In the latest newsletter, I combed through my commonplace diary and selected 101 quotes that summed up my year. Read it here.
Reading with a blade and glue stick
I read books with a pencil, but I read the Sunday NYTimes Book Review with an x-acto blade and a glue stick.*
I cut out good quotes and paste the author’s name below. Then I stick them in a little envelope in the back of my commonplace diary:
Sometimes two scraps talk to each other, like this African proverb and fortune cookie. Occasionally, when I don’t have a good line for the day, I dump out the scraps from the envelope and see what I’ve got:
Sometimes if you push these scraps around they talk to each other, too.
Afterwards, the cut-up book review makes these weird little picture and caption combos, which are almost more interesting than the things I cut out…
* Brands of x-acto and glue sticks are in my gift guide.
A quote a day
Because yet another notebook is just what I needed in my life (I think that makes 4 daily notebooks), I ordered one of Tamara Shopsin’s lovely 5 year diaries (added to my gear page):
I’ve been using mine not as an actual diary, but as a kind of commonplace book, writing a favorite quote I read or line I hear in it every day, like so:
I love books like The Daily Thoreau and Tolstoy’s A Calendar of Wisdom, so this idea (stolen from Dan Pink) instantly appealed to me.
I like flipping back through my entries and seeing if there are any threads or themes that run through the week:
I’m curious to see whether the quotes in the following years will speak to others on the same page, and what kind of juxtapositions will pop up. I could easily see this becoming my most treasured notebook. (You can get one here.)