Identifying Recent Notable Quotables

ONE of my favorite ways to procrastinate in high school was to flip through Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. I would write down my favorite quotes and feel good about all the time I was saving by only reading the best lines of the best works of literature.

The edition in my house, however, only went up to the year 1965. So, upon going to Harvard, where I figured it would be even more useful to have a superficial knowledge of cultural history, I decided to get a new, updated Bartlett's: the "Fifteenth and 125th Anniversary Edition."

My revised and enlarged edition had statements that were made as recently as 1977. "O, Joy of Joys!" I cried, as I clasped my latest possession to my chest, and I eagerly perused the end of the book for the quotations taken from the 1960s and 1970s, those decades of unforgettable utterances.

My first disappointment was not seeing anything from Dark Side of the Moon. Pink Floyd's lyricist wasn't even listed in the index of authors. What upset me further was that an anonymous former Bartlett's editor described the quotations as "what looks to be most memorable of man's joy, suspicion, and dismay."

Who are the people whose sayings must be collected as a "valuable resource...for the speaker, writer, and student," as the book jacket says? Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger, Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin, just to name a few.

Even worse than the recent "authors" selected were the quotations themselves. Certainly, John Lennon and Paul McCartney deserve to be in Bartlett's, but a little more thought should have been given to the utility of the quotes listed. When is anyone going to say, "As Lennon and McCartney once sang, I'll tell you something I think you'll understand/Then I'll say that something/I want to hold your hand?"

I realize that there is yet to be a rock lyricist who writes nearly as well as Pope or Dickinson, but some of these citations are just embarrassing. There are lyrics with more literary merit and more social impact than, "You are the sunshine of my life/That's why I'll always stay around." (Stevie Wonder, 1972)

Right above Stevie Wonder's great lines sits a passage of Steven Biko's testimony that eloquently discusses the meaning of Black consciousness. Now, if I were Stevie Wonder, I'd feel pretty silly comparing my two-line cliche that sold a bunch of records to monumental statements made by one of the best known martyrs to the cause of racial equality.

On the other hand, directly after Wonder's quote, the section labeled "Anonymous" begins by citing the Cuckoo Song form the year 1250: "Summer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu! Groweth sed, and bloweth med, and springth the wude nu--Sing cuccu!" I suppose in the context of the latter, "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," doesn't sound so silly.

The editor unwittingly displayed sound judgment by putting Stevie Wonder between Biko and "Anonymous," for I suppose that that is where Wonder will land when historians and literary critics evaluate his impact.

Stevie Wonder, however, is not the real problem. The problem is the judgment of the Bartlett's editors, who have put together a book which one hopes would show cultural progress but instead indicates cultural decay. Who cares if Muhammed Ali said, "I am the greatest?" Lots of other arrogant jerks have also said the same thing, but I don't see any cross-references.

BUT I could be wrong. Maybe Ali's quote really is more original than Tennyson's "And from his ashes be made/The violet of his native land," which has two cross-references. Or maybe I'm right, and the editors didn't feel like selling a separate appendix listing all the other people who claimed greatness.

Is this tripe the culmination of several thousand years of man's reflections? Let us all "say `No! in thunder," (Herman Melville) to Mick Jagger's "Sympathy for the Devil." Jagger and pop culture have better things to offer than what has been given to us here.

Where's "In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make?" And how about, "All you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be?" There are famous sayings out there that don't sound so ridiculous. Why can't we have them?

Yeah, I know, I know. "You can't always get what you want." Sigh.