One of the things that I have always loved is the way people say things. If you’re paying attention, you’ll find the people around you saying things that are funny or profound or just wonderfully phrased all the time. As a writer, I’ve been saving these quotes for a long time, since they’re wonderful windows into character creation.

As a documenter, aka a scrapbooker, saving these quotes are a great way to capture the personality and interactions of your family. (And friends too, but we’ll talk about them at a later point.)The things people say show you how they look at the world, how they think, and how they interact with others.

However, you can’t always immediately stop what you’re doing to go create a scrapbook page when one of your family members says something memorable. What am I saying? You almost never can do that! So what do you do?

You take notes.

There are a bunch of ways you can take notes, depending on your circumstances. A scrap of paper and pencil will work in a pinch. Having a notebook in your purse or stashed around the house for just such moments is handy. Your smart phone is helpful too, since you can jot notes or even dictate them there. I’ve found Facebook and Twitter helpful for capturing moments too, and screen shots of text messages and chats are great as well.

If  you’re not careful, though, those notes will just sit there. If you’re like me at all, you may even forget to date them, so you don’t even remember how old someone was when they made that memorable quote. Try to remember to date them when you jot them down. Don’t be like me!

Do try to turn those quotes into pages though.

You’ll be glad you did.