Like Some Guy Said....

Hopefully you carry a notebook and pencil with you at all times, or at least whenever you leave the house. If you don't, I highly advise you start. People are by nature forgetful, especially when we have a good idea or hear something striking. (Our short-term memory lasts three minutes.)

Write down the quotes you hear, whether they be striking, funny, or just something you want to use later. When you hear 'quote,' you may be thinking famous quote, that some politician or playwright or other person of renown said. No, although those are great sources for quotes. Most of the quotes in my notebook come from:

• Television
• My friends and family members
• T-shirts
• Various books

A tip for writing down quotes: don't forget the attribution. A quote is only good if you know who said it. 

Some quotes from my notebook:

•  From the tv show Parks and Recreation: 
  "We need to talk." Benjamin
  "That has never been true." Ron
• "Marriage is a wonderful institution for all those who want to be institutionalized." Pastor Everett, from our church
• "Meetings: the practical alternative to work." Papa, my grandfather

There's another good reason to write down quotes. Sometimes a quote will strike you, but you won't know why. It will linger in the back of your head, and you'll remember it even without writing it down. Then you hear another quote, and another, and you'll feel a vague connection among them, but you won't know what they mean until you write them down:

• "In life and in art, as it seems to me, we are always trying to catch in our net of successive moments something that is not successive.... I think it is sometimes done - or very, very nearly done - in stories." CS Lewis, in his essay On Stories
• "The artist has a feeling and he expresses it and at once this feeling infects other people and they have it too." Brenda Ueland, in her book If You Want to Write
• "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Cor. 4:18 NIV

Am I the only one who could write several hundred words on those three quotes and what they mean for each other? This is another reason to write quotes. They could mean something. Not only that, but this provides essay material - and as the school year has recently begun, that is in itself a third reason to collect quotes.