Hourglass: The Quotes That Have Shaped My Life
As Shapiro described her little books filled with other writers’ words, I pictured my own stacks of notebooks (I wish I could be as organized as Dani Shapiro with one neat stack, but I’ve got everything from stylish Moleskines to cardboard covers hidden in every crevice of my room). I didn’t know other people indulged in the same obsessive habit; and I say obsessive because I will sit there with my illustrator pen and rewrite quotes for so long that sweet little birds think I’m a stooped statue – until they see my bloodshot eyes.
Apparently, we’ve both been indulging in “commonplace books.” They are essentially scrapbooks, but filled with quotes and passages and written when the mood strikes. Mark Twain had one, as well as Ernest Hemingway, Nancy Cunard, and I guess, me.
After leaving the event, I went home and found my best-kept commonplace: a brown notebook from the months I spent in California after college. Flipping through it three years later, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by my former self. The archive opens with a sticky note of an LAX gate number (4B, 2:50 pm) and continues with paper-clipped articles, snippets of a screenplay I still haven’t finished, and post-its of recipes I wanted to try but never did (except for the microwave muffin). This past-self wrote down quotes by Louise Erdrich, Kurt Vonnegut, and conversations overheard on the streets of L.A. I kept myself busy from November to February – listing, citing, quotes, rewriting – until the grocery lists and favorite scripts were replaced by…graduate school programs. Twenty pages of reprinted graduate school descriptions, and it amuses me to say that the very last page of the notebook has a line scratched down a list of pros and cons about the University of New Hampshire (Go, Wildcats!).
Looking at the notebook now, I can feel my determination with every hard underline and meticulous stenciling. Why did I need to write down someone else’s words down? To feel a sense of productivity, a sense of control? Did the quotes reassure or me? Inspire me? Or remind me of how far I still have to go as a writer?
I wish I could put my hand on the shoulder of that girl (who feels so separate, yet so intertwined) and tell her everything will work out – but go ahead and write down that Dead Poet’s Society quote again, anyway:
“Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, ‘Most men lead quiet lives of desperation.’ Don’t be resigned to that. Break out!”
A few more of my favorite quotes (circa November 2013 – March 2015):
“I feel like we can do something really cool to this world. And I fear – at twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five – we might forget.” – Marina Keegan, The Opposite of Loneliness
“I fancied you’d return the way you said
But I grow old and forget your name
(I think I made you up inside my head)
– Sylvia Plath, Mad Girl’s Love Song
“I don’t pretend to be able to provide an answer as to why these women put up with what they do, but some of it has to do with a society structured in such a way as to make women believe that to be with a man – any man, on whatever terms – is better than being alone.” – Nora Ephron, The Girls in My Office
Even now, why did I choose these three quotes out of the dozens I wrote down? Is there a part of me that still understands how I felt then? Do they apply to how I feel now? I don’t know, but I have a strong desire to rewrite my favorite parts.