Stuff i Write in My Book Journal

My Book Journal. I liked this quote so much i didn't know i had written it out twice.

I like reading books more than drinking wine. (Which is saying a lot. )

I could probably give up coffee.
...running
...TV
...french fries and potato chips

BEFORE i could ever give up books!

This summer i have already read 23 books, a record amount of books for me in one season -due in part to insomnia and the fact that i am retired and no longer stress out if i can't sleep. SO i happily read  often for one or two hours at 2 or 3 in the morning.

And often when i am reading i write out pieces that speak to me. I've been doing this since 1996, when louie/Sarah gave me a journal for my birthday that year.  Here is a sampling of what i have thought was notable in previous books I have read:

1. Animal Dreams is written by Barbara Kingsolver,  a real favorite author of mine in the 90's.  This is what i wrote from that novel - (it's the character Cosima reading part of her sister Hallie's letter at Hallie's funeral):

"The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. What i want is so simple. I almost can't say it: 

*elementary kindness
*enough to eat
*enought to go around
*the possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers or the destroyed. "

(That last one slays me.) I also do not need too much. I don't need a big house, a big salary, lots of clothes and shoes. I just want enough so that i am not wanting. 

2. "I need this rush. This feeling of exhilaration. I run because it makes me feel in control of my life. Like there is no finish line." 

(from the book How Stella Got Her Groove Back). This describes perfectly to me about why I run, even as i do not love running. 

3. "It was then I knew that often the greatest of sins are not the things we do, but the things we fail to do. "  

Chasing Grace by Martha Manning, (read in 1996), is a memoir about growing up Catholic which i also related to. 

4. "Survivors are people who move purposefully toward either resolution or acceptance."

This i actually read in Runners World magazine in 1997. I think it might be the best advice anyone can give to someone who seems to be constantly struggling.

(If i can paraphrase it in jocucina terms: "Fix it or Get the Fuck Out".)   

I can no longer be a friend to anyone who will not subscribe to this. 

5. #4 above goes along with this other entry i made in 1999:

"Eggs Should Not Dance With Stones". 

It's a quote by Charlie Chan that i got out of the Trivia Column in the News Tribune and for years and years i had it on my white board in my office at my union job. 

6. I loved the book Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Here is what i wrote out in 1999 from that book: 

"Watching my father, I've seen how you can't learn all there is to know. Watching my father, I've seen how you can't learn anything when you're trying to look like the smartest person in the room." 

7. I must have liked this quote below so much because i  i wrote it out twice over different years because i forgot i had written it out before, (first in 2009 and again in 2010). It's a quote by Herbie Cohen, who was a music producer - for artists like Linda Rondstand and Frank Zappa.  The only reason i know this is because i wikipedia-ed him before i put this quote up on Facebook (just in case Herb turned out to be some kind of Nazi or something.)

"Friends are chosen people. You stay friends with someone over a long period of time because they make you feel better than you are."

I have lost some friends along the way for different reasons, but i think the ones i let go most easily is probably because of the stone vs. egg quote above.



Do y'all keep a journal of stuff like this? If so, what is in it? It could even be a great bumper sticker quote.