To quote or not quote, that is the question
We all love a good quote, right?
What’s not to love about a memorable sentence of pithy phrasing that perfectly captures a moment, an incident, a movement or a trend and dips it in the gold of wonderful language?
The only problem, as I see it, is that quotes tend to be used and enjoyed by a small minority of society. They seem increasingly exclusive to the classes fascinated by history, literature and the psychology of the great unwashed.
Quotes were never meant to be thus. By their very nature they are designed to appeal to the common man. To be shared and enjoyed by everyone, no matter what their background.
Shakespeare may seem like high-falluting nonsense to some in the 21st Century but wind his prose back to the day it was written, its rightful context, and it was simply clever use of common parlance.
I find it depressing that great quotes seem destined to be enjoyed by only the academic minority. And seem dependent on the antiquity of their origin for their quotability.
Yet, some of the best quotes, the cleverest, the funniest, the most appealing, have come from just around the corner – the 21st century. And just because they’re ultra-modern doesn’t make them resonate any less than the so-called classics. Today’s quotes by today’s people for today’s society.
Here are a few of my personal modern favourites:
• “I really didn’t foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course – the computer industry didn’t even foresee that the 20th century was going to end.”
Douglas Adams
• “An Asteroid destroying Planet Earth before WE do might be the long shot of the 21st century!”
Heath Byers
• “Can we go back to using Facebook for what it was originally for – looking up exes to see how fat they got?”
Bill Maher
• “The best way to engage honestly with the marketplace via Twitter is to never use the words “engage,” “honestly,” or “marketplace.”
Jeffrey Zeldman
• “A mirror is like my own personal reality TV show — where I’m both the star and only viewer. I’ve got to get my ratings up.
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Jarod Kintz
• “Well, fame is a drug and when you take it away from an addict, things can get ugly.”
Melissa Jo Peltier
• “Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one.”
Jose Mourinho
• “Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about rock n’ roll.”
Shigeru Miyamoto
• “Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.”
Brooke Shields
• “Life is just a journey between Delete and Recycle Bin in which love is a Virus.”
Vikrant Parsai
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