My collection of quotes for understanding and adoring life
you might do stamps, I do smart people's wisdoms.
I deface my books. Reading is a tactile, lived experience for me. I fold over pages in particular ways to denote different things, I underline quotes, I write in the margins. I know this horrifies those who never read their books in the bath and like to write their name and phone number, neatly printed in non-cursive, in the top right corner of the front papers, a gesture that firmly says, “To Be Returned and In Exact Same Condition if I Happen to Lend This to You”.
I mean, you’re one or the other type of Book Owner, right?
If you’ve read my books (the ones I’ve written), you’ll know I encourage defacing them. I design them with a fat margin in which to write your own notes as you go.
Today I thought I’d share a few of the quotes I’ve honoured with my organic underlining. They work to a theme of sorts - loosening up into a wilder, more awe-directed life that is YOUR own. Feel free to add quotes from books you love. Apart from anything else, we will be compiling a nice reading list.
I thought about saving each one to use as pivot points for posts down the track. I grapple with this often: Do I save ideas and musings OR do I chunder forth as inspiration or input strikes? But one of the quotes I saved, from Annie Dillard’s essay A Writer in the World in The Abundance, puts this to rest:
The above is a motto for life. Allow resources to flow in and out. Don’t hoard; give and live!
Quotes that get you understanding how to be you, really you
While we’re in The Abundance, here’s another quote from the same essay:
(Let me save you Googling: A peritoneum is the membrane lining the cavity of the abdomen and Selzer writes medical fiction.)
How about we scrap “writer” from the above wisdom; let’s all find the things that we alone love. For me: eating foods in novel combinations, finding efficient ways to do things that buck the system, beautiful and angular hands, the smell of that bit of skin just to the side (slightly down) from the side of the nose (on other people), and… collecting quotes.
Just as a writer looks to whimsical uniqueness for content, we must do the same in our lives so that we can best honour the preciousness of it all.
I hoard a lot of Charles Bukowski. I’ve kept this for years, too:
"Your life is your life. Don't let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch. There are ways out. There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness. Be on the watch. The gods will offer you chances. Know them. Take them. You can't beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous. The gods wait to delight in you."
I have always loved that last line: “The gods wait to delight in you.”
My god is the flow of life. The all-of-it-ness. All of it delights when we find the things that we alone love.
Here’s another from Virginal Woolf:
A few that speak to radical acceptance of other humans
I tend to veer to these kind of quotes. I get the shits with other humans too readily. I have high expectations for myself and I parlay them on to others.
I like this first one from Adrienne Rich’s poem Stepping Backward:
I pulled and saved this from Nitch on Instagram (they collect quotes, too):
And a few that speak to the wonder of life, found via being alone, mostly in nature
The French writer Silvain Tesson writes to this idea in his memoir Consolations of the Forest:
I also love this line, below, from the same book:
The (riddled) promise of the line comes with an implied caveat: We will need to be present to the momentous occurrence of the sunrise (each and every one, and each and every other moment of awe-some natural efforting) to catch the wisdom.
This next one is from Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche:
Praised be a moderate poverty! (I will have to launch my public campaign to bring back rations soon!)
And, here, a glorious take on the still, solid wisdom of mountains from Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain:
And a quote about smell, from about 20 years ago
Back then I highlighted, rather than underlined. This is from a book A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. It provided me with great comfort as I came to terms with my ludicrously strong sense of smell.
Your favourite quotes? Feel free to swap, as we once did marbles and smelly rubbers (erasers) in the school playground.
Sarah xx
Oh, and this week’s podcast chat is with British pop trend researcher Marcus Buckingham (who I first met when he wrote for me at Cosmopolitan magazine) and we talk through the data that explains what the happiest women on the planet get right. I have talked this simple wisdom for years. (Hint: the trick is to give up on finding balance between your commitments and demands and to instead “tilt”.) I tracked down Marcus to chat it out more fully.
This is possibly my favourite ever email I've received from you. Thankyou.
I do the same with song lyrics…
One I always come back to;
‘Don’t let a life keep you from living, don’t let your heart get petrified’ from a Waifs song.
It’s so easy to get sucked into society’s ‘building a life’ and forget to actually experience life.
Also, Moderate poverty! So into this.