Noted and quoted

I've always been one for quote files. Rifling through old pieces of memorabilia tonight, I found the quote file I kept at the Daily Republic.

I pulled out bits that meant something to me and threw them in a random file. A few choice ones:

"There've been many times when I'd be perspiring -- I do a lot of that on stage -- and I was crying. People thought I was only perspiring, but I'd be crying. ... I used to go with a girl. She also had a madam, and I used to ask her how she could do this and do that and still love me. She said, 'That's my job, but with you it's love.' It's the same thing with me and music." - B.B. King. This quote says so much about how I felt about my journalism job and my creative writing.

"Like coffee ice cream? Harrison says you're colorful, a risk taker, an impulsive type." - From a story about a Dreyer's ice cream taster. I love coffee ice cream.

"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius." - Arthur Conan Doyle

"The fact that there are a lot of good songs means there are also a lot of really bad songs I've written that you never hear." - John Fogerty. I think about this quote all the time.

And both Starr and Flynt reinforce the message that, in America, the pot of gold we're all looking for isn't located at the end of a rainbow, but at the bottom of a sewer. - E.J. Montini. The quote file had lots of Ken Starr references. You can tell I worked at the DR in the late '90s.

"Just keep going. So your shoes get wet." - A member of the Fairfield High band

Sophomorism uses a sledgehammer; wit uses a scalpel. Sophomorism cries out for your attention; wit assumes it has it. - Roger Ebert

There are moments when we can no longer ignore coincidence or cliche. - E.J. Montini

The legendary women of the 20th century, like Oprah Winfrey and Billie Jean King, did not wait to be given what they deserved. They were not shy, modest or repressed. They were stubborn, spirited, smart, and often loud. - Susan Swartz

"The bigger people are in life, the more big-league they are. That's been my experience. You meet less shits the higher up you go." - Ted Williams in Esquire Magazine

"It's no crime to be weird." - Lt. Carl Sprinkel of Springfield, Ill., on a man who solicited teenage girls for their socks.