My Commonplace Book

Welcome to my online commonplace book, where I collect favorite quotations from literature, articles, blogs . . . you name it. I hope you find some words that resonate with you.



"I love my father as the stars — he's a bright shining example and a happy twinkling in my heart."
-- Terri Guillemets

"I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone."
-- Francis of Assisi

"Nobody minds having what is too good for them."
-- Jane Austen

"You can rest now."
-- Max Lucado, Grace

"Such love does the sky now pour, that whenever I stand in a field, I have to wring the light out when I get home."
 -- St. Francis of Assisi
 
"A memory is a treasure that survives."
-- Amish proverb

"You sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces over all the mean worry of housekeeping."
-- Rudyard Kipling


"Imagination does not stir at the suggestion of the feeble, much-diluted stuff that is too often put into children’s hands."
-- Charlotte Mason


"Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy."
-- Isaac Newton


"We are so accustomed to take wonders as matters of course,mere everyday events, that it does not occur to us to be surprised."
-- Charlotte Mason


“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
-- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

"We all want to live in the moment but there isn't enough time."
-- David Zasloff

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
-- Groucho Marx

"Nothing in life is without risk. When we deprive our children of taking the risks that they must take to grow in competence, confidence, and courage, we run the greater and ultimately more tragic risk that they will never learn to take charge of their own lives. So be brave and let your kids be brave."
-- Dr. Peter Gray

"The aim of liberal education is human excellence."
-- Robert Hutchins

“Out in this, God’s beautiful world, there is everything waiting to heal lacerated nerves, to strengthen tired muscles, to please and content the soul that is torn to shreds with duty and care.”
-- Anna Botsford Comstock

"Summer afternoon, summer afternoon... The two most beautiful words in the English language."
-- Henry James


"Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that suppose to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing."
-- Toni Morrison, Beloved

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant."
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

"We have turned into fools when it comes to appreciating what is really worthwhile in life -- proud fools with no understanding of what God treasures."
-- Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

"If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money."
-- Abigail Van Buren

"I shall die very young, maybe seventy, maybe eighty, maybe ninety. But I shall be very young."
-- Jeanne Moreau

"People demand freedon of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought, which they seldom use."
-- Soren Kierkegaard

"If only she had known how ... ephemeral childhood was, how quickly it vanished, she would have paid more attention."
-- Ayelet Waldman, Red Hook Road

"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond."
-- C. S. Lewis

"You discover treasures where others see nothing unusual."
-- from a fortune cookie and what I want to be true for my children

"Laughter is a gift from God and when we refuse to accept it, it makes Him want to take it back. Like the unicorns."
-- Jon Acuff, on his blog Stuff Christians Like

"Correction does much, but encouragement everything."
-- from a fortune cookie

"There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea."
-- Bernard-Paul Heroux

"Joy is the best makeup. Joy, and good lighting."
-- Anne Lamott, from Grace (Eventually)

"She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain."
-- Louisa May Alcott

"There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort."
-- Jane Austen

"The twinkling of an eye. That is the most wonderful expression."
-- Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

"Now and then it's good to pause in the pursuit of happiness and just be happy."
-- Guillaume Apollinaire

"We make time for what we think is important, and in doing so we teach our children about what things really matter in life."
-- Gladys Hunt