Welcome to my commonplace blog

The goal of this blog is to preserve a few ideas and quotes from books I read. In the old days when books were not so readily available, people kept "commonplace books" where they copied choice passages they wanted to be able to remember and perhaps reuse. The idea got picked up by V.F.D. and it's common knowledge that most of that organization's volunteers have kept commonplace books, and so have Laura and I.

I'm sure there are many other Internet sites and blogs dedicated to the same idea. But this one is mine. Feel free to look around and leave comments, but not spam.

22 March 2012

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Catherynne M. Valente)

Very good adult fairy tale, reminiscent of Tolkien. Laura loved it. Hoping for a sequel.


Quotes:

“I came for you, September. Just you. I wish you the best that can be hoped for, and no worse than can be expected.”

“Because when humans come to Fairyland, we’re supposed to trick them and steal from them and whap them about the ears—but we’re also supposed hex them up so that they can see proper-like. Not everything, just enough so as to be dazzled by mushroom glamours, and not so much that we can’t fool you twice with Fairy gold.

We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say, lines on maps are silly.

Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.

though you can have grief without adventures, you cannot have adventures without grief.

Death is not a checkmate … it is more like a carnival trick. You cannot win, no matter how you move your Queen.”

As all mothers know, children travel faster than kisses.

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