A quick word on quoting

I feel like this is a blog that requires rigorous honesty in the most blatant way possible: I love quoting. I love quoting so much that it can turn quite violent at times – like the time I was convinced that “Mayonnaise” was actually my song Billy Corgan embezzled for the Siamese Dream single. Or the time I wrote a research paper on Captain Ahab’s dichotomy of the self - only to realize that I had pieced together a collage of quotes so meticulously that it wasn’t until after I alphabatized my works cited that I realized I had yet to address the point in my own words. This most assuridly places me in the number two category of Graff and Birkenstein’s “The Art of Quoting:” writer’s mistakes.
In defense of my love for quoting, I must say that it is for this very reason that I chose to pursue graduate studies in English Literature. Naturally, if quoting did not appeal to me, I would have taken the MFA in creative writing path. Yet, being apt to the darker side of literary scholarship, and an avid quoter, I probably fit best with those who think that everything original has already been said. But I try not to let this way of thinking curb my desire to say something in a new way, nor to chip away at my confidence and abilities as a writer. Consequently, I have found that over-quoting can easily be whittled down to good-quoting, as the more quotes that I identify with help shape my independent thoughts and feelings based on my own personal experiences.