the Collector

1:Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism -- victimless collecting, as it were... in a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments. ~ Susan Sontag,

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1:Like the collector, the photographer is animated by a passion that, even when it appears to be for the present, is linked to a sense of the past. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove

2:Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism - victimless collecting, as it were... in a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove

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1:My brother had boxes of comic books. He was really the collector. ~ Michael Shanks,

2:After Strangelove I also started work on an adaptation of The Collector. ~ Terry Southern,

3:Ever the collector of treasure maps that promised the world but led nowhere. ~ Justina Chen,

4:The collector walks with blinders on; he sees nothing but the prize. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh,

5:Every passion borders on chaos, that of the collector on the chaos of memory. ~ Walter Benjamin,

6:—The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of the collector of prepuces. ~ James Joyce,

7:Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories. ~ Walter Benjamin,

8:Collections do not leave the collector unaffected. The art of collecting results in a certain turn of mind. ~ Douglas Wilson,

9:Not everyone, the Collector was aware, is improved by the job he does in life; some people are visibly disimproved. ~ J G Farrell,

10:As Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. Only in extinction is the collector comprehend. ~ Walter Benjamin,

11:I've decided that art is a habit-forming drug. That's all it is, for the artist, for the collector, for anybody connected with it. ~ Marcel Duchamp,

12:The scarcity of the music not only makes the music itself enjoyable but it also gives the collector a strange sense of superiority. ~ Henry Rollins,

13:Like the collector, the photographer is animated by a passion that, even when it appears to be for the present, is linked to a sense of the past. ~ Susan Sontag,

14:The collector walks with blinders on; he sees nothing but the prize. In fact, the acquisitive instinct is incompatible with true appreciation of beauty. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh,

15:My heart did not accept the collector's advice -and I always listen to my heart. What the collector said might be true but what would I lose- just a few hundred rupees? ~ Sudha Murty,

16:The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them. ~ Walter Benjamin,

17:The passion of the collector when confronted with a rare item, the enthusiasm of a hunter who sees a fine, handsome beast, can give us no idea of the tremendous love of clothes in some women. ~ Benito P rez Gald s,

18:Added to this, more than half of the five thousand manuscript pages which now remain to us, are written on loose leaves, and at present arranged in a manner which has no justification beyond the fancy of the collector ~ Anonymous,

19:The Collector [John Fowles book] does such a good job of capturing the mindset of a capturer, and also that's become a banal trope of every second crime novel: the weirdo, fetishistic watcher/stalker/kidnapper/kidnapper of women or children. ~ Emma Donoghue,

20:Share your enthusiasm with the collector's enthusiasm for the work, and discover things together. Be nice and appreciative and at the same time give them the hint that you're a winner so they believe they've made a good investment. It's simple common sense. ~ Mark Kostabi,

21:Is this not the collector's exquisite pleasure, that his desire should know no bounds, should reach out into the infinite, should never know full possession which disappoints by its very completeness. O what joy to be able to postpone the fulfillment of desire to infinity! ~ Georges Rodenbach,

22:Literature is called adabiyat in Islam precisely because it is seen as the keeper of a civilization and the collector of teachings and statements that educate the self and society with adab such that both are elevated to the rank of the cultured man (insan adabi) and society. ~ Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud,

23:O bliss of the collector, bliss of the man of leisure! Of no one has less been expected and no one has had a greater sense of well-being than... a collector. Ownership is the most intimate relationship one can have to objects. No t that they come alive in him; it is he who comes alive in them. ~ Walter Benjamin,

24:A great private collection is a material concentrate that continually stimulates, that overexcites. Not only because it can always be added to, but because it is already too much. The collector’s need is precisely for excess, for surfeit, for profusion. It’s too much—and it’s just enough for me. … A collection is always more than is necessary. ~ Susan Sontag,

25:The accumulator, with his acquisitions stuffed into boxes in no apparent order, is every bit as acceptable a philatelist as the collector trying slowly and painstakingly to fill, with flawlessly centered, post office-fresh examples, all the spaces in a single hingeless album. We’re all in this together, and I figure whatever system we devise for ourselves is just fine. ~ Lawrence Block,

26:Many of the agents Douglas met during his travels had much more soul than a beaver skin, and developed lifelong friendships with the collector. One of those was Archibald McDonald, whom Douglas had asked to help replace his chewed-up grouse skins. Archie’s mixed-blood son Ranald, who knew Douglas between the ages of one and ten, later recalled him as a close companion of his youth. John ~ Jack Nisbet,

27:Just let the artist sign an empty canvas or a frame, with the inscription, 'I had such and such a concept in mind' for this work. The artist then need not bother with producing the work, and therefore need not be worried about being dis-satisfied. All he or she needs to do is to sell it to a collector. The collector will have the guarantee that the artist thought about the work, even if momentarily, and therefore be satisfied. ~ Semir Zeki,

28:It's very soon done, sir, isn't it?' inquired Mr. Folair of the collector, leaning over the table to address him.
What is soon done, sir?' returned Mr. Lillyvick.
The tying up, the fixing oneself with a wife,' replied Mr. Folair. 'It don't take long, does it?'
No, sir,' replied Mr. Lillyvick, colouring. 'It does not take long. And what then, sir?'
Oh! nothing,' said the actor. 'It don't take a man long to hang himself, either, eh? Ha, ha! ~ Charles Dickens,

29:Things are not yet perfect, of course,’ sighed the Collector. ‘All the same, I should go so far as to say that in the long run a superior civilization such as ours is irresistible. By combining our advances in science and in morality we have so obviously found the best way of doing things. Truth cannot be resisted! Er, that’s to say, not successfully,’ the Collector added as a round shot struck the corner of the roof and toppled one of the pillars of the verandah ~ J G Farrell,

30:And adab towards language means the recognition and acknowledgement of the rightful and proper place of every word in a written or uttered sentence so as not to produce a dissonance in meaning, sound and concept. Literature is called adabiyat in Islam precisely because it is seen as the keeper of civilization, the collector of teachings and statements that educate the self and society with adab such that both are elevated to the rank of the cultured man (insan adabi) and society. ~ Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud,

31:Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism -- victimless collecting, as it were... in a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments. ~ Susan Sontag,

32:Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism -- victimless collecting, as it were... in a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments. ~ Susan Sontag,

33:I was delighted to see them, and wondered at the bargain I’d landed, until I learned enough about them to realize that what I had were Seebecks. One N. F. Seebeck had a contract with the government of Nicaragua to supply the country with stamps, and retained the right to reprint them for the collector market. He apparently did so in great profusion, and one result a century later was that my own personal interest in the stamps of Nicaragua (and other Seebeck countries, like El Salvador and Ecuador) dwindled. ~ Lawrence Block,

34:The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them. Everything remembered and thought, everything conscious, becomes the pedestal, the frame, the base, the lock of his property. The period, the region, the craftsmanship, the former ownership—for a true collector the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia whose quintessence is the fate of his object. ~ Walter Benjamin,

35:They had started speaking of “women and children”—that phrase that exempts the male from sanity when it has been repeated a few times. Each felt that all he loved best in the world was at stake, demanded revenge, and was filled with a not unpleasing glow, in which the chilly and half-known features of Miss Quested vanished, and were replaced by all that is sweetest and warmest in private life. “But it’s the women and children,” they repeated, and the Collector knew he ought to stop them intoxicating themselves, but he hadn’t the heart. ~ E M Forster,

36:What an advantage that knowledge can be stored in books! The knowledge lies there like hermetically sealed provisions waiting for the day when you may need a meal. Surely what the Collector was doing as he pored over his military manuals, was proving the superiority of the European way of doing things, of European culture itself. This was a culture so flexible that whatever he needed was there in a book at his elbow. An ordinary sort of man, he could, with the help of an oil-lamp, turn himself into a great military engineer, a bishop, an explorer or a General overnight, if the fancy took him. ~ J G Farrell,

37:She turned the next several pages and found a black-ink drawing on a slip of typing paper, a nude woman holding a round fruit to her mouth. Jess plucked it out and read the collector's tiny caption: "Do I dare to eat a peach?"
"Will you?" George asked, closing the book and placing it atop the cabinet.
"Maybe," Jess said lightly. "Do you have any?"
"No peaches."
"Oh, well. I can't ruin this dress, anyway."
Words he took as permission to look openly at her. The fabric of her dress, gray and wrinkled at first glance, was really silver. No one else would wear fabric like that, rustling with every breath. ~ Allegra Goodman,

38:Who are you? She asked silently, as she laid away the collector's quotations, his drawings, his scraps of famous poetry: "Come live with me and be my love..." interleaved with menus: 'oysters, fish stew, tortoise in its shell, bread from the oven, honey from the honeycomb.' The books were unsplattered but much fingered, their pages soft with turning and re-turning, like collections of old fairy tales. Often Jess thought of Rapunzel and golden apples and enchanted gardens. She thought of Ovid, and Dante, and Cervantes, and the Pre-Raphaelites, for sometimes McClintock pictured his beloved eating, and sometimes sleeping in fields of poppies, and once throned like Persephone, with strawberry vines entwined in her long hair. ~ Allegra Goodman,

39:For a day or two Fleury became quite active. He had his book about the advance of civilization in India to consider and this was one reason why he had taken an interest in the behaviour of the Collector. He asked a great number of questions and even bought a notebook to record pertinent information.
"Why, if the Indian people are happier under our rule," he asked a Treasury official, "do they not emigrate from those native states like Hyderabad which are so dreadfully misgoverned and come and live in
British India?"
"The apathy of the native is well known," replied the official stiffly. "He is not enterprising."
Fleury wrote down "apathy" in a flowery hand and then, after a moment's hesitation, added "not enterprising". ~ J G Farrell,

40:He has a very nice face and style, really," said Mrs. Kenwigs.
"He certainly has," added Miss Petowker. "There's something in his appearance quite--dear, dear, what's the word again?"
"What word?" inquired Mr. Lillyvick.
"Why--dear me, how stupid I am!" replied Miss Petowker, hesitating. "What do you call it when lords break off doorknockers, and beat policemen, and play at coaches with other people's money, and all that sort of thing?"
"Aristocratic?" suggested the collector.
"Ah! Aristocratic," replied Miss Petowker; "something very aristocratic about him, isn't there?"
The gentlemen held their peace, and smiled at each other, as who should say, "Well! there's no accounting for tastes;" but the ladies resolved unanimously that Nicholas had an aristocratic air, and nobody caring to dispute the position, it was established triumphantly. ~ Charles Dickens,

41:Huh. The Collector is here. That should make for an interesting bit of bidding.” “The Collector?” I asked. “What’s that?” “Not what. Who. His name is Pontius Aquila.” She pointed with one gnarled finger at a man with sharp features and silvering hair seated in the second row of the stands. He sat beneath a fringed shade, tended to by an oiled, muscular slave. Aquila’s robes were also fringed and banded with a purple stripe. He glared above the heads of the audience as if their presence were not worth acknowledging. “He’s a politician with a fancy title, the so-called Tribune of the Plebs, but he’s as base as they come.” She snorted. “No manners, and rich off other people’s money. But he knows a valuable piece of flesh when he sees it. And he’ll stop at nothing to add to his collection once he does. I’ve seen his bullyboys start brawls at the auctions if he’s outbid. ~ Lesley Livingston,

42:What an advantage that knowledge can be stored in books! The knowledge lies there like hermetically sealed provisions waiting for the day when you may need a meal. Surely what the Collector was doing as he pored over his military manuals, was proving the superiority of the European way of doing things, of European culture itself. This was a culture so flexible that whatever he needed was there in a book at his elbow. An ordinary sort of man, he could, with the help of an oil-lamp, turn himself into a great military engineer, a bishop, an explorer or a General overnight, if the fancy took him. As the Collector pored over his manuals, from time to time rubbing his tired eyes, he knew that he was using science and progress to help him out of his difficulties and he was pleased. The inventions on his desk, the carriage which supplied its own track and the effervescent drinking vessel, watched him in silent admiration as he worked. The ~ J G Farrell,

43: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 [...], 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. ~ Jos Saramago,

44: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. ~ Jos Saramago,

45:If it were not for collectors England would be full, so to speak, of rare birds and wonderful butterflies, strange flowers and a thousand interesting things. But happily the collector prevents all that, either killing with his own hands or, by buying extravagantly, procuring people of the lower classes to kill such eccentricities as appear.
...
Eccentricity, in fact, is immorality--think over it again if you do not think so now--just as eccentricity in one's way of thinking is madness (I defy you to find another definition that will fit all the cases of either); and if a species is rare it follows that it is not Fitted to Survive. The collector is after all merely like the foot soldier in the days of heavy armour-he leaves the combatants alone and cuts the throats of those who are overthrown. So one may go through England from end to end in the summer time and see only eight or ten commonplace wild flowers, and the commoner butterflies, and a dozen or so common birds, and never be offended by any breach of the monotony. ~ H G Wells,

46:Raincoat
I entered the room
Took the raincoat off
Draped it over the peg.
Turned around, suddenly
Looked at it long.
It looked like me
Suspended from the peg.
The very same shoulders,
Long unwieldy arms, and
Upper back
The same stature and
Girth of neck collar here.
Buttons unsettled by the pull
Of buttonholes.
I looked at it well
I looked at it all over.
Opened the door and
Walked out.
Walked out of this length
Of clothes.
This establishment
This shop.
Two unknown men came,
Asked them:
"Any personal effects
Of the deceased?
Any old clothes, skullcap,
Scribblings, notes,
Unpublished poems?
He took to wearing
A raincoat
Towards the end."
"Yes! He had this coat.
It hung from a peg
Upstairs.
One could not bear to
See it, initially. Then
We wore it one day.
Wore it till it suited us
28
Then it lay around.
Some days ago
A rag collector came.
We sold it to him, finally.
Say, why did you need it? "
"We required it, of course,
For the literary museum.
Who did you sell it to?
Any identifying mark?
We might still
Find it."
"But how/
How do you expect
To get it
From the mountain of rags
At the collector's?
How will you fish it out?
As for the identifying mark, well
Yes!
Embroidered on the inner
Lining, was the
Label
‘Sheikh Ilahi Tailor Master'"
(Courtesy: Braj B. Kachru, Kashmiri Literature; , Gems of Kashmiri Literature;
Kasmir, Canada)
~ Dina Nath Nadim,

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