In Praise of Quotations
Over the course of my career, I have made (altogether too) many presentations. I am not that charismatic a speaker and so I like to use props. Things like obscure and, at first glance, disconnected-from-plot paraphernalia, a little management by walking around, dazzling graphics that may or may not move around, just clever enough quips, judicious pauses and…in its proper place…the perfect quotation.
Concepts are the
Quotations – at least the good ones, used often and mangled often enough – eventually morph into maxims, aphorisms and proverbs. I don’t know the difference between the three. I am pretty sure that maxims are things your grandmother would have said while administering doses of cod liver oil. As in: “He deserves not the sweet that will not taste the sour.” Aphorisms are cicada-like creatures that clickety-click all night; they are short and sweet. As in: “Waste not, want not”. Clickety-click.
If they are unlucky enough, quotations or proverbs or whatever they become in the process of transition, will end up as clichés. Perfect quotes, especially if they become separated from he or she that did first utter them, could decline rapidly from hoity toity to hoi polloi. I have no idea how they have acquired the essence of backwash. They are clichés, after all, because they are timeless and because they are universal. They are truths against which there are no rebuttals. All this should, in theory, elevate their status; it should give them the scent of aristocracy. It should, but it doesn’t.
