Believe it or not, you've been quoted.

Have you heard someone say something you said before.  Well you think, maybe someone else said it too.  Or you think you heard it somewhere before and you just quoted someone else.  It's this way, you say something to someone, and then it's traded to someone else, and then another person, and then another, until eventually while watching TV you hear someone say your quote, and you think to yourself, "Well I'll be, someone out there had the same thought that I did."  This doesn't mean that there aren't cases of "independent discovery", two different people happen to come up with the same idea at the same time, and both want recognition.  If you don't believe me, do a search for "independent discovery" on Google.com and read a few of the results. 

Anyway, my point is to not be so quick to dismiss your own quotes.  You may just come up with a real winner.  I personally feel that there are two quotes that I feel I made up myself. 

First, using the word "spit" instead of it's normal swear word (figure it out for yourself).  I started doing this around age 14 (1994).  I had gotten so used to swearing that I knew it would be hard to keep from doing it around parents, authority figures, etc.  My brother pointed out when I was 12 that "offensive words" are those words that you choose to be offended by.  He specifically pointed out that if we were offended by the word "pencil" that it would be offensive to us, and if that was so, we should insist the teacher never use it in front of us.  Anyway, back to me and "spit".    So around age 14 I started using it everywhere, in front of teachers, adults, preachers; you name it.  And I was untouchable, because I had technically done nothing wrong, they couldn't punish me.  I kept this up until I was moved off to college and found out that nobody cares what you say.  Oddly enough, I want to say when I was 16 or 17 (1996-1997) I was flipping through the channels and I came on this scene were a guy was staring at a door that he knew "the killer" was about to walk through, the music was filled with tension, and right before the door came crashing down, he shouts out "Spit!"  I know that's what he said, it was broadcast television, you can let a few things slip on live TV, but that word doesn't get out.

Second, the phrase "anywho".  Now I've heard this probably 100 times 100 other places but I'm 60% sure I said it first.  I want to say I was 16 (1996) and I was over at my friends Michael's house and we were being amazed at how we could send "chat" with other people online.  While trying to type "anyhow" I misspelled it as "anywho".  I thought it was funny, the person I was chatting with was all "anywho?" and I said it to a few other people that day and one of my friends said "Why are you typing 'anywho'?" And I said, "It sounds funny."  Now maybe it's possible I heard someone else say it first, it sure sounds like a line from a sketch comedy show, but do I think that because I've heard it on a sketch comedy show before, or after, 1996?

I got this idea awhile back from a book called Enders Game by Orson Scott Card where one character is convinced that people are quoting him, so to prove it he writes a series of articles under a pen name and watches as the rest of the world discusses them.

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