A Commonplace Book

For years I have kept what the English call a commonplace book, a place to write down quotes. I gave it up a few years ago, but have started up again. Re- reading it (or them; I have several volumes), I have discovered things worth adding to the blog, from the whimsical to the serious. I’ll spread some over a few posts, and maybe return later for more samples.

First, two which served as epigrams for an unpublished novel, from the English “travel” writer James Hamilton Patterson and the late novelist Sybille Bedford:

(From JHP): “Virtue and the wild share no common universe.” (Get your mind around that…)

(From SB): “I became intoxicated by their company, and was hard put to keep up, pretending that I, too, had always lived dangerously.”