response 25 of 98:

Dec 27 19:33 UTC 2000

No, not Voltaire.

response 27 of 98:

Dec 28 01:02 UTC 2000

rca has it --- Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, also known by the acronym "Rambam"
wrote that in the 12th century, in his _Guide_to_the_Perplexed_.

response 29 of 98:

Dec 30 14:50 UTC 2000

Tama Janowitz?

response 31 of 98:

Dec 30 16:49 UTC 2000

Jack Kerouac?

response 33 of 98:

Dec 30 20:51 UTC 2000

        
        HAI!

response 35 of 98:

Dec 31 19:15 UTC 2000

Don't.  You can guess as often as necessary, though it's considered proper
to wait for at least one more response before guessing again.

response 37 of 98:

Jan 5 10:00 UTC 2001

Hm, I think R K Sawyer essentially has it in <resp:34>, although
he doesn't name the author.  Lucy Maud Montgomery.

response 39 of 98:

Jan 5 15:31 UTC 2001

Book was _Anne of Green Gables_ or the French title La Maison aux Pignons
Verts

response 41 of 98:

Jan 8 02:30 UTC 2001

Ok, here goes with a new quote:

        This house is back to its beginnings now.  Lonely
        boarders thumb through magazines in the kitchen while
        they wait for their canned soup to heat.  The
        television runs nearly all night, hissing its test
        pattern to a fat man asleep in an armchair.  There are
        yellowed newspapers stacked on the window seat and
        candy wrappers in the ashtrays, and this morning when I
        cam down to breakfast I removed a pair of dirty socks
        from the bottom stairstep and laid them on the newel
        post, where I suspect they will stay forever.

        The house is the same but the street is changing.
        Getting younger.  Old people are dwindling.  The few
        that are left pick their way down the sidewalk like
        shadows, whispering courage to themselves and clutching
        their string shopping bags full of treasure.  There
        goes the lame lady who lives above the grocery store in
        a room full of cats and birds and goldfish.  There goes
        our boarder Mr. Houck, who thins himself to a pencil
        line when passing a black harmonica player.  Miss
        Cohen, with her widowed mother.  The bald man with the
        ivory-handled cane.  All flinching beneath the cool
        eyes of the boy in dungarees who sits on a stoop
        fiddling with his ropes of colored beads.

response 43 of 98:

Jan 10 00:32 UTC 2001

Probably wrong, but I'll guess F. Scott Fitzgerald

response 45 of 98:

Jan 10 13:12 UTC 2001

Anne Tyler?

response 47 of 98:

Jan 11 14:44 UTC 2001

Okay - here it is.  I'll be out of town for a few days and won't be back
until sometime Monday.  I'll check the responses then so guess away.

        Arriving at the last house, my knock at the door was 
        answered by a bright, good natured, good looking little
        woman, who in reply to my request for a night's lodging
        and food, said, "Oh, I guess so.   I think you can stay.
        Come in and I'll call my husband."  But I must first 
        warn you," I said, "that I have nothing smaller to offer
        you than a five-dollar bill for my entertainment.  I don't
        want you to think that I am trying to impose on your hos-
        pitality."

        She then called her husband, a blacksmith, who was at work
        at his forge.  He came out, hammer in hand, bare-breasted,
        sweaty, begrimed, and covered with shaggy black hair.  In
        reply to his wife's statement, that this young man wished
        to stop over night, he quickly replied, "That's all right;
        tell him to go into the house."  He was turning to go back
        to his shop, when his wife added, "But he says he hasn't
        any change to pay.  He has nothing smaller than a five-
        dollar bill."  Hesitating only a moment, he turned on his
        heel and said, "Tell him to go into the house.  A man that
        comes right out like that beforehand is welcome to eat my
        bread."

        

response 49 of 98:

Jan 11 20:39 UTC 2001

Hmmm.  Not Spillane.  Perhaps another quote would be in order before
I leave:

        When he came in after his hard day's work and sat down to
        dinner, he solemnly asked a blessing on the frugal meal,
        consisting solely of corn bread and bacon.  Then, looking
        across the table at me, he said, "Young man, what are you
        doing down here?"  I replied that I was looking at plants.
        "Plants?  What kind of plants?"   I said, "Oh, all kinds;
        grass, weeds, flowers, trees, mosses, ferns -- almost 
        everything that grows is interesting to me."