Quotation is the Sincerest Form Of Flattery

I have always loved a good quotation. My history of quoting, alluding, paraphrasing, and parodying goes back to childhood. Even before I was a reader (and I started rather late in life) I would constantly pepper my conversation (which tended to be one-sided) with catchphases, movie lines, song lyrics, comedy routines, and any other scrap of word, phrase, or line that had managed to stick to my brain. I don't think this made me unusual. It did make me annoying. And when I did become a reader in High School that just gave me more of a verbal junk drawer to draw on.

I don't think this makes me special. Most readers I know are like this. It's one of the things that makes them fun and interesting people to talk to, and one of the more beneficial things about being widely read is that you have that much more stuff to draw on to colour your language and conversation and writing and that much more you "get" in the talk and writing of other people. That is all good. Imagine reading T.S. Eliot with out a clue to all of the myriad other works of literature to which he is alluding. It's just not possible. "The Wasteland" is a poem with footnotes for God's sake!

I recall, only partially, a quotation that sums up what I mean (I am desperately looking for the exact quote and the source by the way if you have any ideas let me know). It goes something like "there are only two types of conversation of any interest: conversation between lovers and conversation between book-lovers. And the lovers conversation is only of interest to them."

Of course, in college I had a way of quoting and footnoting in the course of the conversation that may have been a little excessive. People came to expect esoteric and trivial references from me, so if I would actually manage to coin an original phrase my girlfriend would still always ask me "Who said that?"

What I would like to start doing here is drop in the occassional quotation, usually from my current reading, but also the occasional oldie but goody from memory, or commonplace book (which I have never been vary dilligent about keeping), or written on a scrap of paper I have stuck in an box or drawer somewhere.

Right now I am reading The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, and I came across this passage which says something pertinent to the sharing of a love of books.

"Sir Philip and his daughter had a new common interest; they could now discuss books and the making of books and the feel and the smell and the essence of books - a mighty bond this, and one full of enchantment."

We should all be so lucky to find such a person to share with. By the way someday I'll tell you my feelings about the "smell of books". Such bliss we can derive from all aspects of books! Shantih shantih shantih.