This is the Fall Mystery quote item...usually very popular though the
summer versio
n seems to have died backin August.

Here's a quote to start off with:

"Something, some spirit was pursuing all of us across the desert of life
and was bound to catch us before we reached heaven.  Naturally, now that I
look back on it, this was only death.  Death will overtake us before
heaven.  The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us
sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance
of some lost bliss, that was probably experienced in the womb, and can
only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death"

250 responses total.

 Thomas Lynch?

<agora18=books64>

Jack Kerouac?

(Thanks for linking, Jim.)

 No problem. Just doing my duty as a good f-w. ;)

Its morst horrifying  to atlest look at a person who is booking
his choice of shares , watching the scripts and talking to the broker
while driving in left lane on a highway!  
Well there may be advantages of getting moving phones ...!!!

Aruba has it...its a Jack Kerouac quote, from I think "Visions of Cody"
He probably guessed it based on my other login...I made it too easy.

If I'm not mistaken, Richard, you entered a Kerouac quote at least twice
before.  You're becoming predictable.  <g>  I'll try to come up with a quote
before I log on next.

The following isn't a quote I expect to be well-known, but it struck
me when I read it and I would thus like to share it:

 "I'm a perfectly good carrot that everyone is trying to turn 
  into a rose.  As a carrot, I have good color and a nice leafy
  top.  When I'm carved into a rose, I turn brown and wither."

That *is* a bit striking, and thought-provoking. I like it.

Richard entered the first quote but neglected to mention the
rules of the game, so for the benefit of newcomers I'll do so.

The person who's "it" enters a quote from a published work; it
can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, anything. People
then try to guess the author of the quote (it is not necessary
to name the specific work). The first person to guess correctly
is "it" and gets to give the next quote.

When making a guess, it's nice to explain the reasons for your
guess. That way we all learn a little more about literature.

If people are having trouble guessing the correct author, it's
customary for the person who entered the quote to give a hint
or two, or to enter another quote by the same author.

(Oh, and even if you're certain that your guess is correct, it's
polite to wait for confirmation from the enterer before going
ahead and giving a new quote.)

Ok, here's my quote:

   'You have never done any Latin before, have you?' he said.
   'No, sir.'
   'This is a Latin grammar.'  He opened it at a well-thumbed page.  'You must
learn this,' he said, pointing to a number of words in a frame of lines.  'I
will come back in half an hour and see what you know.'
   Behold me then on a gloomy evening, with an aching heart, seated in front
of the First Declension.

/---------------------------------------\
|  Mensa   |  a table                   |
|  Mensa   |  O table                   |
|  Mensam  |  a table                   |
|  Mensae  |  of a table                |
|  Mensae  |  to or for a table         |
|  Mensa   |  by, with or from a table  |
\---------------------------------------/

   What on earth did it mean?  Where was the sense of it?  It seemed
absolute rigmarole to me.  However, there was one thing I could always
do:  I could learn by heart.  And I thereupon proceeded, as far as my
private sorrows would allow, to memorise the acrostic-looking task which
had been set me. 
   In due course the Master returned.
   'Have you learnt it?' he asked.
   'I think I can *say* it, sir,' I replied; and I gabbled it off.
   He seemed so satisfied with this that I was emboldened to ask a
question.
   'What does it mean, sir?'
   'It means what it says.  Mensa, a table.  Mensa is a noun of the First
Declension.  There are five declensions.  You have learnt the singular of
the First Declension.'
   'But,' I repeated, 'What does it mean?'
   'Mensa means a table,' he answered.
   'Then why does mensa also mean O table,' I enquired, 'and what does O
table mean?'
   'Mensa, O table, is the vocative case,' he replied.
   'But why O table?' I persisted in genuine curiosity.
   'O table, - you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a
table.'  And then seeing that he was not carrying me with him, 'You would
use it in speaking to a table.'
   'But I never do,' I blurted out in honest amazement.

Heh
Wild guess: Margery Sharp.  (I have a few other equally wild guesses, but will
be good & give others a chance before offering the next one.)

<remmers wonders who Margery Sharp is>

<remmers also has no clue on this one, but thinks it's a neat
 quote>

I like the quote, but I'm thoroughly stumped.  As usual.

Not Margery Sharp, with whom I'm unfamiliar.

Lewis Carroll?
(I *said* I had some wild guesses left ...)

Not Lewis Carroll.

James Hilton?

Not James Hilton.  Here's another quote:

Having bought the colours, an easel, and a canvas, the next step was
*to begin*.  But what a step to take!  The palette gleamed with beads of
colour; fair and white rose the canvas; the empty brush hung poised, heavy
with destiny, irresolute in the air.  My hand seemed arrested by a silent
veto.  But after all the sky on this occasion was unquestionably blue, and
a pale blue at that.  There could be no doubt that blue paint mixed with white
should be put on the top part of the canvas.  One really does not need to have
an artist's training to see that.  It is a starting-point open to all.  So
very gingerly I mixed a little blue paint on the palette with a very small
brush, and then with infinite precaution made a mark about as big as a bean
upon the affronted snow-white shield.  It was a challenge, a deliberate
challenge; but so subdued, so halting, indeed so cataleptic, that it deserved
no response.  At that moment the loud approaching sound of a motor-car was
heard in the drive.  From this chariot there stepped swiftly and lightly none
other than the gifted wife of Sir John Lavery.  'Painting!  But what are you
hesitating about?  Let me have a brush - the big one.'  Splash into the
turpentine, wallop into the blue and the white, frantic flourish on the
palette - clean no longer - and then several large, fierce strokes and slashes
of blue on the absolutely cowering canvas.  Anyone could see that it could
not hit back.  No evil fate avenged the jaunty violence.  The canvas grinned
in helplessness before me.  The spell was broken.  The sickly inhibitions
rolled away.  I seized the largest brush and fell upon my victim with Berzerk
fury.  I have never felt any awe of a canvas since.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Not Georgia O'Keefe.  A small hint: both quotes are autobiographical.

Ooh, I'd been assuming that this was entirely fiction, not to say farce.
<goes off to mull it over>

I've read or heard that qoute. I just can't remember where, or more
importantly, by whom. I think it was by a famous painter. Can we have a
different clue?

Here's another quote, also autobiographical:

   'Here,' he said, 'you are absolutely safe.  Mac' (by which he meant one of
the Scottish miners) 'knows all the disused workings and places that no one
else would dream of.  There is one place here where the water actually
touches the roof for a foot or two.  If they searched the mine, Mac would dive
under that with you into the workings cut off beyond the water.  No one would
ever think of looking there.  We have frightened the Kaffirs with tales of
ghosts, and anyhow, we are watching their movements continually.'
   He stayed with me while I dined, and then departed, leaving me, among other
things, half-a-dozen candles which, duly warned, I tucked under my pillow and
mattress.
   I slept again for a long time, and woke suddenly with a feeling of movement
about me.  Something seemed to be pulling at my pillow.  I put out my hand
quickly.  There was a perfect scurry.  The rats were at the candles.  I
rescued the candles in time, and lighted one.  Luckily for me, I have no
horror of rats as such, and being reassured by their evident timidity, I was
not particularly uneasy.  All the same, the three days I passed in the mine
were not among the most pleasant which my memory re-illumines.  The patter
of little feet and a perceptible sense of stir and scurry were continuous.
Once I was waked up from a doze by one actually galloping across me.  On the
candle being lighted these beings became invisible.

(I can't wait to hear the name of this book)

Whoever this person is, he or she seems to have led a varied and
unconventional life. Seems British and of some social standing
(knows folks like "Sir John Lavery"), and the era seems to be
early 20th century (when "motor-cars" were loud). But had to be
given private tutoring in Latin for some reason, so didn't receive
conventional British schooling, where Latin would have been a standard
part of the curriculum at that time. The painting episode tells us that
the person at least dabbled in the arts. Also spent a few days hiding
in a mine, in a part of the world where one had to be worried about
"Kaffirs". (Africa? The Near East?)

I'm sure this is wrong because not all the details fit, but for lack
of a better idea I'll guess T.E. Lawrence.

I'd guess EM Forester, if no one else has done already.

  What the hell, as long as we're making wild and unsupported
  guesses I'll go with Aldous Huxley..

Sir Winston Churchill

Good guesses all, but atticus has it.  I started reading a biography of
Winston Churchill in August, and learned a lot of things I didn't know before.
Like, for instance, he never failed to be optimistic about tests in school,
and he (almost) never failed to do badly.  He was clearly a very courageous
man, and put himself in the line of fire many times when he could easily have
avoided it.  He was a prisoner of war in 1899 during the Boer war in South
Africa, and he escaped from captivity to travel 300 miles across enemy
territory before reaching freedom in Portuguese East Africa.  (It was during
his escape that he was hidden, by friendly Britons, in a mine for 3 days.)
And, during one very bleak period in his life, he took up painting and became,
according to some critics, quite good.

I didn't think I could string you all along much further; but it would have
been fun to post one of his World War II speeches that *everyone* would
recognize.  :)

You're up, atticus!

  "he never failed to be optimistic about tests in school and he
 (almost) never failed to do badly.."

  that means he did well, right?

(Atticus can't believe this!!!)

I guess more than half of the credit goes to remmers, who summarized the
clues. I'll post something tomorrow after I recover from the shock ;-)

Re #32:  No, he did terribly in school, and just barely made it into
Sandhurst (the British military college).  He passed the entrance exam on
his third and final try.  The author of the biography I've been reading
makes a case for this being a real failure of a stodgy educational system
to recognize someone who was a genius.

It did certainly teach him how to stand alone, however; how to persevere
even when everyone (including his parents, whom he adored) kept telling
him that he was a good-for-nothing.  And that was the spirit that thrilled
Britain in World War II.  When he said "We will never surrender!" he was
acting as he had all his life. 

Heh! Winston Churchill was going to be my next guess if T.E.
Lawrence turned out to be wrong. Especially since Churchill was
a painter by hobby. Oh well. I'm glad somebody else got it,
since I've given several quotes recently and it's good to get
new people involved. Nice going, atticus.

Ok, here's my quote:

She came into Led's old broken doorway and into my life like the Royal
Scot, but without all the steam and noise. She was dark, calm and
dangerous-looking. Under her pinned-back hair her face was childishly
wide-eyed as she stood momentarily blinded by the change of light.

  Slowly and unflinchingly she looked around, meeting the insolent
intensity of Led's loose-lipped Lotharios, then came to sit at my small,
circular, plastic-topped table. She ordered a black coffee and
croissant. Her face was taut like a cast on an Aztec god; everything
that was static in her features was belied by the soft, woolly, quick
eyes into which the beholder sank unprotesting. Her hair, coarse and
oriental in texture, was drawn back into a vortex on the crown of her
head. she drank the brown coffee slowly.

  She was wearing that `little black sleeveless dress' that every woman
has in reserve for cocktail parties, funerals and first nights. Her slim
white arms sown against the dull material, and her arms were long and
slender, the nails cut short and varnished in a natural colour. I
watched her even, very white teeth bite into the croissant. She could
have been top kick in the Bolshoi, Swedwen's first woman ship's captain,
private secretary to Chou-en-lai, or Sammy Davis's press agent.

I have the feeling I've read this -- "loose-lipped Lotharios"
rings a bell. The references to Chou-en-lai and Sammy Davis
suggests 1960's. In fact, that last sentence is quite
international and wide-ranging in scope, managing to work in the
Soviet Union, Sweden, China, the United States, ballet, sailing,
politics, feminism, and show-business into 23 words.

The spelling of "colour", and some turns of phrase, suggest that
this is British. The international scope and air of mystery
suggests espionage. So I'll guess John le Carre.

I don't know.  The style seems a little too much like a Chandler parody to
be le Carre, whose style always seemed much drier than that to me.  I can't
come up with a reasonable guess though.

This response has been erased.

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