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.

response 41 of 215:

Mar 28 16:42 UTC 2001

W. Somerset Maugham

response 43 of 215:

Mar 28 17:34 UTC 2001

Incidentally, the phrase I did a Yahoo search on was "stomach the heartiness"
(in quotes. I figured there weren't an awful lots of writers who would use
such phraseology, turns out I was right. Heh.

response 45 of 215:

Mar 29 19:11 UTC 2001

Ok, here is my quote: 

    I was in the dark. Or at least in semidarkness. I always worked best 
when the light in the booth was dim. So I was in this half-lit makeshift 
booth, in the semidarkness except for a blue glow from my tiny reading 
lamp. In the semidarkness, in the makeshift booth in the gray conference 
hall on Lexington Avenue in New York City.
    My colleague that day was a spotty Liverpudlian who had once put his 
hand on my thigh while I was in the middle of a piece of simultaneous 
translation. I had shifted my position and carried on translating from 
French to English, spouting forth about the size and hue of tomatoes, 
and managed after that to avoid his gaze for months. Other female 
interpreters had reacted more aggressively to his clammy paws and had 
complained to the International Interpreters' Association, but I had 
said nothing. These days, for fear of being struck off he picked at his 
skin and his cuticles rather than seeking out the thighs of his 
colleagues. 

response 47 of 215:

Mar 29 20:43 UTC 2001

nope. This book was written by a woman though. 

response 49 of 215:

Mar 29 21:21 UTC 2001

I picked a book published just last month. 

response 51 of 215:

Mar 30 04:06 UTC 2001

re resp 25:  Russ, please direct yourself to item 4, poetry1.

response 53 of 215:

Apr 1 13:54 UTC 2001

Ok, here is another clue especially for the web searchers out there.  
There is a big hint about the title of this book in the quote I posted. 

response 55 of 215:

Apr 7 15:13 UTC 2001

Yoo hoo, Ms Fremont - new quote, or hint, or something?

response 57 of 215:

Apr 7 21:39 UTC 2001

(Hm, I'll have to think about that one.  Who was the first
author you gave, by the way?)

response 59 of 215:

Apr 7 22:10 UTC 2001

jesus that sounded familiar

response 61 of 215:

Apr 8 04:37 UTC 2001

ok, i haven't been on in a while to read what people thought of my 
correcting the idea of quote vs paragraph. but it was more on the 
thoughts, that this being a "poetry conference" that these would be 
single line to double line quotes, obscure of course, from poems. not 
paragraphs, not whole stanzas then. 
a quote would be...
"Life for me ain't been no crystal stair" 
        -Mother to Son :by Langston Hughes
not...

"By glow of the tail light i stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
i dragged her off; she was large in the belly."
           -Traveling through the Dark :by William Stafford

and leave out normal fiction or non-fiction arts, if they are not in 
fact poetry. that's my opinion in this matter. this is poetry. let's 
have fun with poetry, ok?

response 63 of 215:

Apr 8 04:52 UTC 2001

(poor Erinn.)  :^)