Thursday 11 June 2009

Favourite words.


Yesterday morning I posted a Flaubert quotation 0f which I am very fond. Solitary Walker answered by saying how much he enjoyed Flaubert - who could take all day writing one sentence and then change it - and how good Flaubert was at "le mot just". I love to collect sayings and poems . Some years ago I made myself a book to put them in. You see it here in the photograph. It is ragged and faded now but has had a lot of wear. I have had such pleasure from it and can thoroughly recommend doing a book and keeping it well to hand.


My favourite quotation in it changes with the season. When the cherry blossom is out, then my favourite is "Lovliest of trees the cherry now..." from Housman's Shropshire Lad. Sometimes I get solace from some of the sayings of Kahlil Gilbran (Trust the dreams for in them is hidden the gate to eternity). Sometimes it is Oscar Wilde (all of us are standing in the gutter but few of us are looking at the stars!)


If you want to see really lovely little books, look at acornmoon on my blog list - she makes lovely folding ones. If you want to have a go at making one yourself I can recommend a super book which has all kinds in from very easy (like the one in the photograph) to very hard. The book is called "Cover to Cover" by Shereen La Plantz and is published by Lark Books (NY).






PS. Elizabeth of About New York is posting a blog about plates tomorrow - hoping to show how much we can tell of ourselves by the plates we choose to eat from or display. I am going to post my plates too. Why not join us for "Plate Friday"!

20 comments:

Jinksy said...

What a beautiful book, tactile in the extreme.

Unknown said...

Collecting the words that move and inspire us is a good idea, Weaver. When we come across them we no doubt think we will remember their source but often can not!

Gigi Ann said...

I love your idea of the book. How talented you are to make your own little book. I started a book of Quotes, where I wrote down many quotes, but it was so time consuming, therefore, instead of writing them all in long-hand I came up with the idea of my blog "Quotes and Things" and I post them there. Much easier way to save them. But, I love the book idea also.

Leenie said...

I have a quote collection book too,

Elizabeth said...

When I was a teenager, I used to put quotations all over my note books.
Rupert Brooke once said:

There are only three things in the world.
One is to read poetry,
another is to write poetry
and the best of all is to live poetry........

Wouldn't it be fun....maybe
but a little tiring.

Still raining here.
Feel as if I'm still in England...

Kim said...

You have the most lovely blog - I have just spent far too much time, and a cup of tea, reading backwards through your posts. Most excellent writing - what all bloggers should aspire to!
Kim xx

Teresa said...

What a great idea! Like you, I've collected poems, quotes, anecdotes and such for years but I've got them stashed here and there in no particular order. Would be so nice to be able to pick up my "Favorite Words" and enjoy them with a cup of tea!

The Weaver of Grass said...

I don't think it matters how one keeps saying and quotes (I do love Ann's site as she always has some good ones) but as a lot of these writers and poets say things so much more succinctly than we can I feel it is important to save them somewhere.
Anyone doing plates tomorrow?

Anonymous said...

All of my favoured quotes went into a dog-eared exercise book. Your home-brew volume looks a much more suitable repository for collected wisdoms.

My friend Natalie on Blaugustine recently displayed a selection of her hand-made books - http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/books.html.

Dick

Tess Kincaid said...

What a lovely little "favorite words" book, Weaver!

Acornmoon said...

What a lovely little book you made! Thanks for giving me a mention too. I have the book "Cover to Cover" it is very inspiring. I wonder if you made yours from a book or did you do a workshop?

Plate Friday sounds like fun, maybe then you could do Mug Monday?

ArtPropelled said...

Weaver, your book is most unusual. I've been collecting favourite quotations since I was a school girl. I think I have 5 volumes now. A great source of pleasure.

Crafty Green Poet said...

I love to collect quotes too, though sometimes I forget to copy them down...

Plate Friday might be quite fun, I have a lovely set of plates, second hand of course, but very contemporary looking. Yes i might join you....

Heather said...

Your book is beautiful. I too love books and quotations - the Oscar Wilde one is marvellous. I am not very good at being accurate and neat, so bookmaking/binding is a daunting task for me. I have 'Cover to Cover' and look at it from time to time, telling myself that one day I'll pluck up the courage to have a go.

gleaner said...

I love collecting quotes and words I like in books.

Plate Friday hmmm, maybe I'll give it a go. Although I'm definitely not a plate collector and probably lean towards minimalism and simplicity, my plates may show this :)

Maggi said...

A lovely book and such a good idea to keep a quote collection.

Raph G. Neckmann said...

What a lovely idea for a book! I love quotes, and write them down on bits of paper which I lose. But there are some quotes which I remember all of the time.

The plates I eat from are all very large, with no pattern as I like the entire surface to be covered with food - what does this say about me?!

Red Clover said...

The fact that you began with Shropshire Lad and ended with Oscar Wilde endears you to my forever, I think. Words are so wonderful. A few years ago for my Dad's birthday we gave him a book my sister made by hand. Each of us had selected a favorite word. We then added the dictionary definition, and he really enjoyed it.

As for my plate contribution...my sister was friends with design mom in New York and she had done a plate project that was fun. I couldn't find the original post, but here are some halloween versions of what she did. Anyway, you get the idea. Happy plate-ing!

http://www.designmom.com/2008/10/welcome-october.html

Midlife Roadtripper said...

"Why not join us for "Plate Friday"

I'm thinking about my plates - a tad too boring to show off. Maybe I need to think about that - why they're so boring.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Thanks to everyone for the comments. In answer to acornmoon - I made it from the book Cover to Cover - it seemed to be the easiest set of instructions to follow. I think with book making you have to be so very accurate (as with box making) and accuracy is not my strong point - the design I chose does give a little leeway.