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Collecting Quotes

Browse 387 quotes about Collecting.

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Collecting Quotes

“When he was very young, Auberon had begun a collection of postmarks. On a trip with Doc to the post office in Meadowbrook, he had begun idly examining the wastebaskets, having nothing else to do, and had immediately come up with two treasures: envelopes from places that seemed fantastically distant to him, and looking remarkably crisp for having come so far. It soon developed into a small passion, like Lily's for bird's nests. He insisted on accompanying whoever was traveling near a post office; he conned his friends' mail; he gloated over distant cities, far states whose names began with I, and, rarest of all, names from across the sea. Then one day Joy Flowers, whose granddaughter had lived abroad for a year, gave him a fat brown bag full of envelopes sent her from every part of the world. He could hardly find on the map a place which had not stamped its name on one of these pieces of blue flimsy. Some of them came from places so distant they weren't even in the alphabet he knew. And at a stroke his collection was complete, and his pleasure in it over. No discovery he could make in Meadowbrook's post office could add to it. He never looked at it again.”

ObsessionCollecting
Book:Little, Big
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“This process taught us to test and challenge the prevailing wisdom about the paucity of African American artifacts. What we discovered was a paucity of effort and creativity rather than a scarcity of collections. I hope that our efforts will spur other institutions to embrace community-driven collecting and commit the resources to look inside the basements and garages for material that was once deemed less important to the interpretive agenda of museums. Not every cultural organization will discover items from Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, or Marian Anderson, but every museum that makes the effort will find discover items from Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, or Marian Anderson, but every museum, but every museum that makes the effort will find objects that document the lives, the work, the resiliency, and the dreams of their community.”

HistoryCollectionsMuseumsAfrican AmericansBlacksCollectingAfrican American HistoryCommunities
Book:A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump
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“I have a habit of being an archaeologist of my own past, a sentimental collector of personal artefacts which may at first glance appear random, but each of which holds a unique significance. As the years pass me by, I find that the number of objects within my possession begins to accumulate. A torn map. A sealed letter. A boat full of paper animals. Each item encapsulates within itself a story, akin to an outward manifestation of my inner journey.”

NostalgiaCollectingArchaeology
Book:The Desire for Elsewhere
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“There are people like Senhor José everywhere, who fill their time, or what they believe to be their spare time, by collecting stamps, coins, medals, vases, postcards, matchboxes, books, clocks, sport shirts, autographs, stones, clay figurines, empty beverage cans, little angels, cacti, opera programmes, lighters, pens, owls, music boxes, bottles, bonsai trees, paintings, mugs, pipes, glass obelisks, ceramic ducks, old toys, carnival masks, and they probably do so out of something that we might call metaphysical angst, perhaps because they cannot bear the idea of chaos being the one ruler of the universe, which is why, using their limited powers and with no divine help, they attempt to impose some order on the world, and for a short while they manage it, but only as long as they are there to defend their collection, because when the day comes when it must be dispersed, and that day always comes, either with their death or when the collector grows weary, everything goes back to its beginnings, everything returns to chaos.”

DeathOrderChaosHobbiesCollecting
Book:All the Names
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“...because you are not trying simply to complete a set of books or toys or Weetabix cards, you are trying to complete yourself, to get back to the whole person you were before, as a child, before the obstructions and compromises of adulthood got in the way. And yet, all you are really doing is accumulating a pile of crap, souvenirs of the futility of the quest.”

ChildhoodNostalgiaMaturityAdulthoodCollecting
Book:Adventures with the Wife in Space
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“Where would tourism be without a little luxury and a taste of night life? There were several cities on Deanna, all moderate in size, but the largest was the capital, Atro City. For the connoisseur of fast-foods, Albrechts’ famous hotdogs and coldcats were sold fresh from his stall (Albrecht’s Takeaways) on Lupini Square. For the sake of his own mental health he had temporarily removed Hot Stuff Blend from the menu. The city was home to Atro City University, which taught everything from algebra and make-up application to advanced stamp collecting; and it was also home to the planet-famous bounty hunter – Beck the Badfeller. Beck was a legend in his own lifetime. If Deanna had any folklore, then Beck the Badfeller was one of its main features. He was the local version of Robin Hood, the Davy Crockett of Deanna. The Local rumor mill had it he was so good he could find the missing day in a leap year. Once, so the story goes, he even found a missing sock.”

LifeMissingTaughtLifetimeUniversitySizeLuxuryFeaturesStoryApplicationCityCollectingSockEverythingHoodCapitalTheFolkloreToLittleBountyAndAllOfYearForHeThereFromMenuWasLocalWhereMake UpWereOnceHadSquareGoesModerateBlendDavyMillBeckDeannaStallBadfellerAlbrecht SAtroColdcatsCrockettFast FoodsPlanet Famous
Book:Loderunner
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“This has led some scholars to suggest that collecting is a way of managing fears about death by creating a form of immortality. This is consistent with a popular theory in social psychology called the terror management theory (TMT). TMT grows out of an existential predicament--that people, like animals, are mortal. But unlike animals, we are aware of our own mortality. Knowledge of the inevitability of death and its unpredictability can produce paralyzing fear. To cope with this potential terror, cultures provide beliefs, rituals, and sanctioned strategies for managing it. One of these strategies is the belief that some part of ourselves can live on after we die. Producing or amassing something of value is one way to accomplish this. Thus a collection offers the potential for immortality.”

CollectionsCollecting
Book:Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things
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“The items people own reveal something about the owners. Every quaint item that a person selects to surround themselves with has a basic quiddity, the essence, or inherent nature of things. As a people, we assign a value meaning not only to the things that we presently possess, but also to the items destined for one generation to hand down to the next generation.”

GiftsCollectingAntiquesGift QuotesBequestQuiddity
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“The library will endure; it is the universe. As for us, everything has not been written; we are not turning into phantoms. We walk the corridors, searching the shelves and rearranging them, looking for lines of meaning amid leagues of cacophony and incoherence, reading the history of the past and our future, collecting our thoughts and collecting the thoughts of others, and every so often glimpsing mirrors, in which we may recognize creatures of the information.”

HumansCultureUnderstandingInformationIdentityInternetReflectionPatternsHuman ConditionIntrospectionCollectingCyberspaceWorldviewsSensemakingInformation Overflow
Book:The Library of Babel
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“It was because of the war, Daddy had once confided in them--- everything she loved had been lost when that bomb fell on her family home... and turned her past to rubble. She'd been determined her children would never suffer the same fate. She might not be able to spare them every heartache, but she could damn well make sure they knew where to find their class photo when they wanted it. Their mother's passion for things, for possessions---objects that could be held in one's hands and invested with deeper meaning---had verged on obsessive, her enthusiasm for collecting so great that is was hard not to fall in line. Everything was kept; nothing thrown away; traditions adhered to religiously.”

WarFamilyFamily RelationshipsCollectingMother S LoveFamily TraditionsFamily Heirlooms
Book:The Secret Keeper
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“I've been collecting photos for a long time, I mean since I started making money. But what you have had to go through to find a good photo is like a needle in the haystack sometimes. You'll drive from one gallery to the next gallery to the next gallery. It's not an easy process. It's a very ancient model that just hasn't caught up with the times.”

MeanLongSometimesNextEasyProcessLong TimeModelsAncientCaughtMaking MoneyCaught UpCollectingGalleryNeedlesGood Photo
Author:Guy Oseary
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“I found so-called great art too pompous, too stiff. What at this time was called minor art was freer, more imaginative, more open to all kinds of unorthodox expression, all kinds of daring in the handling of materials, and I preferred to surround myself with this type of art than with the great collectors' pieces. I had always in my mind that I was collecting for learning.”

MindKindArtFoundPiecesGreatnessExpressionMaterialsTypeAll KindsSurroundDaringMinorsGreat ArtImaginativeCollectingCollectorsPompousUnorthodox
Author:Jacques Lipchitz
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“Individuals interested in donating can call The Bridge. We do still need food, paper products, money, cleaning supplies - if people could call and coordinate donations. People loved donating clothing to The Bridge - it was an avenue; if they could put their focus on collecting cleaning supplies - toilet paper, food etc. - these items are a priority.”

PeopleIfsNeedsStillsIndividualFocusProductsPaperPrioritiesBridgesEtcClothingsCleaningItemsToiletsAvenuesCollectingSuppliesCleanlinessDonationCoordinatesToilet Paper
Author:Maggie Elizabeth Jones
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“The tide of visitors will float slowly about the bottom of the valley as harmless scum collecting in hotel and saloon eddies, leaving the rocks and falls eloquent as ever.”

FallRocksBottomLeavingHotelClimbingValleysTidesFloatsCollectingVisitorsEloquentScumSaloons
Book:JOHN MUIR Ultimate Collection: Travel Memoirs, Wilderness Essays, Environmental Studies & Letters (Illustrated): Picturesque California, The Treasures of the Yosemite, Our National Parks, Steep Trails, Travels in Alaska, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf, Save the Redwoods, The Cruise of the Corwin and more
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“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.”

IfsDoeFreedomMistakeLibertyStruggleIndiaMaking MistakesCollectingJulyFreedom And LibertyMade A MistakeFreedom LibertyFreedom Of ExpressionFreedom Of ChoiceMy MistakesSuccess FailureLife StruggleTrue FreedomGreat MistakesI Make MistakesWe All Make MistakesI Have Made MistakesI Made A MistakeMy StruggleLearning By DoingLife MistakesNot Worth ItIndependence And FreedomGreat FreedomLearn From My MistakesLift You UpMaking Mistakes And Learning From ThemLife Is A StruggleInspirational FreedomMistakes Were MadeStruggle For FreedomGood Mistake
Book:Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi
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“The need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if Congress provided an appropriation for the proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties, an appropriation ample enough to meet the necessity for thorough organization and machinery, which requires a large expenditure of money. Then the stipulation should be made that no party receiving campaign funds from the Treasury should accept more than a fixed amount from any individual subscriber or donor; and the necessary publicity for receipts and expenditures could without difficulty be provided.”

IfsNeedsShouldMadeEnoughIndividualPartyAcceptingAmountOrganizationDifficultyCongressCampaignsFixedFundExpensesReceivingMachineryPublicityCollectingThoroughTreasuryExpendituresDonorsAppropriationReceiptsStipulations
Book:THEODORE ROOSEVELT - Ultimate Collection: Memoirs, History Books, Biographies, Essays, Speeches &Executive Orders: America and the World War, The Ancient Irish Sagas, The Naval War of 1812, Hero Tales From American History, Winning of the West, Through the Brazilian Wilderness, History as Literature...
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