I do. I also cut and paste(with real scissors and paste!) quotes that I find in magazines etc.into the book. It has a very scrapbook look to it. I also occasionally include "deep thoughts" that some of the selections have triggered.

If the book is one I am keeping, I sometimes just write title,author and page number by itself...or include it and the quote.

I am also a margin writer, or back pages writer, so you might find my reading reactions just about anywhere.

I have done this on and off for years, usually on bits and pieces of paper that then got lost. Now I collect interesting quotes into a proper commonplace book, a sketchbook that I also draw in and write down various other interesting stuff, like when people mess up a proverb or saying in a funny way (quite common in Icelandic), funny misspellings, malapropisms, spoonerisms and accidentally humorous newspaper headlines.

Hi CMK! I don't do this, and wish I could make a habit of marking the books I read for particularly nice passages. Because my mind is like a sieve, it would be a good thing to do. I do remember a bit in The Life of Pi that I liked particularly, and I can go right to it (with some thumbing through).

I have done this forever, it feels like. At first by hand, now on the computer-and ones I particularly like, I do up in attractive fonts on colored paper and post on my office bulletin board.

That would be fun, to start a thread about our favorite quotes from books.

-veronicae, I write down the author and title too. Except I did not think to write down the page number. Perhaps I should include that as well...

-netla, that's a nice idea, keeping all sorts of interesting tid-bits in a notebook. I ought to do that with all of my sticky notes; there is a small colony of them around my computer, just waiting to be misplaced. What kind of things do you like to sketch?

Hi Kay! Ha! I wish I had that talent. I can hardly ever find a passage when I want it. That's why I try to always write it down as soon as I read it, or else it would take me more time to find the line than it would to read the whole book over again! Are you still reading books on African American history with your group?
CMK

I've done it for years too, although not as much now as I used to. That may be because I majored in English as an adult student, and the books I read then were a bit more worthy of saving quotes from than the murder mysteries that are what I mostly read now.

I've been keeping a Commonplace Book since high school days. It started with writing down bits of poetry I had liked, then expanded into philosophy, in college. I still write down quotes I like, usually on 3 x 5 cards, by hand. I have posted a few of these above the desk where I write.

I kept one in college but haven't for ages now. I've come across loads of lines and quotes I'd love to keep, but somehow I just haven't organized anything and I would truly like to. Christinmk, I like your quote, the second best time to start something is right now! Time to hunt up a blank book and get started.

CMK-I have a visual memory for things: I can recall if it was a right or left-hand page, and near the front, middle, or back of book. Likewise I can (sometimes) visually recall where a book is in our house, which of the many, many bookshelves it might be stashed on. That visual memory is not terribly reliable, alas.

Yes, we are still reading the series of books about Lincoln/Civil War/civil rights/African American experience. We started with Obama's "Dreams From My Father," read "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," read the Emancipation Proclamation and other seminal American documents, and are now finishing up "Team of Rivals," about Lincoln's cabinet. It has been really lively--one member's husband just joined Obama's team of economic advisors, my husband works for Congress, another member's daughter was on the same basketball team with Sasha Obama (and we were treated to cell phone snapshots of the proud parents lounging on the gym floor, cheering on their daughter)--Sasha goes to school in our neighborhood, so we feel a real thrill of connection (all tangential) to what is going on in Washington. So our readings are timely, indeed. Though maybe now we should include some readings about the Great Depression, too, eh?

-sheriz, ha ha! Well, I can't take the entire credit for that saying. It is extracted from a garden quote: "The best time to plant shade trees was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now." ;-)

-Kay, that is neat. What did you think of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl? It is TBR list...still. I loved The Grapes of Wrath, though I guess that is a rather obvious choice for books about the Great Depression.
CMK

I pulled up the thread from last year about book and reading quotes. Have at it!

Oh, I like that garden quote!

"Grapes of Wrath" would be appropriate, wouldn't it? We had some quarrels with "Incidents"--it didn't read as authentic, more like a pastiche of second-hand recollections, and curiously without passion. It really didn't have the immediacy that one might expect from a first-hand memoir; it did seem more like an abolitionist may have written it as an anti-slavery document. You should read it, I'd be interested to hear your response.

-cc, thanks for pulling that up, I will have to go and check it out. Maybe add a few myself...

-Kay, I will do that as soon as I hunt down a copy and 'get in the mood'. I actualy just ended The Color Purple, so it might take me awhile to want to read more books with similar themes. I also have The Known World, by Edward P. Jones, on my shelf left to read...someday.
It might also be interesting to, before you start a book on the Great Depression, read something set in the 'Jazz Age'. I read a Fitzgerald immediately before The Grapes of Wrath and was blown away by how short a time it takes for things to decline so rapidly.
Did you ever get a chance to read Uncle Tom's Cabin?
CMK

CMK-No, didn't read Uncle Tom's Cabin--it didn't get the nod from the group, alas! We have a meeting next week (post "Team of Rivals") to decide the rest of the reading for the year. I'll let you know what we select. I don't think I'll try to convince the group to move on to the Great Depression via Jazz Age (what a thoroughly great idea, though!). I think I have to keep a low profile since I did convince them to embark on this route of African-American/Civil Rights/Lincoln/Obama/Civil War collection. I keep trying to convince them to read some Faulkner, one of my favorite authors, but they must read the scuttlebutt on him at this site!

You know, The Known World is probably one of the best new books I've read in 20 years. I'll be very interested to know what you think.

CMK, I sketch anything that takes my fancy. Mostly I make fantasy doodles as I am unfortunately not very good at sketching ;-)

I have learned from experience always to include title, author and page number when writing down quotes.

Yes! I keep a notebook of quotes. It's been off and on for years and as a result, I have quotes everywhere. Finally, I've taken one notebook and designated it for quotes. When I come across a page, a sticky note, a napkin, that has a quote on it, I transfer it to the notebook. Interestingly enough, I recently read Jerome K. Jerome's Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow.

Here are a few quotes from that book that struck me enough to write them down:
"Let us be vain, not of our trousers and hair, but of brave hearts and working hands, of truth, of purity, of nobility."
"Better to work and fail than to sleep one's life away."
"The weather is like the government, always in the wrong."
"Let us not waste heart and life, thinking of what might have been and forgetting the "maybe" that lies before us."
"There is no returning on the road of life... It belongs to us no more. No single word can be unspoken, no single step retraced."
While I thought this book was amusing and I enjoyed it thoroughly, looking back on these quotes makes me think that perhaps JKJ was a bit like a Victorian Benjamin Franklin.

PAM

-Kay, I had some trouble with Uncle Tom's Cabin, though I am still glad I read it. It was much more religious than I had thought it would be. And some parts seemed a bit staged. Its one of those books that inspire you more for what it accomplished than the actual writing.
I have yet to read anything by Faulkner, though he is on my list. I read somewhere that his Light in August was a good place to start, as it was easier to get into for someone who had never read one of his works before. What do you think?

-Netla, I am not very good either. But, for some reason, that does not deter me. ;-)
CMK

CMK, The Rievers is one of Faulkner's late books, very funny, and easy to read.

CMK-Light in August is very good, but it has some of the characteristics that many complain make Faulkner less than accessible. The story is not told chronologically, there are flashbacks, the narration shifts from one character to another, and there are interior monologues. These things don't bother me--they make for a richly textured tale--and they may not bother you. But be forewarned.

Thanks guys. I will have to look more into both of those books and decide which one to read. Faulkner's work sounds like something I would prefer to read in winter, when I can devote longer periods of time to reading. Thanks again.
CMK

Do I save quotes and passages? Indeed I do, I have for years and have filled several notebooks and also have an online storage site. This one of my favorites:

If I Had My Life To Live Over
by Erma Bombeck
The following was written by the late Erma Bombeck
after she found out she had a fatal disease.

If I had my life to live over, I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television - and more while watching life.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."

There would have been more "I love you's".. More "I'm sorrys" ...

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute... look at it and really see it ... live it...and never give it back.

© Erma Bombeck

Oh good! More people are starting to write some favorite quotes down! Fun.

Many of the quotes I save are not, perhaps, incredibly philosophical or profound. They are often just those little truths that usually go acknowedged by many. They are just little things I took a liking too, sometimes for no other reason than I like how the line is worded.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorites:

"Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, standing in a dectionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." (I also wrote this one on that other thread)
-Nathaniel Hawthorne

"To be despised by her sex is a very great compliment to a woman."
Vanity Fair- William M. Thackeray.

"I had traded the fight against love for the fight against loneliness, the fight against life for the fight against death."
The Beautiful and the Damned- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Life cannot go on without much forgetting!"
Cousin Bette- Honore de Balzac

"We possess nothing certainly except the past."
Brideshead Revisited- Evelyn Waugh

"...there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks of this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years."
O Pioneers!- Willa Cather

"Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct." &

"...nobody minds having what is too good for them."
Mansfield Park- Jane Austen

"If everybody minded thier own buisness the world would go round a deal faster than it does." (I live by that statement) &

"Everythings got a moral, if only you can find it."
Alice in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll
CMK