#108: Snagging sentences from obscure sources

I like to capture sentences like Nabokov used to capture butterflies. There is a special joy in capturing a sentence floating out loud in the air that has never been written. People say fascinating things all the time, and they go unrecorded and forgotten. Until someone writes them down, or is listening closely enough to remember.

Sentences can be found in books, and books are really the museum and canvas and showcase of the sentence. But so are pamphlets, and obscure journals. It’s fun to quote Twain and Dickens and Jesus, but there is a special joy in snagging a sentence from Jim Johnson writing in the Summer 2017 Bulletin of the Oregon Entomological Society. Check out this beauty:

I have gotten into the habit of checking for moths around the exterior lights of public restrooms lately-while carrying a camera, and my wife is sure that this activity will land me in jail some day.