This is the Spring Mystery Quote item.  The way it works is this:  someone is
always "it".  Whoever is "it" types in a quote from a (usually) published
work, without naming the author.  Everyone else then tries to guess the
author, and whoever guesses right then becomes "it".  It's an eternal cycle
that (I think) dates back to before the beginning of Grex.

If you are "it" it is customary to give hints if the guessers seem to need
help, and of course to enter more quotes from the same author.  If you are
not "it", it is customary to only make one guess at a time.  (Like all things
Grexian, however, these rules get bent from time to time. :))

161 responses total.

I am currently "it", by virtue of having guessed that remmers's last quote
was from Virginia Woolf.  Here's a new quote:

I followed rapidly until, darkness shutting down, I was forced to await the 
rising of the moon, and given an opportunity to speculate on the question of 
the wisdom of my chase.  Possibly I had conjured up impossible dangers, like 
some nervous old housewife, and when I should catch up with Powell would get a 
good laugh for my pains.  However, I am not prone to sensitivenes, and the 
following of a sense of duty, wherever it may lead, has always been a kind of 
fetich with me throughout my life; which may account for the honors bestowed 
upon me by three republics and the decorations and friendships of an old and 
powerful emperor and several lesser kings, in whose service my sword has been 
red many a time.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

This response has been erased.

I thought that might go fast.  Yes, i has it.  The quote is from "A Princess
of Mars".  You're up, i!

Well, i hasn't been on since he guessed the quote.  I sent him mail at the
address in his .plan (on netmeg), but he hasn't been on there either.  I'm
not sure when to put the quote up fo grabs.

Well, I hope I'm around to grab it when (if) you do!

Oh, dear.  I should have known better than to guess right before heading 
out of town.  (For the record - I've read all 11 books of ERB's Barsoom
series, and still own (& have re-read a couple times) all but the final 
(vastly lower quality) book.  Yet I neither recognized the quote nor
guessed that it was from that series - I thought I recognized ERB's style
and recalled seeing the anniversary of his death on Meg's calandar for the
prior week.  Anyway, I'd recommend the series ("A Princess of Mars" is the
first) to anyone interested in classic early-20th-century light romantic 
(both senses) adventure fiction.)


This is taken from a speech at a Royal Academy dinner in 1906.  (I own
a collection containing it, but am uncertain of it's publication history.) 

   "A great, and I frankly admit, a somewhat terrifying, honour has come to
me; but I think, compliments apart, that the most case-hardened worker in
letters, speaking to such an assembly as this, must recognise the gulf that
seperates even the least of those who do things worthy to be written about
from even the best of those who have written things worthy of being talked
about.
   "There is an ancient legend which tells us that when a man first 
achieved a most notable deed he wished to explain to his Tribe what he had
done.  As soon as he began to speak, however, he was smitten with dumbness,
he lacked words, and sat down.  Then there arose - according to the story -
a masterless man, one who had taken no part in the action of the fellow,
who had no special virtues, but was afflicted - that is the phrase - with
the magic of the necessary word.  He saw; he told; he described the merits
of the notable deed in such a fashion, we are assured, the the words 
'became alive and walked up and down in the hearts of all his hearers'.
Thereupon, the Tribe seeing that the words were certainly alive, and
fearing lest the man with the words would hand down untrue tales about them
to their children, took and killed him.  But, later, they saw that the magic
was in the words, not in the man.
   "We have progressed in many directions since the time of this early and
destructive criticism, but, so far, we do not seem to have found a sufficient
substitute for the necessary word as the final record to which all
achievements must look.  Even to-day, when all is done, those who have done
it must wait until all has been said by the masterless man with the words."

The author is best known for fiction.

(Yes, I'll be around to judge guesses, give hints, etc.)

H. G. Wells.

Not HGW.  Certainly very British, though.  And, like Wells, this author is
(roughly) better known for earlier works.

C.P. Snow?

   c.s. lewis? (shot in the semi-dark)

J.R.R. Tolkein

Not CPS, CSL, or JRRT.  This author lacked the scientific orientation (real
or fancied) of Wells, Snow, and Lewis, and certainly did not share the 
latter's enthusiasm for Christianity.  Yet this author had no fixed, 
synchronized vision of the world from which (s)he refused to stray:


                        Recessional

        God of our fathers, known of old,
          Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
        Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
          Dominion over palm and pine -
        Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
        Lest we forget - lest we forget!

        The tumult and the shouting dies;
          The Captains and the Kings depart:
        Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
          An humble and a contrite heart.
        Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
        Lest we forget - lest we forget!

        Far-called, our navies melt away;
          On dune and headland sink the fire:
        Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
          Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
        Judge of Nations, spare us yet,
        Lest we forget - lest we forget!

        If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
          Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
        Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
          Or lesser breeds without the Law-
        Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
        Lest we forget - lest we forget!

        For heathen heart that puts her trust
          In reeking tube and iron shard,
        All valient dust that builds on dust,
          And guarding, calls not Thee to guard.
        For frantic boast and foolish word -
        Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!  

                                                1897


Many of this author's views were sharply criticised. 

Thomas Hardy?  I know he was pretty conflicted about Christianity.

Ye gads, I'm definitely familiar with that poem. As to the
author...

    <remmers pauses to consult references>

Why, of course! It's Rudyard Kipling.

Darn, too late. But I recognized the quote about the storyteller.
I love Kipling!

<i passes the ethereal Grex Mystery Quote Item baton to remmers>

I recognized the poem.

Ok, guess I've got the quote. Lemme think here...

Here's some more poetry, of a sort:

                There's a man with a Nose,
                And wherever he goes
            The people run from him and shout:
                "No cotton have we
                For our ears if so be
            He blow that interminous snout!"

                So the lawyers applied
                For injunction. "Denied,"
            Said the Judge: "the defendant prefixion,
                Whate'er it portend,
                Appears to transcend
            The bounds of this court's jurisdiction."

 Ambrose Bierce

Bennet Cerf?

Oof, I thought this was a bit obscure and would take a while.

Omni's got it -- it's Ambrose Bierce.

 Cool. I'll post something forthwith. I was gonna say Ogden Nash, but it did
sound a bit on the bitter side, and after having read "The Devil's Dictionary"
it sounded just like something Bierce would say. 

   It was wasteful to fret over the children. (Who were no longer children
   anymore--not even Daisy.) Consider, for instance, the cigarette papers that
   Maggie hadfound last spring on Daisy's bureau. She had picked them up while
   she was dusting and come running to Ira, "What'll we do, What are we going
   to do?" she had wailed. "Our daughter's smoking marijuana; this isd one of
   the telltale clues they mention in that pamphlet that the school gives out."
   She'd got Ira all involved and distressed; that happened more than he liked
   to admit.  Together they had sat up far into the night, discussing ways of
   dealing with the problem. "Where did we go wrong?" Maggie cried and Ira
   hugged her and said "There now, dear heart I promise youb that we'll see
   this thing through. " All for nothing yet again, it turned out. Turned out
   that the cigarette papers were for Daisy's flute. You slid them under the
   keys when they started sticking. She hadn't even bothered to take umbrage.

  Sorry for the above's format, danged word processor again.

  Don't look for clues on my homepage. It won't be there, but this is one of
the books that I am currently reading.

This response has been erased.

   My parents trusted me to choose the right thing, and yes, I did have
several chances to try drugs, I have never indulged.

I've never done anything... you name it, I haven't tried it.  If kids want
to do something, than they will, there's not a chance int he wolrld the
parents can really stop them.  I've had tons of opportunities at pioneer and
other related places, but I've carfeully avoided getting too much exposure.

(Let's not forget that this is the "mysterious quote" item.
We're all invited to guess the author of the quote in #24.)

Hm, #24 doesn't ring any bells...

 A clue.


  Our author is a living American female, quite possibly Jewish.

Erma Bombeck?

quit possibly?  you don't know for sure?

RE #30-31 Erma Bombeck died last year, so that "living American female" would
not apply to her.

Joan Rivers?

I didn't know Erma Bombeck had died.  I'm sorry to hear that.

This response has been erased.

  not rivers, not bombeck.

  Since I have you all stumped, I am reveling in the fact that I can actually
do this. However, here is another passage from this most excellent read.

    "It was nighttime, Wednesday night. I felt someone had lifted a weight off 
my chest, and I went home and slept twelve hours straight. Then Thursday 
Linda came down from New Jersey and that was nice; her and our son-in-law 
and the kids. But I kept feeling I ought to be doing something.  There was 
something I was forgetting. I ought to be over at the hospital; that was it. I 
felt so restless. It was like that trick we used to try as children, 
remember? Where we'd stand in a doorway and press the backs of both hands 
against the frame and then we stepped forward our hands floated up on thier 
own as if all that pressure had been, oh, stored up for future use., operating 
retroactively. And then Linda's kids started teasing the cat. They dressed 
the cat in thier teddy bear's pajamas and Linda didn't even notice. She's 
never kept them properly in line. Max and I used to bite our tongues not to 
point that out. Anytime they'd come we wouln't say a word, but we'd give  
each other this look across the room.; just a look, you know how you do? And 
all at once I had no one to trade looks with. It was the first time that I knew
 I'd truly lost him."

Argh!! i so know this one...
But alas, my brain is fried on mid-terms and I can barely remember my own
name.
Is this the one about someone's grandfather who was his friend and roomate?

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss