Anyone else feel like sharing items from his/her commonplace book?
I'm sure you all have something similar? a treasure trove of bon mots, favourite quotes, etc....
In case anyone's innerested, here are some bits and bobs from mine:
From Henry Beard's Latin for All Occasions:
"Hostes me alienieni me abduxerunt. Qui annus est?" ("I was kidnapped by aliens. What year is it?")
From French for Cats, by Henri de la Barbe (Henry Beard):
- "Brossez–moi" ("Brush me"); "Le moment est venu de changer la litière" ("It is time to change the kitty litter")
- And from Advanced French for Exceptional Cats, also by Henri de la Barbe (Henry Beard):
- "I have the honour to present you with this mostly dead chipmunk"; "I nap, therefore I am."
Intro to the ninth day of Boccaccio's Decameron:
These people will not be conquered by death, or at worst will die happy.
From J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye:
– "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." – Wilhelm Stekel, quoted by Holden's teacher
– Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. – Holden Caulfield (last 2 sentences of the book)
From E.M. Forster's Howards End:
"Far more mysterious than the call of sex to sex is the tenderness that we throw into that call." (p225)
From Clarissa (on Masterpiece Theatre):
"You're a disgrace to your name and a traitor to everyone around you." (the real Lady Betty to her miscreant relative, Lovelace)
From the Globe & Mail's Social Studies section – "the birth of the blue":
"by the number 4" was used by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras; "ma tin krambin" from Ionia (now part of Turkey) means "by the cabbage"; French poet Charles Baudelaire swore "by the sacred Saint Onion"; in 17th–c England, "as God is my witness" and "upon my life" were considered blue expressions; swearing in Arabic & Turkish is common and includes phrases like "You father of 60 dogs" and "You ride a female camel"; in 1957 a Quebec provincial secretary suggested substitute swear words for foul–mouthed habitants – they included "sapristi" and "saperlipopette" (both untranslatable) and "sirop d'erable" ("maple syrup").
