When You Only Cite, What You Are Saying Comes Across As Trite - Grasshopper

I love a good quote and, like you, I have my favorites. Where a red flag goes up is when I experience someone who is forever telling me what someone else said. They may as well say, “My creativity is dead.”

Citing someone in your term paper or to punctuate a story you are telling is the spice that underscores the point. When your only point continually comes from someone else, it’s no longer your point; it’s theirs.

 

You could easily host a TV Show called “Shilling for Quotes.” You would have the polished facade of a game show host with the pearly smile and have nothing to say other than what you’re reading off a card.

 

My experience with someone who serially cites is that they are feeling hollow inside. There is no substance that they are drawing on, so they draw with someone else’s pencil.

 

Beneath this hollow surface is a treasure trove of unfiltered substance. It’s from there that authenticity springs.

 

I would rather experience someone’s depth than his or her depth of knowledge. I can’t Google their depth; I can only get it from them.

 

If you have nothing to say, say nothing. If you “think” you have nothing to offer, explore your depth and you’ll come up with something that’s originally you, not a collection of what everyone else has said that you put in a stew.

 

Your depth is further down than your pat answers. You have to dig past responses and rejoinders that you’ve offered a thousand times.

 

When you are offered a stimulus, wait for a response, one that’s deeper than the hollow ones you’ve been echoing. It’s then and there that you will discover you and find your own quote worth re-quoting.

 

All the best,

John