As I Was Saying …

By Jim Hagarty

If you were to spend a half hour, face-to-face quality time with me, you would scream, by the end of the session and before you stormed out, “Would you please stop with the sayings!”

I’m a sayings junkie. I live my life by quotes. I research quotes on the Internet and I have a fabulous ability to remember them. If I haven’t peppered my conversation with you with at least five quotes, it’s as if we never talked at at all.

Quotes are tailor made for people with short attention spans. But for me, they are also the shorthand of philosophers. (Readers under 40 are just now asking, “What the hell is shorthand?”)

Sayings encourage thought, dress wounds, light fires under asses, and generally, keep us interested in life.

The amazing thing about my association with quotes is every little saying I stumble on is instantly my favourite one. At present, I have about 1,200 favourite ones.

Here is my favourite saying:

“The heart has its reason which reason cannot know.”

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.