How a Visit to an Olympic Museum Turned 25 Years of Notebooks into a Book

I’ve been collecting quotes since the weeks after 9/11. Back then the emails and texts were flying, patriotism was high, and an ex-girlfriend kept sending me lists of powerful lines with graphics. I saved them in notebooks.

Over the next two decades. those notebooks grew slowly and quietly until they held maybe fifty or sixty pieces that really stuck with me.

Then, in November 2023, my daughter Camille invited me to the newly opened U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs. One wall stopped me cold: a huge cut-out of Mia Hamm with the words:

“I am building a fire, and every day I train, I add more fuel.

At just the right moment, I light the match.”

Around the next corner, a staff member told me that Tricia Zorn-Hudson, the most decorated Olympic or Paralympic athlete in history, had 41 gold medals and was legally blind since birth. My jaw dropped. I walked out of that museum with eight or nine new quotes and a sudden realization: this wasn’t just a hobby anymore. It was a book.

Two and a half years later, Just Saying: 1060 Utterly Fantastic Quotes is finished. Roughly 35 percent of the entries carry short annotations that give context, correct the record, or simply help the reader feel the full weight of the words.

The attributions are complete, from nationality and profession to key accomplishments, because “Robert Ellsworth” alone never told anyone who Robert Ellsworth actually was. And every quote is set in the center of the page the way traditional poetry is printed, because good words deserve that kind of quiet respect.

The collection covers America and patriotism, military and war, Native American wisdom, chess, the Hoover Dam, the Wild West, faith, love, leadership, humor, and a dozen other corners of human experience. Some lines are short and sharp. Some are longer and need the annotation to land properly. All of them, I believe, still have something to say.

If you’ve ever copied a quote into a notebook because it hit you in the chest, this book is for you. It was for me first.

Just Saying: 1060 Utterly Fantastic Quotes is now available on Amazon in Kindle, eBook, and paperback formats, along with the author’s own website, booksbyjohnrobertadair.com