Quotations Weblog

Thanks to Laura adding over a hundred in one sitting the other day, we’ve finally reached 25,000 Quotations online at The Quotations Page. Thanks to all of the people who have contributed quotations, and to everyone who visits the site daily.

This is only the beginning—we’ll continue to add new quotations, improve the accuracy of our collections, and add features. Stay tuned.

Here are a few of the newest quotations:

“You will eat, but you will not live.” That phrase has haunted me since I first typed this quotation into the database years ago. How do I feed both parts of my psyche? I need to make sure that I make enough money to survive, but that survival can’t come at the expense of my soul.

There have been so many jobs that I took over the years that fed my stomach, but not my heart. I was really good at mixing solutions, processing claims and typing letters, but I didn’t really ever enjoy it the way I enjoy writing. I was always a hard worker, but I never felt passion in those jobs.

If you are in a job that is sucking out your soul through your pores every day, make an escape plan. What did you want to be when you grew up? I never wanted to count pills when I was a kid. I wanted to be a writer or an archaeologist. Archaeology could have been a fulfilling career for me, but writing is so easy to do in the comfort of my air-conditioned home. No dust. No muss.

Don’t quit your job. You still need to eat. You can feed your soul in your free time. Set aside time every week to do what you always wanted to do with your life, no matter what it is. It might be that the eight-year old that you were was wrong. Maybe owning a vineyard isn’t as fun as you thought it would be. In that case, you are free to set that old goal free in your mind and pursue other dreams.

Let your 8-5 job feed your stomach and pursue your dreams every week. Guard that time just as fiercely as you would your full time job. Don’t ever call in sick on your dreams. If you give enough time to follow your dreams, something will happen.

Maybe you’ll find out that you hate your dream. Then you can set it free.

Maybe you’ll make so much money from your dream that you can quit your full time job. Then you’ll have a whole new set of barriers in your way.

Maybe it will be enough. Maybe you will return to work every day refreshed from your dreamwork and maybe that good attitude will actually help you be a better worker at your 8-5 job.

No matter what happens, remember. You need to eat, but you also need to live.

I paid full price for the hardcover of Specials by Scott Westerfeld. Amazon told me it would be out for another couple of days, but I got it early at the local Barnes and Noble. I love this series. Tally Youngblood was born an Ugly, made a Pretty against her will and now in the third book has been transformed into a Special. She has been transformed into a superhuman being with ceramic bones, nails and teeth. She can smell a human from a kilometer away and smell an unwashed human from five kilometers away. Now, she is hunting the people she once considered friends.

Here are the best quotations I gleaned from this book:

This book is the final in a trilogy, but I can imagine a future for all the characters in the book. I love it when “happily ever after” is full of so much possiblity. For all of Scott Westerfeld’s quotes, click here:

Scott Westerfeld Quotes – The Quotations Page

Here are the latest books we’ve put online at our sister site, The Literature Page.

• The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper
• Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences by Mark Twain

These two are related: Twain’s brief essay is a long list of his criticisms of Cooper’s The Deerslayer. It’s an entertaining read, even if you haven’t read Cooper’s work. It also includes a great list of 18 guidelines for writers that are still applicable today.

Here are the quotations that were used in the last two episodes of the CBS series Criminal Minds. The show will return for a second season this fall, and I look forward to seeing whether they continue their obsession with quotations.

Until then, a couple of links fans of the show may also enjoy:

• Criminal Minds Online is an informative fan site for the show.
• WikiQuote has a comprehensive list of quotations used in the show, as well as quotes from the show’s dialog.

Previous Criminal Minds quotations:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5