Finding Phrases and Quotes to Use in Your Scrapbooks

There are times when I want to convey something in a scrapbook layout beyond the picture and embellishments, even beyond my own journaling. It might be something I heard someone else say, such as one of my own kids who happens to be the focus of the layout in question, or maybe a saying that I recalled from my own childhood. You know those euphemisms that made us all think our parents were either way smarter than we ever would be, or just the opposite, that made us wonder just where or what planet they came from!

Sometimes though, I just cannot come up with something, yet I really wish to include some bit of wisdom or catchy phrase. For those times, I find myself turning to several different sources for both inspiration and direct quotes:

The Internet

The Internet is a wealth of information when it comes to finding that perfect phrase for your next scrapbook layout. If I can recall a poet or author whose quote I would love to include, but just cannot recall verbatim what it was they said or wrote, a quick online search of said poet or author will usually find me what I am in search of. For example, I was creating a layout chronicling my daughter’s early struggles with asthma. I recalled her reluctance to do certain things that might invoke an attack, all the while we coaxed her to do whatever she wanted, that if she worried constantly about having an asthma attack, she would end up spending her life sitting on the sidelines. While I struggled to come up with a simple saying to include, I recalled that Christopher Reeves, actor, and the victim of a riding accident that left him paralyzed, had revealed himself through some very wisdom filled quotes in his later years. By conducting a search for ‘Christopher Reeve Quote’, I was able to find the perfect phrase to include, “Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.”

This same scenario can also work in the opposite direction. If you have a few words of a saying in your head, but cannot remember who is the author, or the complete saying, search for the words you can recall. A good illustration of such a search would be the time I wanted to include an old saying my dad use to quote, but I could only remember the gist of what it was he always said. I searched for ‘a friend is a single soul’, what I discovered was the quote “What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” by Aristotle. I used this beautiful saying on a layout of my daughter and her best friend that she has known since birth, and twenty some years later, they are still best of friends.

Books

Pick up a copy of a book of famous phrases or quotes. A few of my own personal favorites that would make excellent additions to ay scrapbook enthusiast’s bookshelf, include:

Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Common Phrases: And Where They Come From, by Myron Korach

Eavesdrop

Ok, I know this might sound a bit weird, but really, we often hear some very profound words from coworkers and friends in any given week. When you do hear a good one, write it down. If it is an original, give credit on your scrapbook layout by including the name of the person who said it. If you think, you might have heard it before, use the technique chronicled above to search for the saying online, so that you can give credit where credit is due.