Little Notebooks of Quotes

For many years, I have made it a habit to carry a little chubby notebook with me everywhere, and whenever I hear a good quote or run across a name I like or learn of a book or website to check out, I jot it down. I have distilled some of these into books I've written, and I've referred to them to find book recommendations. But I've now got a box full of these little books, and it really isn't very efficient to page through them all to find specific things or when I'm looking for writing inspiration.

I have started copying these books into an Excel spreadsheet, categorizing the entries by "Life Thoughts," "Reading Recommendations," "Writing Ideas," "Recipes," "Poetry," "Meditations," etc. So far I'm up to about a thousand entries, and I still have several notebooks to enter. But as I'm typing it all up, I'm rediscovering some great tidbits and thought-provoking sayings. It's been enormous fun to go through them all again.

Some of the highlights:

• "Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them." - Lemony Snicket
• "They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing." - Oscar Wilde
• "Simplicity undertaken to bring the life you lead into alignment with your deepest values is a spiritual practice." - Alan Morinis
• "A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach." - Rabbi Salanter
• "You cannot entirely despair with your mouth full of bread." - Anne Michaels
• “Not wanting something is as good as possessing it.” - Donald Horban
• "Gardeners can suffer from a chronic inability to be in the present moment. That's because, like Joan of Arc, we're afflicted with future visions…a real and present delight is bartered for an imaginary future." - Des Kennedy
• “Do something, my sister, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something.” - Elizabeth Gaskell
• "The implication is that when mothers work, families, like chickens, go free-range and slightly feral." - Susan Maushart
• "…the solace of emerging from the ruins to find that at least you no longer had any hair left to catch fire…" - Anne Michaels