I’m jumping the gun on Mother’s Day, but why not share something special when the inspiration hits? Years ago, May 1990 to be exact, I bought a notebook. On the pages I began what has become a collection – a collection of quotes that have caught my fancy over the years. Decades now.
22 years to be exact. 
The majority of the quotes and passages I’ve copied down, a few I’ve pasted. There’s a couple random items in there, too. Like a handwritten Post-it, a New Yorker cartoon of Edgar Allen Poe on Prozac, and a tour ticket for Hearst Castle.
That said, here are ten favorites from my collection.
He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in his ghostly heart. ~ from the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Common sense is not so common ~ Voltaire
Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life ~Picasso
Lower than a snake with a belly full of buckshot ~ Foghorn Leghorn
Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it upgrades despair so beautifully. ~ from a play, “Hurrah at Last”
She had given him, instead, the delicate pleasure of watching her expand like a sea creature restored to its element, stretching out atrophied tentacles of girlish vanity and enjoyment to the rising tide of opportunity. ~ from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton
A cynic is a passionate person who doesn’t want to be disappointed again ~ Benjamin Zander
Care to our coffin adds a nail no doubt; and every grin, so merry, draws one out. ~John Wolcott
Their imaginations were flywheels on the ramshackle machinery of the awful truth. ~from Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Finally, the Post-it note from my mother that reads… I love you! Mom
