and white, and filled them with some of my favorite quotes which I had typed up with some really awesome fonts that were standard to Word 2003. I even switched it up with a little left and right justification. Impressive, I know. As terrible as it looked [actually, looks], it proves true to the fact that my love for quotes is a long-running one.

I love how these documented words make you stop and think and feel and relate. I love how they bring a person or place or experience instantly to mind, rekindling that unseen connection. I love how they can give you new perspective. I love how they make me want to be considerate instead of flippant.

A few years ago, I took this Quotable journal to a Christmas party as a Dirty Santa gift. I thought it was perfect - a journal and a good quote? People are going to fight over this baby. Wrong. One girl opened it, looked disappointed, and pleaded for others to steal it from her when it was their turn to open a gift. So, when it was my turn, I did. And I went home with what I thought was the best gift in the house. Booyah, girlfriend. Enjoy your Bath and Body Works bubble bath.

So then that little journal sat on my shelf for a good two years until I had this idea. After a little dusting, it became my ever beloved Quote Book.

Obviously, I began it in October 2009. I'm certainly glad that I was a big dork and documented that, or I wouldn't have even been able to tell you what year it was. And, sometime along the way, I fell enough in love with this little book to include my phone number in it just in case I lost it. Oh my gosh.

I became a little bit of a nazi with what I include and how I go about writing them down. I am so not like this about anything else in my life, but I try to write only with black Sharpie pens, to mix up the shapes of each quote to make it a little more aesthetically pleasing, and to never use quotation marks since it can be assumed that each quote is indeed a quote in the quote book. I sound like a complete lunatic.

I also don't normally include anything just because its funny or cheeky. I'll just use Pinterest for that. There have been times when Dustin or Audrey or Hannah have said something really hilarious, and I've wanted to include it. But haven't. Because I'm a quote book nazi.

My main aim was to document, to have it as a reference, and to have something to pass on one day. I have big hopes of filling up these pages over the next however many years I'm on this Earth. Hopefully at least some of our kiddos will appreciate it one day even though they'll secretly wonder why they couldn't just have some jewelry or furniture or something.

My apologies for an extraordinarily long post for a very simple subject. Maybe you'll just look at the pictures and read a few of my favorite book additions that I'll leave for you below:

"Grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God." - John Piper


"...feeding the people I love is a hands-on way of loving them. When you nourish and sustain someone, essentially, you're saying that you want them to thrive, to be happy and healthy and able to live well." - from Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist


"Friendship is unnecessary - like philosophy like art. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival." - C.S. Lewis


"She is clothed in strength and dignity and she laughs without fear of the future." - Psalm 31:25


"I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." - George Bernard Shaw


"Your heart understood mine. In the depth of the fragrant night, I listed with ravished soul t your beloved voice. Your heart understood mine." Friederich Bhaer in Little Women translating the French opera, "Les pêcheurs de perles"