Mr Brault’s hidden treasures

If you’ve spent much time at all on The Quote Garden, you’ll have noticed that one of my most frequently quoted authors is Robert Brault. I’m grateful that he allows me to freely post his extensive wit and wisdom in my collection. He publishes many of his writings to his blog, The New Robert Brault Reader, but did you know that he has also published books in which you can find some new material that isn’t posted online? Below is a summary of his six books. Follow the links for more information and to purchase online or to request inscribed, signed copies from Mr Brault directly.


Round Up The Usual Subjects
published 2014
a thousand original thoughts from his first blog which is no longer accessible on the internet

The Second Collection
published 2015
700 quotations, plus humor pieces, personal vignettes, and longer poems

Short Thoughts For The Long Haul
published 2017
the signature collection of Robert Brault quotes, an anthology of 1200+ favorites from his first two books and from the original quotes-only edition of the Reflections book

Thoughts On Art & Artists
published 2019
original insights into the world of art and artists, enhanced by his wife Joan Brault’s beautiful artwork, 75 pages

Reflections: Expanded Edition
published 2019
the most diverse collection of Mr Brault’s writings and his own personal favorite book, it includes not only quotations but also essays, reminiscences, and selected correspondence

A Few For The Road
published 2021
recent writings from 2020–2021, and about a third of this 131‑page book is new material, including some verse

Image information:  book cover detail from Reflections: Expanded Edition, a watercolor titled “Fall Pond” painted by the author’s wife, Joan Brault

What I do

“I read a book and pick out the quotes.”
altered prose by Terri Guillemets, 2019
from The Man Who Loved Jane Austen
by Sally Smith O'Rourke, 2001, page 53

There’s a quotemark in my lunch!

What a quotatious day I had. First there was lunch at a salad buffet where my radishes were shaped like quotation marks or speech bubbles! And after work I relaxed by flipping on the TV to a rerun of The Middle, and it turned out to be the episode (S3,E6) in which Brick repeatedly quotes Shakespeare. Ahhh, some days are just better than others.

“I do remember him... like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring. When ’a was naked, he was for all the world like a fork’d radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife.” ~William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II  [III, 2, Falstaff]

“My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
To say as I said then! But, come, away;
Get me ink and paper...”
~William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra  [I, 5, Cleopatra]

“’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.” ~William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well  [IV, 5, Lafeu]

And, as if life couldn’t get much sweeter, while trying to find an appropriate quotation for this blog entry I happened upon a book from the 1800s, The Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare by H. N. Ellacombe, in which the quotes are all related to gardening, plants, and flowers. What a find!

As is the generation of leaves

Apparently quotation collecting is genetic. Ten years ago, which was 18 years after I had already become obsessed with quotes, I learned that my great-grandmother Amy kept a notebook of inspirational quotations. She was born in 1896 and died before I was born. My grandma found the book and that is how it came to me. Based on the dates of the first items, it appears to be about a hundred years old. The first item that is dated is from 1919, and the last entry with a date is from 1969. Click photos to enlarge.

“As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity.
The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber
Burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning.
So one generation of men will grow while another dies.”
—Homer

Altering prose

I remember in the mid-1980s doing blackout poetry (as it is now called — also known as found poetry, poetry in prose, altered prose, etc.) with my friends after learning about it from an English teacher. I’ve been a lover of words for as long as I can remember but somehow forgot about that fun hobby over the years. Recently I rediscovered it thanks to this beautiful thing called the world wide web, and so I grabbed my old falling-apart 50¢ paperback of The Scarlet Letter and started playing around again with these wordly treasure hunts after nearly three decades. And what a good time I’m having.

Here’s a photo of one of my first adventures. It reads: “Hester unadulterated. The end.” 🤣 Click to enlarge.

The problem with blackout poetry is the destruction of books which of course makes me cringe, but I’m intending to leave my books intact and not literally blackout many words so that the books are slowly turned into readable art. Some people make a copy of the page instead of modifying the actual book, which seems like a good idea as well.

This pastime is such a fulfilling creative outlet. To all the authors whose works I end up modifying, I offer sincerest of advance apologies. I will try my darndest to create new written art without disrespecting your original words (too much).

John Ruskin — first user of emoticons?

I’m pretty sure I see a winky face in Ruskin’s 1879 book Proserpina  ;)

Old Sage faux quotes collage

I saw this creative handmade advertisement in Prescott, Arizona on a bulletin board outside The Old Sage Bookshop. It’s a lovely shop with some awesome old books. Drop in if you ever visit the area, they’re at Whiskey Row. Click photo to enlarge. This adorable collage was made using The Unemployed Philosophers Guild Quotable Notables, which they sell in the shop. I bought the Edgar Allan Poe for bookshelf decor along with some vintage books.

Quotations about quotations

Recently I've been reading some fascinating books on the history and genre of quotations, most notably Quotology by Willis Goth Regier. I've also spent hundreds of hours improving the accuracy and depth of my “Quotations about Quotations” page on The Quote Garden by tracing down original works for verification and culling a couple of hundred new items not posted on any other website, both from the long-lost treasures on Google Books and from my own collection of dusty books. I am quite certain that I’ve accumulated over the past 26 years what is the world's largest collection of quotes about quotes. If not, it is certainly the most accessible large collection.

I found it exciting to learn that people have been taking delight in quotations — and struggling with misquotation — for centuries. Quotation anthologies have been around for ages, but according to Willis Goth Regier, “The watershed for compendia was in the mid‑1850s.” Imagine how much more abundant the watershed — or how much earlier — had the internet been around back in the day!

While researching the origin and context of the quotations, I would frequently get sidetracked reading antique gems of books and authors, stumbling upon some of the most amazing writing that is still sparkling and relevant up to this very day. I'd like to share one of my finds with you all. I was trying to locate the origin of this quote:

          “Shake was a dramatist of note;
          He lived by writing things to quote...”

Thanks to Google Books, I was able to determine the author as V. Hugo Dusenbury. The full poem was posted in the January 28th 1880 edition of Puck, and it is so good I resurrect it here 132 years later for your reading pleasure — click the image to view full-size. The entire Puck periodical, in fact, was brimming with cleverness and I spent quite a happy time perusing it.

If you’d like to browse my new and improved page of quotations about quotations, you can find it here: www.quotegarden.com/quotations.html. My most heartfelt gratitude goes out to all the ancient and modern persons who have pointed the way and left behind clues for where to focus my searches over the years which have led me to all these glorious “choice flowers, culled from the gardens of Poesy” (H.G. Adams).

Update, November 2012:  Thanks to Garson O’Toole, The Quote Investigator, I’ve learned that V. Hugo Dusenbury was a pseudonym of Henry Cuyler Bunner, the editor of Puck.

My kind of fashion

Check out this fantastic purse made from the book cover to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Now that is my style of accessory! For years I've been saying that quotes are always in fashion, but this is the first time I've meant it literally.

This is the creation of Linda Sienkiewicz, Rokki Fashion Handbags. Visit her on Etsy at @RokkiHandbags.

"...far more seemly were it for thee to have thy study full of books than thy purse full of money." ~John Lyly

Short history of grammar: quotemarks

A few months ago I found this adorable comic drawn by Eric (a.k.a. Odysseus) titled “Short history of grammar: quotemarks.” I love it! His works are shared under the Free Art License which grants the right to freely copy, distribute, and transform. Click the image below to view in full size. The French translates to: “And that's how you were born...”

Update, February 2020:  Eric's website at the time of this blog post was lerelibre.net, but it's no longer a valid site and I've lost track of him. Eric, if you have a new website I can link to, please let me know!

Give thanks... keep fighting

Finished another Twitter create your own quote contest today. The prompt was “Give thanks” and the winner is Fernanda (@bfersapiens) with her inspiring words “Give thanks for what you are now, and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow.” Thanks, Fernanda, and to everyone who participated in the contest! The full results page is located here: www.quotegarden.com/contest-20091105.html