Reading Fast, Writing Slow

On keeping a notebook, copying out passages from your reading, and why it's worth remembering certain things.

Whenever I sit down to read, I make sure that my BOB is nearby. BOB, I should explain, stands for Book of Books, and I copy into it beautiful or noteworthy passages from my reading. Before opening the novel (and releasing, if very lucky, the sticky cracking sound of the cover pulling away from the fresh top page and the spine acquiescing to pressure like your vertebrae popping as you stretch), I open my Book of Books and note the month and year, then I write the title and author. It looks something like this:

March, 2021
“The Way the World Works”, Nicholson Baker

Any time I come across a line I want to remember, I scribble down the page number and then copy it out in full. I always use quotation marks, to remind myself that the thing I’m quoting comes from another’s mind. There is an inherent solipsism to the act of compiling one’s favourite quotations, which we do well to transform from narcissism into necromancy: we are bringing back to life those who have died in body but who, in mind…