COMMONPLACE BOOK

Some 15 or 20 years ago, I was given a notebook as a present, and decided to use it to note down quotations and other texts which appealed to me, and which I might otherwise lose:

There is still in existence a notebook in which Madame Adrien Proust was in the habit of copying out, in a thin, sloping hand, the passages that most pleased her in the books she read. A natural modesty led her to keep this private anthology secret.

André Maurois, The Quest for Proust, translated by Gerard Hopkins

I, on the other hand, have neither "a thin, sloping hand" nor "a natural modesty"; and what follows is the contents of my commonplace book.

It is in no sense an exhaustive collection of quotations; the lines I most frequently quote do not appear in it, because I have never felt any need to note them down. (Bob Dylan is particularly under-represented for this reason).

Nor is it authoritative: I have given as full attributions as I could, but some of the material has been in my possession for a long time, or was second- or third-hand when I aquired it. If you can fill in any missing details, please .

Nor is it orderly: entries are arranged alphabetically by theme, but my identification of the theme of an item may be idiosyncratic, and at times arbitrary. Nonetheless, an index of themes is provided.

The index of authors is less exhaustive; it aims to bring together multiple entries from the same author, and does not necessarily include authors who are quoted only once.

Or you could just start at the beginning...


This site is permanently under construction: Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished!