Quotations Weblog

When I tell people I run a quotations website, almost all of them ask “what are some of your favorite quotations?” I always have trouble answering this question—the real answer is that if I could choose just a few favorites, I wouldn’t need this huge website to keep track of them all. I had a short list of favorites back in high school, but since then it’s grown into the website you see here, including nearly 3,000 of my “favorites” in my personal collection.

Nevertheless, there are some quotations I enjoy more than others, so I’m going to start highlighting them in posts like this one, with a few favorites from an author or subject.

This weeks entry: Douglas Adams was probably my favorite writer in high school, and he’s still one of my favorites although he died in 2001. His Hitchhiker’s Guide series is some very funny science fiction, and I enjoy his writing style even more than the characters and plots. Here are a few of my favorite Douglas Adams quotes:

• More quotations from Douglas Adams

When I first saw this quotation, my instinct was to argue with it. The idea sounded like torture to me. That giddiness of initial love feels wonderful, but it’s tiring. Logic doesn’t apply during that time. I couldn’t think about anything but him. “What is he doing right now? Is he thinking about me? I wonder if I surprise him at lunch if he would like it? How much longer until he calls me today?” My productivity was abominable.

I prefer love that’s like a good cheese. It takes time to age a cheese to its delicious perfection. Cheese curds taste great as the squeak in my teeth, but they aren’t as sharp and enticing as their aged counterpart. Love is the same way. That infatuation at the beginning of a relationship is nothing compared to the feeling of love that has weathered storms.

Just because I don’t agree with the beginning of the quote, however, doesn’t mean it’s not true for others. It also doesn’t mean I don’t agree with the rest of the quote, “Being in love shows a person who he should be.” That part of the quotation is not only is the truth in my experience, it’s good advice.

During that first infatuation of love, my thoughts would always turn to my activities, “What would he think of this? Would he be proud of me? I should work harder. Would he think this was frivolous? Does he think I’m funny? I should learn how to be witty.” After remembering this, I DID work harder to be funny. I DID work harder at my job and school work. I constantly evaluated my actions in relation to what he might think about them and I’m a better person because of it.

I got the third season of Northern Exposure on DVD a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been enjoying it just as much as I did when it was shown on A&E nonstop. So much of my philosophy of life comes from this television show.

There are so many times when I want to say, “Remember the episode of Northern Exposure when…” I keep thinking that if the people who ask me for advice just watched this show as obsessively as I did during my college years, that they wouldn’t need to ask for advice. Each quote vividly reminds me of the lessons that I learned from Northern Exposure.

This is the first Northern Exposure quotation that we ever entered into the collection:

Here are some of my favorites:

Marilyn is so quiet. I would love to be more like her. I have so many words that they not only spill out my mouth, they spill out my fingers onto paper. I don’t know if I will ever be able to fly…

I fight this demon all the time. I didn’t even have a name for it until I saw this episode. I can’t wait until this season comes out on DVD.

This has always been my goal when having guests. It felt so good to hear it said so simply and succinctly.

• All the Northern Exposure Quotations

• Northern Exposure: Season 1

• Northern Exposure: Season 2

• Northern Exposure: Season 3

I blazed through the latest Harry Potter book within a couple of days. All my free time was spent reading. Every time I read a book, I am looking for quotations. J. K. Rowling is particularly good at writing quotable phrases. Here are the few that I gleaned from her latest book.

I had read the spoilers, so I thought the ending wasn’t going to be a surprise. I knew who was going to die at the end. The surprise was who the killer was…

I had a meltdown at lunch today. I work a full-time job in addition to all the writing I do. My lunch hour is spent writing. Today, I just procrastinated. When I couldn’t procrastinate anymore, I just took out a piece of paper and started writing in an effort to see why I was delaying my favorite activity of the day.

I only have 10 minutes to write, so I need to be quick. I was watching a show on my Tapwave, but the batteries are low, so I have 10 minutes to do what I should have been doing in the first place.

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