response 17 of 215:

Mar 26 12:15 UTC 2001

But the Mysterious Quote item is supposed to give you enough of a 
sample of the writer's prose for you to tell who it is, either from the 
style or the subject matter or from other clues.  It shouldn't be 
something you recognize merely because it's famous, but it shoudn't be 
obscure and without any identifiable characteristics, either.  Harder 
than you think to find such quotes.

response 19 of 215:

Mar 26 13:50 UTC 2001

Also, I have no clue who the author of the quote in #8 is.  I assume
the movie referred to is Disney's "The Love Bug" from 1969.  If the
author was a kid at the time, that would make him or her around 40
now.  So definitely a contemporary author, fairly young.

response 21 of 215:

Mar 26 14:19 UTC 2001

If it weren't for the age of the author and the location of the scene, I'd
guess Marquez. Seems his style of existentialism.
 
(BTB, I've never heard "quote" used in a way that would imply such a length
restriction. I thought the terms "quotable" and "quotation" were much more
common. Maybe that's my educational background, but academic sources use
paragraphs as quotes all the time -- and call them that... go read a style
manual.)

response 23 of 215:

Mar 26 23:58 UTC 2001

Darn, that book is sittin gin my to be read pile right now.  I like his stuff,
Naked was my first exposure to his writing, which is much like his NPR work.

response 25 of 215:

Mar 27 06:39 UTC 2001

What is this item doing in Poetry?  It isn't about poetry.

response 27 of 215:

Mar 27 16:15 UTC 2001

Or quotes about poetry:

Sometimes a man survives a considerable time from an era in which
he had his place into one which is strange to him, and then the curious 
are offered one of the most singular spectacles in the human comedy.  
Who now, for example, thinks of George Crabbe?  He was a famous poet in 
his day, and the world recognised his genius with a unanimity which the 
greater complexity of modern life has rendered infrequent.  He had 
learnt his craft at the school of Alexander Pope, and he wrote moral 
stories in rhymed couplets.  Then came the French Revolution and the 
Napoleonic Wars, and the poets sang new songs.  Mr. Crabbe continued to 
write moral stories in rhymed couplets.  I think he must have read the 
verse of these young men who were making so great a stir in the world, 
and I fancy he found it poor stuff.  Of course, much of it was.  But the
odes of Keats and of Wordsworth, a poem or two by Coleridge, a few more 
by Shelley, discovered vast realms of the spirit that none had explored 
before.  Mr. Crabbe was as dead as mutton, but Mr. Crabbe continued to 
write moral stories in rhymed couplets.  I have read desultorily the 
writings of the younger generation.  It may be that among them a more 
fervid Keats, a more ethereal Shelley, has already published numbers the 
world will willingly remember.  I cannot tell.  I admire their polish -- 
their youth is already so accomplished that it seems absurd to speak of 
promise -- I marvel at the felicity of their style;  but with all their 
copiousness (their vocabulary suggests that they fingered Roget's 
Thesaurus in their cradles) they say nothing to me:  to my mind they 
know too much and feel too obviously; I cannot stomach the heartiness 
with which they slap me on the back or the emotion with which
they hurl themselves on my bosom; their passion seems to me a little 
anaemic and their dreams a trifle dull.  I do not like them.  I am on 
the shelf.  I will continue to write moral stories in rhymed couplets.  
But I should be thrice a fool if I did it for aught but my own 
entertainment.

response 29 of 215:

Mar 27 21:14 UTC 2001

wow, that was perhaps the quickest I was able to pounce down upon a solution
using the internet... dead on, the first Yahoo search, the first quote I
grabbed.
 
But, having said that, I'm not going to say who I is, except to say that
John's incorrect about the author but correct about the era. My off-the-cuff
guess would have been someone like Huxley, who's also contemporary (but also
wrong).
 
This has been linked to the poetry conference apparently so I can be a pain
in the ass in the item. =}

response 31 of 215:

Mar 28 01:46 UTC 2001

Yes, British, yes to era, no to Hardy.  And brighn is correct also on 
the quickness of a search, if one wants to go that way.  But that isn't 
exactly sporting, eh?

response 33 of 215:

Mar 28 03:37 UTC 2001

oh, it's sporting enough to look it up in a search, it's just not sporting
to post the answer or to even drop any hints...

except to say this: I even have a copy of at least one of this author's books.
Now all someone has to do is rifle through my library, and they'll have it
in no time. ;}

you tell us, ori

response 35 of 215:

Mar 28 05:32 UTC 2001

you're just saying that so I'll let you peek at my library...

response 37 of 215:

Mar 28 14:08 UTC 2001

The UK Dinosaurs... isn't that what the Doors changed their name to after
Morrisson died?

response 39 of 215:

Mar 28 15:44 UTC 2001

Well, sporting or not, it takes the fun outta the game (for the 
guesser).  Like giving in and peeking at the answer to a Jumble--you 
immediately wish you hadn't, 'cuz you could've gotten it with a 
little more effort...

Anyway, no on all guesses, and another quote:

I lived near Victoria Station, and I recall long excursions by bus to 
the hospitable houses of the literary.  In my timidity I wandered up and 
down the street while I screwed up my courage to ring the bell; and 
then, sick with apprehension, was ushered into an airless room full of 
people.  I was introduced to this celebrated person after that one, and 
the kind words they said about my book made me excessively 
uncomfortable.  I felt they expected me to say clever things, and I 
never could think of any till after the party was over.  I tried to 
conceal my embarrassment by handing round cups of tea and rather ill-cut 
bread-and-butter.  I wanted no one to take notice of me, so that I could 
observe these famous creatures at my ease and listen to the clever 
things they said.

I have a recollection of large, unbending women with great noses and 
rapacious eyes, who wore their clothes as though they were armour; and 
of little, mouse-like spinsters, with soft voices and a shrewd glance.  
I never ceased to be fascinated by their persistence in eating buttered 
toast with their gloves on, and I observed with admiration the unconcern
with which they wiped their fingers on their chair when they thought no 
one was looking.  It must have been bad for the furniture, but I suppose 
the hostess took her revenge on the furniture of her friends when, in 
turn, she visited them. Some of them were dressed fashionably, and they 
said they couldn't for the life of them see why you should be dowdy just
because you had written a novel; if you had a neat figure you might as 
well make the most of it, and a smart shoe on a small foot had never 
prevented an editor from taking your "stuff."  But others thought this 
frivolous, and they wore "art fabrics" and barbaric jewelry.  The men 
were seldom eccentric in appearance.  They tried to look as little like 
authors as possible.  They wished to be taken for men of the world, and 
could have passed anywhere for the managing clerks of a city firm.
They always seemed a little tired.  I had never known writers before, 
and I found them very strange, but I do not think they ever seemed to me 
quite real.