Nine years. We've been doing this for nine years. The annual PDML Quotations List has officially become an unstoppable juggernaut. A fetching combination of narcissism and futility, two attributes you'll agree are difficult to combine. But somehow we pull off the trick. Let the rest of humanity look on in awe.

What's our secret? How do we regularly produce such a treasure trove of wisdom and wit? I think it's because the PDML is a mailing list. There was once a proposal to turn it into a web forum, which would have given us fancy fonts, permitted the embedding of images into messages and generated the kind of eye-popping activity that makes Facebook such an invaluable source of information about the Twilight saga.

Plain-text email, you see, relies on words and on the writer's ability to arrange them into an understandable representation of the coherent thoughts behind them. Or incoherent thoughts, as the case may be. How else do you explain the commentary on such diverse topics as sensor resolution, diffraction limits and Rolf Harris?

As usual, this list will find its way, in some edited form, into the PDML Photo Annual. Whether that helps or hinders sales is yet to be determined, but it's tradition, dammit, and we're sticking with it! Also traditional is the inclusion of one quotation from someone not affiliated with, or even aware of, The List. It's always related to art and photography in some way, however tenuous the connection might be. The frequent digressions about beer, cormorants and motorcycles may infiltrate our own discussions but we'll keep out involuntary guest's words on topic.

Photoshop is about as complicated as the tax code – but far more useful.

— Mark Cassino

Seems to me there are a lot of people out there with cameras who are not actually 'photographers'.

— John Sessoms

I don't fret about it at all. Why waste the time and energy? Go make pictures.

— Godfrey DiGiorgi

Rumors don't make products show up any faster.

— Godfrey DiGiorgi

My lenses are very rarely the limiting factor in the sharpness of my photos.

— Larry Colen

I know that last one isn't a fact, but I ran out and had already written 5 numbered bullet points.

— Miserere

Electromagnetism is a fickle phenomena.

— Tom Cakalic

If anyone ever adds a 'Utilitarian-Whimsy' axis to the Myers-Briggs personality test, we can use you as a reference standard.

— Matthew Hunt

Most people don't want a critique, they want an ego massage, and no one likes to be told that their image is an excruciatingly boring, poor rendering of a banal and cliched subject.

— Bill Robb

Hell, they're only images.

— Ken Waller

These days, anyone who is smart enough to tie their shoe can be a technically competent photographer. That puts the emphasis on composition and other factors, which is where it should be.

— Mark Cassino

The only worse judge of the quality of a portrait than the photographer is the model.

— Larry Colen

Worry about whether the photos you take express what you want them to express. Don't worry about whether someone else has already taken a similar photo.

— John Sessoms

It looks plenty sharp on my phone...

— Frank Theriault

The market for photos of grim-faced pedestrians trying to hurry out of the wind and rain (or snow) is rather limited.

— Þráinn Vigfússon (Thrainn)

I did get strange looks from a couple of people who came in while I was shooting this, but I'm fairly impervious to strange looks.

— Rick Womer

Other than lousy bokeh, lousy composition, and limited depth of field, I see nothing wrong with these images.

— Paul Stenquist

I can't think of anyplace that I've learned more and wasted more time than the PDML.

— Evan R. Hanson

Beer money plus some left over for lenses is about all one can expect to earn from kid photography, but beer and lenses are good things!

— Paul Stenquist

I still prefer making prints in a darkroom rather than sitting hunched over a computer tablet and having my eyeballs getting slow roasted like some sort of zombified junk food by a computer monitor.

— Bill Robb

For most of what I do, nothing but politeness prevents me from using a flash.

— Larry Colen

The rest of the world may be irrelevant to you, but it's relevant to the rest of the world. Hell, you're in the rest of the world from where I stand.

— Anthony Farr

I'd offer to swap you Perth for Auckland but we'd end up being responsible for Rolf Harris...

— Dave Mann

If I had the money for a Nikon mid-pro body, I'd actually have bought a K-5 by now.

— Bruce Walker

That's one thing I love about photography – how there's always another component of it to be obsessed with.

— Walt Gilbert

A real photographer can get an award-winning shot by grinding a lens from an ice cube and using a napkin soaked with a spilled Bloody Mary as film.

— Bruce Walker

A standard (camera) Operating System would be good for the users, but that's not necessarily perceived to be in the interests of the camera companies.

— Larry Colen

I don't understand the title, but then again I often don't understand my own titles.

— Frank Theriault

I sometimes feel like I am just my own army of monkeys, randomly pressing the shutter button, getting a lot of gibberish, but every now and then a nice photo emerges and I pull that one off the pile of debris and proudly acclaim 'I did this!'

— Mark Cassino

I was going to make a witty comment online about something that someone said in March, but apparently PDML time began on April 1, 2011.

— Tim Bray

Don't be so hard on yourself, some of your images rise to mediocrity.

— P.J. Alling

That's just an ad hominem attack by some internet know-it-all with a chip on his shoulder. We should invite him onto the PDML.

— Bob Walkden

This is nothing short of a big hairy bag of bollocks!

— Cotty

It's amazing how fast the moon moves if you need to decide instantly about framing, exposure and positioning the tripod.

— Toine Kuiper

There is an inverse correlation between truthfulness and monetary potential. People pay for photos that tell them the world is the way they hope it is. They don't pay for photos that tell them what the world is really like, I guess because they can see what the world is really like every day for free.

— Mark Cassino

I don't shoot as much film as I'd like to, but then, I don't shoot as many pixels as I'd like to either...

— Mark Cassino

With a 50% divorce rate, keeping wedding negatives seemed like a bad business plan compared to selling them when the people were still in love.

— Bill Robb

I still don't have a life of course, but that's nothing to do with shooting raw.

— Bob Walkden

I chose the Zen way. I have neither a life nor a workflow.

— Ecke

These are so good, you should post them on Flickr!

— Miserere

If you keep the strengths and limitations of your gear in mind, then you can get great shots with almost any kit.

— Larry Colen

If the truth be told, the silliest thing I do with my camera is leaving it home.

— Steve Desjardins

Life is short; keepers are rare; disk space is cheap.

— Bruce Walker

I'm not a 'professional' and really not even a craftsman, but I recognize a superiority complex when I see one.

— Dan Matyola

If every atom in the sun buys 1,000 eBooks, they still won't run out of invoice numbers.

— Matthew Hunt

At this point I could just as well be thinking about which movie star to date as what lens to buy.

— Larry Colen

Wouldn't want angry Vegans running wild through the streets of Canada.

— Bob Walkden

I have literally found nothing to complain about, optically. And I'm good at complaining.

— Matthew Hunt

The 60-250 calls. But it might be the 55-300 that answers.

— Cory Waters

Pictures get dusty while they're travelling on the information superhighway, like tiny little hippies on the Marrakesh trail.

— Bob Walkden

Art will expand to fill the technological space allotted to it.

— Ctein – The Online Photographer

Be ashamed, Matt – privately pleased, but publicly ashamed.

— Steve Desjardins

You have to be careful not to bend over so far to please someone that you start making photographs that are not really your own.

— Bob Walkden

OK, so she's on her way to becoming a crazy cat lady, but that's sometime in the future...

— P.J. Alling

We were basically trying to suck a fart out of a dead dingo with its mouth taped shut.

— Cotty

You will ALWAYS find the lowest price from the place that can't deliver.

— Darren Addy

I've come to the realization that when I go on a photo trip, I just need to bring along Tenzing Norgay to carry my gear.

— Larry Colen

Lenses are too personal a thing to admit trusting the judgment of others.

— Tim Bray

If the sweaty stranger is a fit, spandex-clad female, I'm down with it.

— Frank Theriault

Quality of camera has never been an impediment to anyone blaming their gear.

— Larry Colen

PDML and beer. Its a natural pairing.

— Dave Brooks

If I'd read the entire thread before adding my two cents, I wouldn't have added my two cents!

— Charles Robinson

'Interesting' might be one word for it. 'Not in the least bit' would be another five.

— Peter Loveday

If a pretty girl likes my photos, I don't care if she works at McDonald's.

— Larry Colen

Only pros use backdrops. :)

— David Parsons

I've had Nikon pros wanting to see mine because they've heard so much about it. One called it legendary.

— Ken Waller

Totally uninformed banter also most welcome.

— Peter McIntosh

My best fiction is wasted on our creditors.

— Christine Aguila

Now to find three pictures from last year that don't make me want to drop the camera down a well and take up basket weaving.

— Chris Sheppard

I plan to eventually buy a Pentax 645D using my funeral money and then donate my body to science.

— Steve Desjardins

As far as pictures of cow butts go, that's a good one.

— Tim Bray

I bet half the magazine ads for that camera end up sticking to the facing pages.

— Larry Colen

I'd like to be a pro, only because I could take thousands of photos and have some other poor bastard have to edit them.

— Dave Mann

This is so nonsensical I am inclined to believe it.

— Miserere

If the next pet I buy is a dog, then it won't be a cat. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with flea collars.

— Miserere

All bags looks like camera bags.

— Bob Walkden

Advance planning is the worst type – so many things can go wrong. I always do my planning retrospectively, and everything turns out just right.

— Bob Walkden

A K-r in your hands will take much better pictures than half a K-5 in your savings account.

— Larry Colen

One aspect of serendipity to bear in mind is that you have to be looking for something in order to find something else.

— Lawrence Block (non-PDML)

It's going to take me a while to narrow down my two decent shots to three submissions.

— Matthew Hunt

Digital lets you take lots of shots, but doesn't make good photography any easier or quicker.

— Bob Sullivan

I have a color sense about as extreme as a junior high school girl applying eye makeup.

— Barry Rice

Technical perfection is over rated.

— P.J. Alling

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