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| January 1, 2012: Mr. Churchill
speaks out in true Brit
"An exchange between Lady
Astor and Winston Churchill:" She said, "If you were my husband I'd give
you poison." He replies, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."
"Some cause happiness wherever
they go; others whenever they go."
--Oscar Wilde
"He had delusions of adequacy."
--Walter Kerr
"Freedom is one of the deepest
and most noble aspirations of the human spirit."
--Pres. Ronald Reagan
"He is not only dull himself,
he is the cause of dullness in others."
--Oscar Wilde
"Some cause happiness wherever
they go; others whenever they go."
--Samuel Johnson
(Thanks to Alix Bainbridge for most of
this month's quotes)
top
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| December 1, 2011: Quotemasters
Say goodbye to a bum year
"Some people spend an entire
lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that
problem."
--Pres. Ronald Reagan
"I feel so miserable without
you. It's almost like having you here."
--Stephen Bishop
"He is simply a shiver looking
for a spine to run up."
--Paul Keating
"When you appeal to force,
there is one thing you must never do, and that is lose.
--Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower
"All you need in life is
simply ignorance and confidence and then success is sure."
--Mark Twain
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| November 1, 2011: Quotemasters
really tough this month
"In landing operations,
retreat is impossible, to surrender is as ignoble as it is foolish. Above
all else remember that we as attackers have the initiative, we know exactly
what we are going to do, while the enemy is ignorant of our intentions and
can only parry our blows. We retain this tremendous advantage by always attacking
rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, and without rest."
--General George S. Patton's World War
II pre-Sicily invasion order, June 27, 1943
"All you need in life is
simply ignorance and confidence and then success is sure."
--Mark Twain
"I've just learned about
his illness. Let us hope it's nothing trivial."
--Irvin S. Cobb
"My mother should have
thrown him away and kept the stork."
--Mae West
"He has Van Gogh's ear for
music."
--Billy Wilder
"The difference between
the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning
and a lightning bug."
--Mark Twain (thanks, Carol Cook)
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| October 1, 2011: Quotes from
the experts, so they say
"Heresay is what the minority
believe. It is the name given by the powerful to the doctrines of the weak."
--Robert Ingersol
"We must think about things
as they are, not as they are said to be."
--GBS
"We acquire the strength
we have overcome."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
"An intellectual is a man
who takes more words that necessary to tell more than he knows."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower
"I never give them hell.
I just tell them the truth and they think it's hell."
--Harry S Truman
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| September 1, 2011: Quote Master
back in form, likes 'em long
"Advertising has done more
to cause the social unrest of the 20th century than any other single
factor."
--Clare Booth Luce
"Time is too slow for those
who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too
silent for those who rejoice. But for those who love, time is eternity."
--Henry Van Dyke
"I can think of nothing
more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms
for a whole half hour looking at my face in their television screens."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower
"In Paris they simply stared
when I spoke to them in French. I never did make those idiots understand
their own language."
--Mark Twain (for Carol Cook)
"Great minds discuss ideas,
average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."
--Admiral Hyman Rickover
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| July 1, 2011: Classy quotes
from the man, Ronald Reagan
"No people who have ever
lived have fought harder, paid a higher price for freedom, or done more to
advance the dignity of man than Americans."
"The future doesn't belong
to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave."
"Our leaders must remember
that education doesn't begin with some isolated Washington bureaucrat. It
doesn't even begin with state or local officials. Education begins in the
home."
"The most terrifying words
in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to
help.'"
"Of the four wars in my
life- time, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."
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| July 1, 2011: How could we
survive sans quotes?
"The difference between
the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning
and a lightning bug."
--Mark Twain
"Half the promises people
say were never kept, were never made."
--Edgar Watson Home
"A friend in power is a
friend lost."
--Henry Adams
"Advertising has done more
to cause the social unrest of the 20th century than any other single
factor."
--Clare Boothe Luce
"Our country's motto is,
'In God We Trust.' At the rate we're going that motto may be the only thing
of value on our coins."
--Ronald Regan
(Thanks to Carol Cook for sending Mark Twain's quote.)
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| June 1, 2011: Quotester Strikes
Again
"Without my morning coffee
I'm just like a dried-up piece of roast goat."
--John Sebastian Bach
Xenagorbibliomania: an obsessive
curiosity about the books that strangers read in open spaces."
--Nick Hornby
"The only thing I like about
rich people is their money."
--Lady Astor
"Whether you think you can
or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford
"Some people pay compliments
as if they expected a receipt."
--Kin Hubbard
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| May 1, 2011: Short Quotes,
Long Quotes. Sexy Quotes
"Contract: an agreement
that is binding only on the weaker party."
--Frederick Sawyer
"All you need in life is
simply ignorance and confidence and then success is sure."
--Mark Twain
"A society that puts equality,
(in the sense of equally of outcome) ahead of freedom will end up with neither
equality nor freedom."
--Milton Friedman
"Saving is a very fine thing.
Especially when your parents have done it for you."
--Winston Churchill
"No rich man is ugly."
--Zsa Zsa Gabor
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| April 1, 2011: Can writers
spin off mean quotes?
"With sixty staring me in
the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and a definite
hardening of the paragraphs."
--James Thurber
"Writers are people who
have a harder time writing than ordinary people."
--Thomas Mann
"I love being a writer What
I can't stand is the paperwork."
--Peter DeVries
"I'm probably the world's
worst writer, but I'm the world's best rewriter."
--James Michener
"To write simple is as difficult
as to be good."
--W. Somerset Maugham
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| March 1, 2011: A quote in
time saves nine
"Never multiply explanations.
Rather, select the simplest and most obvious of them."
--Occam's Razor
"The House Un-American
Activities Committee will nail anyone who scratched his ass during the National
Anthem."
--Humphrey Bogart
"If a thing is old it is
a sign that it was fit to live. The guarantee of continuity is quality."
--Eddie Rickenbacker
"The ability to sell rests
on three bases: Verisimilitude (having the reader regard what you say as
truth) Clarity and Benefit."
--Herschell Lewis
"Nothing worth doing is
completed in our lifetime. Therefore, we must be saved by hope."
--Reinhold Niebuhr
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| February 1, 2011: A Quota
of Quazy Quotes
"Wit is like caviar. It
should be served in small, elegant portions and not splodged around like
marmalade."
--Noel Coward
"Think
strategically, act primitively."
--French poet Rene Char
"Work is
a gift. Work organizes our days, gives us something to wake up for, and offers
us a sense of achievement and purpose. Work clears the despair and fear out
of our heads. To teenagers work is a drag and a burden. To wiser heads, its
salvation."
--Ben Stein
"Price is
price, but value is the total experience."
--Leonard Berry, JC Penny
"All our
words from loose using have lost their edge."
--Ernest Hemingway
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| January 1, 2011: Quotemakers,
back again in a new year
"Our language becomes ugly
and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of
our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."
--George Orwell
"There are
two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up."
--Rex Stout
"The answer
is simple. I have no idea."
--Humorist Dave Barry
"Of course
I believe in luck. How else does one explain the successes of one's
enemies?"
--French artist Jean Cocteau
"Imagination
is more important than knowledge."
--Albert Einstein
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| December 1, 2010: Quotemasters
of the day have their say
"No particular man is necessary
to the state. We may depend on it that, if we provide the country with popular
institutions, those institutions will provide it with great men."
--Thomas Macaulay
British historian
"The greater the number
of laws and enactments, the more thieves and robbers there will be."
--Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher
"The past is never dead.
It is not even past."
--William Faulkner, American author
"If you would not be forgotten,
as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading or
do things worth writing."
--Benjamin Franklin
"Please continue coverage
of Mr. Berlusconi's career, especially his comments. I loved his observation
on an unsolicited and unwanted comment by France's Jacques Chirac. He said,
'Mr. Chirac has missed another opportunity to remain silent.' "
--Letter to the editor
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| November 1, 2010: The quotable
quote quota word machine
"A mass of words falls upon
the soft snow, bluring the outlines and covering up all details."
--George Orwell
"Nothing is ever accomplished
by a reasonable man."
--GBS
"History is a lie agreed
upon."
--Napoleon
"Progress might have been
all right once, but it has gone on too long."
--Ogden Nash
"Great minds discuss ideas,
average minds discuss events, and small minds discuss people."
--Hyman Rickover
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| October 1, 2010: Quotes worth
quoting
"O, Lord,
we are about to join battle with vastly superior numbers of the enemy. Father,
we would like you to be on our side and help us, but if you can't do it,
for Christ's sake don't go over to them. But lie low and keep dark, and you'll
see the damnedest fight you ever saw in all your born days. Amen."
--Denver's Ed Halloran quoting Col. Jack
Hays of the Texas Rangers (US-Mexico war)
"If a thought
is old, it is a sign it was fit to live. A guarantee of continuity is quality."
--Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973)
"Ours is
the age of substitutes. Instead of language we have jargon. Instead of
principles, slogans, and instead of genuine ideas, bright suggestions."
--Eric Bentley, British author
"When I rest,
I rust."
--Fritz Thyssen German Industrialist
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| September 1, 2010: Five authors,
five rules for living
"We are what
we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
--Kurt Vonnegut
"The one
thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."
--Harper Lee
"It's funny
about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the very best, you often
get it."
--Somerset Maugham
"Don't go
around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It
was here first."
--Mark Twain
"Be not afraid
of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have
greatness thrust upon them."
--William Shakespeare
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| August 1, 2010: Quotebook:
Old celebs on parade
"I think
the most important thing a woman can have, next to talent, is her hairdresser."
--Joan Crawford
"You can
fool all of the people all of the time if the advertising is right and the
budget is big enough."
--Joe Levine
"Marilyn
was mean. Terribly mean. The meanest woman I have ever met around this town.
I have never met anybody as mean as Marilyn Monroe or as utterly fabulous
on the screen."
--Billy Wilder
"The face
of Garbo is an idea. That of Hepburn an event."
--Roland Barthes
"Sally Field,
in the film, Absence of Malice, said her father was an investment banker.
Paul Newman replied, so was mine, but they called him a loan shark."
--Earl Wilson
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| July 1, 2010: Quotebook: sharp
blows at conformity
"All music
is folk music. Never heard no horse sing a song."
--Louis Armstrong
"I always
turn to the sports page first. It records accomplishments. The front page
is nothing but failure."
--Earl Warren
"Behind
the phony tinsel of Hollywood lies the real tinsel."
--Oscar Levant
"The best
time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs
in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.
--Bette Davis
Reviewing
Katherine Hepburn: "She ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B."
--Dorothy Parker
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| June 1, 2010: General Mac speaks
out for youth
Youth is
not a time of life. It is a state of mind; it it a temper of the will, a
quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage
over timidity, of the appetite of adventure over love of ease.
Nobody grows
old by merely living a number if years; people grow old only by deserting
their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles
the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair are the long years
that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.
NOTE: This
just one third of a message that hung over the desk of General Douglas MacArthur
during the long years he endured to win the war in the Pacific. More to follow.
top |
| May 1, 2010: Just win, baby,
just win
"Sports is
the toy department of human life"
--Howard Cosell
"Sports
do not build character. They reveal it."
--Heywood Broun
"Fishing
is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes."
--Don Marquis
"Professional
football is getting very rough. You have to wear shoulder pads, a face mask
and a hard helmet--and that's just to sit in the stands."
--Anonymous
"This guy
is so fast he could throw a pork chop past a wolf."
--Various Sources
Thanks again
to Leo Rosten and his marvelous book, :"Carnival of Wit"
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| April 1, 2010: Four experts
give the war a new face
War is too
serious a matter to entrust to military men.
--Georges Clemenceau
War does
not determine who is right - only who is left.
--Bertrand Russell
"War is Peace"
"Freedom is Slavery" "Ignorance is Strength."
----George Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-Four
We have the
finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the
world. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going
up against. By God, I do.
--George S. Patton, Jr.
Quotes by
he finest military quote site, allgreatquotes.com/war
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| March 1, 2010: Investing strategy
made easy
"There's
something about inside information which seems to paralyze a man's reasoning
powers."
--Bernard Baruch
"The market
can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
--John Maynard Keynes
"Read Ben
Graham and Phil Fisher, read annual reports, but don't do equations with
Greek letters in them."
--Warren Buffet
"Money is
not required to buy one necessity of the soul."
--Henry David Thoreau
All these
strategies were clipped from the back of an investment newsletter. Unfortunately
its name was clipped off, too.
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| February 1, 2010: The Elements
of Style still reigns
E.B.. White, the
co-author of "The Elements of Style," was a student at Cornell in 1919, and
happened to take an English class from Prof. William Strunk Jr. The coursebook,
named "The Elements of Style," was written by Prof. Strunk. White enjoyed
the class and the book and moved on with his life. Thirty eight years later
a major publisher hired him to revise the book for the college market (Prof.
Strunk had died). Commenting on his first revision in 1957, White said:
"It was Will Strunk's
parvum opus, his attempt to cut the vast tangle of English rhetoric down
to size and write its rules and principles on the head of a pin. It was a
43-page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the
use of English."
Several editions
have been written by White and "The Elements of Style" remains a masterpiece.
Writers who don't have this book aren't writers.
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| January 1, 2010: Does love
conquer all? Not quite.
"Love should
be simple, but it's not. Hate should be hard, but it's easy."
--Tanya Tucker
"Love means
to look at yourself the way one looks at distant things. For you are only
one thing among many."
--Czeslaw Milosz
"Harmony
is pure love, for love is complete agreement."
--Lope de Vega
"Love conquers
all things except poverty and toothache."
--Mae West
"Many a
man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen
a suit by it."
--Maurice Chevalie
All quotes
are from Daily Dose of Knowledge: Brilliant Thoughts.
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|
| December 1, 2009: The perils
of boredom and bores
Bore:
One who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation.
Benjamin Disraeli
When a bore
leaves the room, you feel as if someone fascinating just came in.
Jewish Saying
Bore:
A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
Ambrose Bierce
Dear World:
I am leaving because I am bored.
George Sanders (taken from his suicide
note).
All of the above are from Leo Rosten's
Carnival of Wit, a jewel of a book
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| November 1, 2009: At last!
Women's Fashions
"Women's
styles may change, but their designs remain the same."
--Oscar Wilde
"High heels
were invented by a woman who had been kissed on the forehead.
--Christopher Morley
"When in
doubt, wear red."
--Bill Blass
"I dress
for women--and I undress for men."
--Angie Dickinson
"I never
expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they
do now."
--Will Rogers
Thanks again to Leo Rosten and his truly
excellent, Carnival of Wit. I'd buy this book if I were you.
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| October 1, 2009: True wit lampoons
conformity
"Men will
confess to treason, murder, arson or a wig. Few will own up to no sense of
humor."
--Frank Moore Colby
"Adam was
the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew nobody had said it before
him."
--Mark Twain
"A humorist
is a man who feels bad but who feels good about it."
--Don Herold
"Analyzing
humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog
dies,
--E. B. White
All of the
above, including the headline, from Leo Rosten's terrific book, Carnival
of Wit
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| September 1, 2009: Ad master
Mr. David Ogilvy
After
direct marketing genius David Ogilvy gave a speech in India, A member of
the audience said "India draws inspiration from Madison Avenue, but what
is Madison Avenue's source?" Ogilvy replied, "Modesty forbids."... Fortune
Magazine published a story entitled "David Ogilvy, Advertising Genius?" Said
Ogilvy, "I almost sued them for the question mark."...In a speech in Paris,
Ogilvy scorched general ad agencies with this line: "Your favorite music
is the applause of your own art directors and copywriters. Ours is the ring
of the cash register."
...Ogilvy always assumed the intelligence of the consumer. "The customer
isn't a moron," he wrote. "She's your wife."
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August 1, 2009: What's love
got to do with it?
-
"The story of
a love is not important. What is important is that one is capable of love."
--Helen Hayes
-
"One is very
crazy when in love."
--Sigmund Freud
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"Love consists
in this, that two solitudes protect and greet and touch each other."
--Rainer Maria Rilke
-
"It is better
to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all."
--Samuel Butler
These varying
angles on love are from Leo Rosten's Carnival of Wit: Headline by
Tina Turner.
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| July 1, 2009: Leo Rosten hits
it big in Carnival
Leo
Rosten's Carnival of Wit is a laugh a page. Leo opens it with a warranty
to buyers: "If you are not completely delighted with this book, just return
it to me with the receipt showing exactly how much you paid. I promise to
return your receipt within five days."
Under MARRIAGE,
the
following:
-
"Marriage is the
only adventure open to the cowardly" (Voltaire)
-
"Marriage--a master,
a mistress and two slaves,making in all, two (Ambrose Bierce)
-
"Marriage is popular
because it combines the maximum of temptation with the minimum of opportunity
(GBS)
-
"Marriage is a
very good thing, but I think it's mistake to make a habit of it (W. Somerset
Maugham)
-
"A man in love
is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished." (Zsa Zsa Gabor)
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| June 1, 2009: A humorist who's
called nation's best
The
following bits of advice came from the man they call America's most famous
humorist. Do you know his name? Then read on.
-
"Never slap a
man who's chewing tobacco...
-
Always drink upstream
from the herd...
-
Never kick a cow
chip on a hot day...
-
If you find yourself
in a hole, stop digging...
-
Never miss a good
chance to shut up...
-
The quickest way
to double your money is to fold it and put it back in your pocket...
-
Eventually you'll
stop lying about your age and start bragging about it."
Thank you, Mr.
Will Rogers.
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| May 1, 2009: Mr. Ogilvy's
denouncement of ad agencies
"You
generalists are the glamor boys and girls of the advertising community. You
regard advertising as an art form and expect your clients to finance expressions
of your genius. We humble people who work in direct marketing do not regard
advertising as an art form. Our clients don't give a damn whether we win
awards at Cannes. They pay us to sell their products. Nothing more. We sell--or
else."
--An excerpt from David Ogilvy's famous speech
to an international gathering of direct marketers in Paris, in 1986. His
ire is directed at general advertising as he advocates the superiority of
direct marketing.
top |
| April 1, 2009: "H. L. Mencken.,"
writes Leo Rosten, "was one of America's greatest editors, critics, and writers.
He was a master of withering wit, libertarian par excellence, a cynic, erudite
agnostic, and an ebullient pessimist. He detested prudes, excoriated pomposity,
mocked hypocrisy, and used the English language as a club, rapier, scalpel,
and trumpet." Thank you, Leo. He was my favorite, too
H.L. Mencken lived with endless gusto
"It's
hard to believe a man is telling the truth when you know that you'd lie if
you were in his place... Conscience is the inner voice that tells you someone
may be watching...Operas in English are about as sensible as baseball in
Italian... A demagogue is a man who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue,
to men he knows to be idiots...Injustice isn't hard to bear; it's justice
that really hurts.
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| March 1, 2009: "Writers: Schmucks
with Underwoods" --Jack Warner
"You
must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn
an honest living." --GBS
"When
in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns." --Raymond
Chandler
"I
was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because
they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead. Spencer is dead, so
is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I'm not feeling very well myself." --Mark
Twain
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| February 1, 2009: Mr. Forbes
lets us in on his life
"Diamonds
are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs...It's more
fun to arrive at a conclusion than to justify it...Being right half the time
beats being half-right all the time...Never hire someone who knows less than
you do about what's he's hired to do...When what we are is what we want to
be, that's happiness...Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with
an open one."
--Delightful quotes from the fertile mind of Malcom Forbes
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| January 1, 2009: Use humor
where you can, but with care
"Use
humor where you can. It makes people like and trust you, but never drag it
out for the sake of saying something funny. Avoid humor if there's any chance
it will irritate. Never use off-color, religious or political humor, and
never make the reader the butt of your humor. Respond to letters written
in the light vein with your own letters that smile and chuckle in the same
manner."
--From direct marketing pro Ferd Nauheim's l982 book, Letter
Perfect
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