GARNER’S QUOTATIONS - DWIGHT GARNER

I did not know the concept of a commonplace book, until this year. This is somewhat strange since it turns out I’ve been keeping one for over a decade now. You can fine a partially digitized version on this very site, here. I’m a real book guy, as you might have noticed from this website, but I’m also disorganized and move all the time. Therefore, despite how much I want one, it’s hard for me to amass a physical library. Normally, I either read a book from the library or I give away/sell my books after I finish them. That was actually the impetus for EVERY BOOK REVIEWED, a way to systematically give my books away (it is not working). I lived in Asheville for 3 years and ended up with a couple hundred books I couldn’t move so I gave them away all at once. Someday I’ll retire and own a house (lol, jk) and then I’ll be able to amass and keep books but until then I catch and release. As such, I can’t really fuck with marginalia, because I’m giving the book away. To solve this problem I copy quotes I like in notebooks I carry around and reread when I’m bored. I’ve got about 5 now and I treasure them. I was not aware this was/is a longstanding practice, undertaken by the likes of Jefferson, Virginia Wolfe and Marcus Aurelius. This book is a bit more eclectic than most. Garner does not offer an index nor clearly sort the quotes by author or chronology or subject. They do occasionally play off of one another and there tend to be a series of quotes on the same general theme in a row. He seems to value humor and pithiness. He’s apparently a book critic and has a personal commonplace book that is many thousands of quotes long, from which he pulled these. Beyond that, I’m not sure how to review this book. I enjoyed a lot of the quotes. I found this a great book to read before bed. It’s the rare book you can read in any order, just open up a page and read until you’re tired. I do wish that this format would become more popular, I'm into it. 99 Quotes

 Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book

- ”I suddenly began to realize that everybody in America is a natural-born thief” -Kerouac

- “He who cannot howl / will not find his pack” - C. Simic

- “Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.” - E. Dickerson

- “It’s always the night or we wouldn’t need light.” -Thelonious Monk

- “Damn me, but all things are queer, come to them of ‘em” -Moby Dick 

- “Research is formalized curiosity.” - Zora Neale Hurston

- “The sex act cruelly mimics history’s decline and fall.” -Paglia

- “It is invariably oneself that one collects.” - Baudrillard

- “Nobody knows how to feel and they’re checking around for hints.” -DeLillo

- “No single thing abides; and all things are fucked up.” -PKD

- “Love with your mouth shut, help without breaking your ass or publicizing it: keep cool but care.” -Pynchon

- “Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.” -E. Waugh

- “Christ! What are patterns for?” - Amy Lowell

- “After 3 days without reading, talk becomes flavorless.” -Chinese proverb

- “The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theater, the dance hall, the public-house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc.; the more you save- the greater becomes your treasures which neither moths nor dust will devour- your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life- the greater is the store of your estranged being.” -Marx