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. . . BOOMERS (THE) see: "PEOPLE" see: "TIME" - Media coverage of the first baby boomers hitting the half-century mark was rather unsentimental. In the 50 years since the first boomer uttered the first wail, the wailing has never stopped. Self-regarding and superficial egomaniacs looking for esteem in all the wrong places. --Christopher Hitchens (b. 1949) British journalist, author, and literary critic. "Vanity Fair" [1996] - My generation has a giddy delight in dissolution. [...] To inspire the unsophisticated young to demand "change" is an easy and a cheap trick it was the tactic of the Communist Internationale in the thirties, another "movement.[...] We were self-taught in the sixties to award ourselves merit for membership in a superior group irrespective of our groups accomplishments. We continue to do so, irrespective of accomplishments, individual or communal, having told each other we were special. We learned that all one need do is refrain from trusting anybody over thirty; that all people are alike, and to judge their behavior was judgmental; that property is theft. As we did not investigate these assertions or their implications, we could not act upon them and felt no need to do so. For we were the culmination of history, superior to all those misguided who had come before, which is to say all humanity. Though we had never met a payroll, fought for an education, obsessed about the rent, raised a child, carried a weapon for our country, or searched for work. Though we had never been in sufficient distress to call upon God, we indicted those who had. And continue to do so. --David Mamet (b. 1947) American playwright and screenwriter. _The Secret Knowledge_ [2011] - We live in the age of group apologies. I would like to add one. The baby boomer generation needs to apologize to America, especially its young generation, for many sins. Here is a partial list: First and perhaps foremost, we apologize for robbing many of you of a childhood. We baby boomers were allowed perhaps the most innocent childhoods known to history. We grew up without material want, in one of the most decent places in world history, with media that preserved our sexual and other innocence, in schools that generally taught us well, and we were allowed childhood play from boy-girl play to rough and tumble boy-boy play to monkey bars and ringalevio. Our generation has deprived you of all these things. And while we were aware of the threat of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, few of us believed that we were threatened with death anywhere near the amount we have scared you about death from second- hand smoke, global warming and heterosexual AIDS, to mention just a few of the exaggerated death scares we have inflicted on you. Our generation came up with two truly foolish slogans that also ended up robbing you of childhood. One was "Never trust anyone over 30." [...] The other slogan whose awful consequences we baby boomers bequeathed to you was "Make love, not war." Our parents had liberated the world from immeasurably cruel and murderous regimes in Germany and Japan solely thanks to waging war. But instead of concluding that war could do great moral good, we sang ourselves silly with such inane lyrics as "Give peace a chance," as if that deals in any way with the world's most monstrous evils. So we taught you to make love and not war. And we succeeded. [...] We also made you weak. We did everything possible to ensure that you suffered no pain. Sometimes we changed game scores if a team was winning by too large a margin; we abolished dodgeball lest anyone suffer early removal from the game; and we gave trophies to all of you who played on baseball teams, no matter how awfully you or your team played so that none of you missed getting a trophy while members of another team did. Much of this was thanks to the self-esteem-without-having-to-earn-it movement, which in our generation's almost infinite lack of wisdom we inflicted upon you. Sorry for that, too. [...] So we really blew it, and what's really amazing is that few of us have changed our minds. Most people get wiser as they get older but not those of us baby boomers who still believe these things. Of course, many of us never bought into these awful ideas that have so hurt you and our country, and some of us have grown up. But many of us still talk, think, dress and curse the same as we did in the '60s and '70s. And we're still fighting what we consider the real Axis of Evil: American racism, sexism and imperialism. But for those of us who know the damage baby boomers as a whole did to you, a heartfelt apology. --Dennis Prager (b. 1948) American talk-show host. "Baby Boomers Owe America's Young People an Apology" [4 December 2007] - We are now in the Me Decade. --Tom Wolfe (b. 1931) American journalist and novelist. _Mauve Gloves and Madmen_ "The Me Decade" [1976]  ;void(0)) BOREDOM / BORES . . see: "DULL" see: "FOOLS" see: "IGNORANCE" see: "INACTIVITY" see: "LOQUACIOUSNESS" see: "MEDIOCRITY" see: "PEDANTRY" see: "STUPIDITY" see: "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for other related links Windbag: Have I bored you to death with my chatter? Aristotle: Not really, for I was paying no attention to you. --Aristotle (384322 B.C.) Greek philosopher. In Diogenes Laertius (A.D. 3rd cent.) _Lives of Eminent Philosophers_, 5.1, tr. R.D. Hicks [1925]. The penalty of success is to be bored by people who used to snub you. --Lady Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor (18791964) American-born, first woman to take a seat in the British House of Commons. Quoted in "Reno Evening Gazette" [4 May 1964]. - There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. --Christian Nestell Bovee (18201904) American writer. _Intuitions and Summaries of Thought_ [2 vols. 1862] Bores are not to be got rid of except by rough means. They are to be scraped off like scales from a fish. --Christian Nestell Bovee (18201904) American writer. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 52 [1886]. - Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself. --Gerald Brenan (18941987) British travel writer and novelist. "Life," _Thoughts in a Dry Season: A Miscellany_ [1978] The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore. --Samuel Butler (18351902) English novelist, essayist, and critic. _The Fair Haven_, 3 [1873] It is to be hoped that, with all the modern improvements, a mode will be discovered of getting rid of bores; for it is too bad that a poor wretch can punished for stealing your pocket handkerchief or gloves, and that no punishment can be inflicted on those who steal your time, and with it your temper and patience. --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (17881824) English Romantic poet and satirist. Quoted in Chetwood Evelyn _The Companion. After-Dinner Table-Talk_ [1850]. As I usually do when I want to get rid of someone whose conversation bores me, I pretended to agree. --Albert Camus (19131960) French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. _The Stranger_, 2.1 [1942], tr. Stuart Gilbert [1946] I do pity unlearned gentlemen on a rainy day. --Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount of Falkland (16101643) English politician, soldier and author. In Edward Bulwer-Lytton _Cheveley, or, The Man of Honour [1839], ch. XVI epigraph. Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you; you had better hold your tongue than them. --Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (16941773) British writer and politician. Attributed in _The Evangelical Magazine_ [June 1885]. Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible. --Frank Moore Colby (18651925) American essayist and professor. _Imaginary Obligations_ [1904] - Some men are very entertaining for a first interview, but after that they are exhausted, and run out; on a second meeting we shall find them very flat and monotonous; like hand-organs, we have heard all their tunes. --C.C. Colton (17801832) English clergyman and writer. _Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_, CCXXXIII [1821 ed.] Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and more suicides than despair. --C.C. Colton (17801832) English clergyman and writer. Attributed in Elias Lyman Magoon _Proverbs for the People_ [1849]. - ^ No๋l Coward (18991973) British playwright, actor, and wit. The American writer Barnaby Conrad was badly gored in a bullfight in Spain in 1958. The columnist Leonard Lyons recorded a subsequent conversation between Eva Gabor and No๋l Coward at a New York restaurant. 'No๋l dahling,' said Eva, 'have you heard the news about poor Bahnaby? He vass terribly gored in Spain.' 'He was *what*?' asked Coward in alarm. 'He vass gored!' 'Thank heavens. I thought you said he was bored.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andr้ Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go! --Oliver Cromwell (15991658) English soldier and statesman; Lord Protector from 1653. Addressing the Rump Parliament [20 April 1653]. Men love better books which please them than those which instruct. Since their ennui troubles them more than their ignorance, they prefer being amused to being informed. --Jean-Antoine Dubois (17651848) French missionary in India. Quoted in _The New Era_, vol. III [January 1873]. He and Evie soon fell into a conversation of the 'No, I didn't; yes, you did' type conversation which, though fascinating to those who are engaged in it, neither desires nor deserves the attention of others. --E.M. [Edward Morgan] Forster (18791970) English novelist. _Howards End_ [1910] Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it. --attributed to Robert Frost (18741963) American poet. I'm afraid of nothing except being bored. --Greta Garbo [Greta Lovisa Gustafsson] (19051990) Swedish actress. To Robert Taylor in "Camille" [1936 movie]. And isn't your life extremely flat with nothing whatever to grumble at! --W. S. Gilbert (18361911) English writer of comic and satirical verse. "Princess Ida, or Castle Adamant" (comic opera) [1884] Ennui is the rust of the mind born of idleness. It is unused tools that corrode. --Delphine de Girardin (18041855) French author. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 130 [1886]. America is said to have the highest per capita boredom of any spot on earth! We know that because we have the greatest number of artificial amusements of any country. People have become so empty that they can't even entertain themselves. They have to pay other people to amuse them, to make them laugh, to try to make them feel warm and happy and comfortable for a few minutes, to try to lose that awful, frightening, hollow feeling that terrible, dreaded feeling of being lost and alone. --Billy Graham (b. 1918) American Christian evangelist. _Peace with God_ [1984] A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company. --attributed to Gian Vincenzo Gravina (16641718) Italian man of letters and jurist. I can sympathize with people's pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness. --Aldous Huxley (18941963) English novelist (Grandson of T.H. Huxley.) "Cynthia" in _Limbo_ [1920] The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. _The Idler_ [1 September 1759] The main advantage of being famous is that when you bore people at dinner parties they think it is their fault. --attributed to Henry Alfred Kissinger (b. 1923) German-born American diplomat. We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those who find us boring. --Fran็ois de La Rochefoucauld (16131680) French classical author. _Maxims_ [1665] Notoriously insensitive to subtle shifts in mood, children will persist in discussing the color of a recently sighted cement mixer long after one's interest in the topic has waned. --Fran Lebowitz (b. 1946) American humorist. _Metropolitan Life_ [1978] Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church or robbing a bank, but never to being bores. --Elsa Maxwell (18831963) American writer and hostess. _How to Do It or The Lively Art of Entertaining _ [1957] A bore is simply a nonentity who resents his humble lot in life, and seeks satisfaction for his wounded ego by forcing himself on his betters. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks_ [1956] He's a wonderful talker, who has the art of telling you nothing in a great harangue. --Jean Moli่re [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (16221673) French comic dramatist. _Le Misanthrope_, act II, sc. v [1666] By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices, modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed. --Lewis Mumford (18951990) American architectural critic, urban planner, and historian. _The Conduct of Life_ [1951], "The Challenge of Renewal" Is life not a hundred times too short to be bored in it? --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (18441900) German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture. _Beyond Good and Evil_ [1885-1886], pt. 7 "Our Virtues" The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom. --C. Northcote Parkinson (19091993) English writer. _The Economist_, vol. 303 [1987] The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. --attributed to both Ellen Parr & Dorothy Parker. No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a nuisance after three days. --Titus Maccius Plautus (254184 BC) Roman comic dramatist. _Miles Gloriosus_, Act III, Scene I An object in possession seldom retains the same charms that it had in pursuit. --Pliny the Younger or Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (62c.115) Roman senator and author of a famous collection of letters. _Letters_ bk. 2, letter 15 The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom. --Arthur Schopenhauer (17881860) German philosopher. "Personality, or What a Man Is" in _The Wisdom of Life; Counsels and Maxims_ [tr. by T. Bailey Saunders, 1890]. I would have been bored silly if I hadn't been there myself. --George Bernard Shaw (18561950) Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.] Quoted in _San Francisco Chronicle_ [10 June 1993]. A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you. --Bert L. Taylor (18661921) American journalist. _The So-Called Human Race_ [1922] Somebody's boring me, I think it's me. --Dylan Thomas (19141953) Welsh poet. Quoted in Rayner Heppenstall _Four Absentees_ [1960]. The self-styled reformers, the greatest bores of all. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. "Visitors" in _Walden_ [1854] I have often remarked in the United States that it is not easy to make a man understand that his presence may be dispensed with; hints will not always suffice to shake him off. I contradict an American at every word he says, to show him that his conversation bores me; he instantly labours with fresh pertinacity to convince me: I preserve a dogged silence, and he thinks that I am meditating deeply on the truths which he is uttering: at last I rush from his company, and he supposes that some urgent business hurries me elsewhere. This man will never understand that he wearies me to extinction unless I make tell him so: and the only way to get rid of him is to make him my enemy for life. --Alexis de Tocqueville (18051859) French historian and politician. _Democracy in America_, pt. II, bk. III, ch. 3 [1840] - My dear Mr. K.: I responded to your first letter out of courtesy. I ignored the second as a hint that I did not intend to become your permanent pen pal. The arrival of still a third obliges me to be a little more explicit. I have always been interested in the morbid aberrations which drive persons like yourself so pompously to seek correspondence with strangers. In this respect your letters have been illuminating. But they also reveal you as a witless and meddlesome old ass, self-deluded and full of vapors. I must, therefore, urge you in the future to address yourself to your own affairs rather than to mine. As an incentive toward this healthy goal, I promise that your future correspondence will be returned to you unopened. --Dalton Trumbo (19051976) American screenwriter and novelist. _Additional Dialogue: Letters of Dalton Trumbo_ [1970] (In a letter to W.F.K, [12 January 1948].) - Happiness ain'ta thing in itself, it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. ... And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" in _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ [December 1907]. A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience. --John Updike (19322009) American novelist and short-story writer. _Assorted Prose_ [1965] "Confessions of a Wild Bore" The secret of being a bore. . . is to tell everything. --Voltaire (Fran็ois Marie Arouet) (16941778) French writer and philosopher. _Discours en vers sur l'homme_ [1737] There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror. --Orson Welles (19151985) American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer. Interview in "The Times" [6 May 1985]. ----- churl (noun) [ch๊rl] A rude, ignorant person, a boor; a sullen even rude miser. desiccate (verb) 1. To dry up. 2. To preserve (a food) by drying. 3. To drain of emotional or intellectual vitality. desultory (adj.) ['de-z๊l-to-ree] Moving disconnectedly without focus; lacking enthusiams, sluggish. desultorily: adverb desultoriness: noun ennui [on-WEE], noun: A feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction arising from lack of interest; boredom. Synonyms: tedium, boredom. hackneyed (adj.) ['hak-need] Repeated too often, made trite by overuse, stale. interminable [in-TUR-muh-nuh-buhl], adjective: so long as to seem endless; never stopping jejune [juh-JOON], adjective: 1. Lacking in nutritive value. 2. Displaying or suggesting a lack of maturity; childish. 3. Lacking interest or significance; dull; meager; dry. macrology (noun) [mๆ-'crah-l๊-jee] Wordiness, prolixity, excessively redundant speech. Macrology refers to speech that is not merely excessive in length but also tedious and pointlessly redundant. oscitancy (noun) ['ah-si-t๊n-si] Yawning or a yawn, hence the drowsiness or dullness associated with yawning. philistine (noun) ['fi-l๊-steen or f๊-'lis-teen] A boorish person without interest in the arts and who is antagonistic to cultural values; someone whose interests are in material, common things. Etymology: The Philistines were originally a bellicose people of uncertain origin who occupied the southern coast of Palestine and constantly harassed the Israelites. sempiternal [sem-pih-TUR-nuhl], adjective: Of never ending duration; having beginning but no end; everlasting; endless. somniferous [som-NIF-uhr-uhs], adjective: Causing or inducing sleep. Ex.: He has gone outside the usual channels of stodgy academic journals and somniferous lectures. --David Gibson, "Separating Christ from Christianity," The Record (Bergen County, NJ) [9 June 1996] torpor [AWR-per], noun: 1. Lacking in vitality or interest. 2. A state of mental or physical inactivity or insensibility. 3. Lethargy; apathy. vapid [VAP-id; VAY-pid], adjective: 1. Lacking liveliness and spirit; unanimated; spiritless; dull; as, "a vapid speech." 2. Flavorless; lacking taste or zest; flat; as, "vapid beer." Ex.: "Especially in his coverage of the first 800 years of Russian architecture, he resorts to a prose of vapid enthusiasms; too many buildings are described like this, about a country palace: 'a breathtaking masterpiece that fairly shimmered with Baroque splendor.' " --Richard Lourie, "Firebrands and Firebirds," New York Times [5 April 1998] . . see: "CREDIT" see: "DEBT" see: "LENDING" [Upon withdrawing his savings from a bank that had granted him a loan:] I don't trust a bank that would lend money to such a poor risk. --Robert Benchley (18891945) American humorist and newspaper columnist. Quoted in Robert E. Drennan (ed.) _The Algonquin Wits_[1968]. The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. --Bible "Proverbs" 22:7 Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and 'intimate' when he is rich or famous. --Ambrose Bierce (18421914) American newspaperman, wit, and satirist. _The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906] (Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.) Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are those that other people have lent me. --Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (18441924) French novelist, man of letters, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921. _La vie litt้raire_ [1888] The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to John Taylor [28 May 1816]. Your borrowers of books those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. --Charles Lamb (17751834) English essayist. _Essays of Elia_ [1823] "The Two Races of Men" I have granted you much that you asked: and yet you never cease to ask of me. He who refuses nothing, Atticilla, will soon have nothing to refuse. --Martial [Marcus Valerius Martialis] (38/41103) Roman poet. _Epigrams_, bk. XII [98] It is easy to promise, and alas! how easy to forget! --Alfred de Musset (18101857) French poet, dramatist, and author. Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 423 [10th ed. 1884]. If you lend a person any money, it becomes lost for any purpose as one's own. When you ask for it back again, you may find a friend made an enemy by your kindness. If you begin to press still further, either you must part with that which you have intrusted, or else you must lose that friend. --Titus Maccius Plautus (254184 BC) Roman comic dramatist. _Trinummus_, IV, iv [When Ayn Rand's niece asked to borrow $25 to buy a dress, Rand spelled out her terms:] I want you to understand right now that I will not accept any excuses except a serious illness. If you become ill, then I will give you an extension of time *but for no other reason.* If, when the debt becomes due, you tell me you can't pay me because you needed a new pair of shoes or a new coat or you gave the money to somebody in the family who needed it more than I do then I will consider you as an embezzler. No, I won't send a policeman after you, but I will write you off as a rotten person and I will never speak or write to you again. --Ayn Rand (19051982) Russian-born American writer. Quoted in Thomas Mallon _Yours Ever: People and Their Letters_ [2009]. Guarantees which are not worth the paper they are written on. --Johann Bernhard Graf von Rechberg und Rothenl๖wen (18061899) Austrian statesman. In a dispatch concerning the recognition of Italy [1861]. - Beggars mounted run their horse to death. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _King Henry VI_, pt. III, I, iv [1590-1591] Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan both loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Hamlet_, act I, sc. 3, l. 75 [1601] - The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Pudd'nhead Wilson_ [1894], ch. 7 epigraph: "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" Let us all be happy and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with. --Artemus Ward [Charles Farrar Browne] (18341867) American humorist and writer. _Artemus Ward in London_ [1867] ;void(0)) BOSTON . . see: "PLACES" for related links No doubt the Bostonian has always been noted for a certain chronic irritability a sort of Bostonitis which, in its primitive Puritan form, seemed due to knowing too much of his neighbors, and thinking too much of himself. --Henry Brooks Adams (18381918) American historian & man of letters. _The Education of Henry Adams_ [1907] I have just returned from Boston. It is the only sane thing to do if you find yourself up there. --Fred Allen [John Florence Sullivan] (18941956) American humorist. Letter to Groucho Marx [12 June 1953]. And this is good old Boston, The home of the bean and the cod, Where the Lowells talk only to the Cabots, And the Cabots talk only to God. --John Collins Bossidy (18601928) American poet. Toast at Holy Cross alumni dinner in 1910, as quoted in "Literary Landmarks of Massachusetts" by William H. Nicholas in _National Geographic_ [March 1950]. ^ Calvin Coolidge (18721933), 30th President of the United States [19231929], A visitor to the White House approached Coolidge in a receiving line and introduced himself, saying, 'Mr. President, I'm from Boston.' 'You'll never get over it,' replied the President. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andr้ Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ - The skyline was dominated by steeples and the whole town by bells. Everyone knew Christ's 'royal peal' and that New North's had a sour note. King's Chapel's was deep and sad. Old Brattle and Hollis had their bells. Folk would stop in the street to count the 'passing bell' tolling out the sex and age of the deceased. And they always ran to ask for whom the bell tolled. The bells rang wildly for fires or to call out the mob, joyfully for the repeal of certain acts of Parliament or the withdrawal of an especially unpopular royal governor. They tolled over 'tyranny.' They opened and closed the markets, and twice on Sunday called all to church or meeting. These were the great bells the very voice of Boston. Besides there were countless smaller ones. Hand-bells rung on the street advertising 'wonders' and sales, or that it was two o'clock and 'The Bunch of Grapes' was about to serve dinner. Schoolmasters rang for school, cowbells drowsed through the blueberry bushes and hardhack of the Common, and all day long, in hundreds of shops and houses, the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of doorbells. In winter-time came the frosty sparkle of sleighbells as citizens rode out in their 'booby-huts.' The music of bells is almost forgotten by modern ears. Then it was everywhere. --Esther Forbes (18911967) American novelist and children's writer. _Paul Revere and the World He Lived In_ [1942] - [Of Shakespeare:] A great man! Why, I doubt if there are six his equal in the whole of Boston. --said to William Gladstone by an unnamed Bostonian. - Full of crooked little streets; but I tell you Boston has opened, and kept open, more turnpikes that lead straight to free thought and free speech and free deeds than any other city of live men or dead men. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894) American physician, poet, and essayist. _The Professor at the Breakfast Table_ [1860] That's all I claim for Boston that it is the thinking center of the continent, and therefore of the planet. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894) American physician, poet, and essayist. _The Professor at the Breakfast Table_ [1860] - In Boston the onus lies upon every respectable person to prove that he has not written a sonnet, preached a sermon, or delivered a lecture. --Charles Mackay (18141889) Scottish poet and newspaperman. _Life and Liberty in America_ [1859] -- A Texan, trying to impress a Bostonian with tales about the heroes of the Alamo, said, "I'll bet you never had anyone so brave around Boston." "Ever hear of Paul Revere?" asked the Bostonian. "Paul Revere?" said the Texan. "Isn't he the guy who ran for help?"  BOXING . . see: "SPORTS" for related links He's [Sonny Liston] too ugly to be the world's champ! The world's champ should be pretty like me! --Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay) (1942 ) American heavyweight boxer. Quoted in Thomas Hauser _Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times_ [1992]. It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up. --Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay) (b. 1942) American heavyweight boxer. Quoted in "N.Y. Times" [6 April 1977]. At a New York party, violinist Isaac Stern was introduced to Ali. "You might say we're in the same business," remarked Stern. "We both earn a living with our hands." "You must be pretty good," said Ali. "There isn't a mark on you." --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andr้ Bernard [2000 ed.] - Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee, Your hands can't hit What your eyes can't see! --Drew "Bundini" Brown (19281987) Muhammad Ali's trainer. In "Life" (mag.) [19 November 1965]. - Seeking to psych out challengers in the days leading up to big fights, Hall of Fame boxer Charles "Kid" McCoy frequently feigned illness or spread rumors of an injury. Then, when the bout came around, McCoy would show up in perfect form. (This supposedly prompted reporters to wonder whether they'd be seeing "the real McCoy" in the ring.) But McCoy's lowest blow? In 1893, when he fought a deaf mute. Toward the end of the fourth round, McCoy simply dropped his gloves and walked back to his corner as though the bell had sounded. When the deaf fighter turned to do the same, McCoy ran over and knocked him out. --Chris Connolly _Mental Floss Magazine_ [Sep/Oct 2006], "10 Gloriously Underhanded Sports Tactics: Kid McCoy Taking Advantage of The Bell Curve" Note: For another account of the origin of "the real McCoy" see the 2nd Alistair Cooke quote in "West (The Old/Wild)" - - [On his fight with Benny Leonard:] All the time he's boxing he's thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him. --Jack Dempsey (18951983) American boxer. Interview with Ernest Hemingway quoted in _Hemingway: a Collection of Critical Essays_ [1962]. [To his wife, after losing the World Heavyweight title to Gene Tunney:] Honey, I just forgot to duck. --Jack Dempsey (18951983) American boxer. [23 September 1926]. (After a failed attempt on his life in 1981, Ronald Reagan quipped to his wife Nancy, "Honey, I forgot to duck.") - The bigger they come, the harder they fall. --Bob Fitzsimmons (18631917) British boxer. When asked by a newspaper reporter if he could defeat the much heavier James J. Jeffries [9 June 1899]. (Fitzsimmons lost.) Get me that Lewis I'll moider that bum! --"Two-Ton" Tony Galento (19101979) American boxer. Remark to his manager Joe Jacobs, early 1939. On 28 June 1939 Joe Louis scored a fourth-round TKO over Galento in their heavyweight title fight. In Joe Louis, _My Story_ [1947]. To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other. --Jack Handey (b. 1949) American comedian and comedy writer. _Deep Thoughts_ [1992] We was robbed! --Joe Jacobs (18961940) American boxing manager. After Jack Sharkey beat Jacobs' boxer Max Schmeling in the heavyweight title fight [21 June 1932]. In Peter Heller _In This Corner_ [1975]. Young man Your arm's too short to box with God. --James Weldon Johnson (18711938) American teacher, poet, songwriter, and civil rights activist. "The Prodigal Son" l. 2 [1927] Reporter: [Billy] Conn is going to use plenty [of] footwork, and do lots of running. Louis: He can run but he can't hide. --Joe Louis [Joseph Louis Barrow aka The Brown Bomber] (19141981) Undefeated American boxer and heavyweight champion [19371949]. _My Life Story_ [1947] [After recovering from a knockout by Joe Louis:] I zigged when I should have zagged. --Jack Roper (19041966) American heavyweight boxer and actor. [17 April 1939]. My main objective is to be professional but kill him. --Mike Tyson (b. 1966) American professional boxer and heavyweight champion. Describing an upcoming boxing match with Lennox Lewis, in _Independent_ [5 May 2002]. ----- pugilist [PYOO-juh-list], noun: One who fights with the fists; especially, a professional prize fighter; a boxer. welterweight (noun) Boxer between lightweight and middleweight with a weight between 61 kg (135 lb) and 66.5 kg (147 lb) end page | BABIES - BARTENDERS | BASEBALL | BASTARDS - BEATLES (THE) | BEAUTY | BED - BEGINNINGS | BEHAVIOR - BELIEF | BENNY (JACK) - BIBLE | BICYCLES - BIRDS | BIRTH - BITTERNESS | BLAME - BLOGGING | BLONDES - BOOK BURNING | BOOKS | BOOMERS (THE) - BOXING | BOYS - BREAKING UP | BREASTS - BRITAIN | BROADWAY - BROTHERLY LOVE | BUGS BUNNY - BUREAUCRACY | BURMA SHAVE - BUSYBODIES | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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