(with some answers)
- Who are you?
- How are the quotes chosen?
- Are there any spoilers? No. (Unless explicitly stated.)
- Where are the images taken from and are you allowed to use them?
- You got some things wrong in some places in certain posts&pages. Why?
- You don’t need to justify yourself to anyone. Why did you bother answering the previous question?
Who are you?
I am an avid reader who likes to underline, understand the underlined and learn from it. Of those three things, the first is mostly done in the gym or at night, the third is mostly done away from this blog, the second is what QuiverQuotes is about.
This blog does not define me, but if you join me in studying the scaffolding behind the words that let us grapple with the otherwise unknowable — imagination, history, people and every person’s I —you will get to know me. It’s inevitable, it’s what words do: they show and tell about their author, always.
I am not a professional linguist.
How are the quotes chosen?
I find them in the wild. More accurately, I venture into the wilderness of written words and let the quotes find me. (In my experience the quotes like to poke eyes, box guts, deliver spine shivers, and attach wings to the imagination — although, I’m told the latter isn’t an organ of the body, so scrap that if you’re pedantic.)
Let me drop one layer of metaphor and say that again.
I read a book or a magazine or an article, and when a string of words starts to quiver before my mind’s eye, I note it down. Quiver may seem like a strange word to describe the criterion I use, especially because it encompasses so many different phenomena: from the grammatical mistakes and confusing constructions that make my brain itch, to the funny that makes me laugh, to the enlightening that makes me go aha!, to the beautifully poetic that uplifts a soul I didn’t know I had (really?) and makes me want to sing aloud despite my congenital atonality. Also, whether a quote quivers or not is a matter of concentration, emotional balance, blood sugar content; not to mention experiences, foibles and quirks, inclinations and aversions. This is where I insert the disclaimer again: I’m not a professional linguist, I’m only human.
The disadvantage of this approach is that my source of quotes is as finite as I am (not as infinite as the internet, for example).
The advantage of this approach is that I possess a certain, if partial, context for each quote.
I avoid featuring quotes discussed in detail elsewhere, although in each post I might include illustrative, more famous quotes.
Where are the images taken from and are you allowed to use them?
All the images that I use in the posts are taken from Flikr, from the British Library’s Flickr Commons Project or from Internet Archive Book Images or from Unsplash, unless noted otherwise. Each image from the first two sources has been marked as having no known copyright restrictions by the participating institution or project.
Under “The Commons,” cultural institutions that have reasonably concluded that a photograph is free of copyright restrictions are invited to share such photograph under their new usage guideline called “no known copyright restrictions.”
This does not mean that there isn’t a potential copyright breach somewhere obscure, hiding in the depths of history, so if you are aware of it, please do let me know.
Unsplash photographs are licensed under Creative Commons Zero.
All photos published on Unsplash are licensed under Creative Commons Zero which means you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash.
You got some things wrong in some places in certain posts&pages. Why?
Before I answer your question, it would be kind and helpful if you could let me know what I got wrong, and how I can fix it. But only if you can be specific. Please include references if possible. Thanks!
To answer your question: I was tired, I misread something, I didn’t do my homework properly. I didn’t (at the time of writing, and likely still don’t) have a linguistics degree and twenty years of experience teaching rhetoric and writing. Possibly I got distracted, possibly Life got in the way.
You might have a followup question for me, such as: if you’re so sloppy and so uneducated on the topic, what do you have to offer on QQ?
My answer: My time to investigate the topic, my enthusiasm to investigate the topic, my meagre store of curiosity-directed imagination&intelligence, served up in blog-form, on a screen-platter, for You, dear Reader, for You to spin into something useful or spurn on a whim. A shrug.
You don’t need to justify yourself. Why did you bother answering the previous question?
Yes, thank you, good point. Clearly, I was tired, I misread something, I didn’t …
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A Quiver Of Quotes 