20 New Quotes about Books (and other topics) from Used Bookdealers

. . . Collected here and there over the past few years.

A curse for underhanded bookdealers:
1. "Let them have a copious variety of urgent, but fraudulent, book orders and increasingly tempting Nigerian schemes richly laden with ornate subordinate clauses, Victorian circumlocutions of cloying sweetness, and semi-plausible misspellings. Furthermore, let their own spellchecker be seeded with random malapropisms." David Anderson

2. "People who haggle over a five dollar book were never going to buy anything anyway." Brian Cassidy, 2008

3. "Creamsicle. My only reason for living as a child. Well, that and the library." Michelle Palmer, 2003

4. "All the scrapbook stores seem to have dogs, and all the bookstores seem to have cats." bookdealer and scrapbooker Marilyn Brownjohn

5. "I am a firm believer that a computer needs a Microsoft operating system the way a dog needs bricks tied to its head." Ian J. Kahn

6. "I don't know why they call it Victoria's secret. Everybody already knows about all that stuff." Victoria, 8-year old granddaughter of bookdealer Jim Hart

7. "Sometimes being born without the shopping gene means I feel like a foreigner in my own economy." Charmaine Taylor, 2003

8. "My acquaintances who are very rich insist that the less advantaged dealers exist to be exploited. The only people who truly count, whose needs and desires should be considered, are the members of the investor class. They all chuckle when I point out they are scum." unnamed bookdealer quoted by Renee Magriel Roberts

9. "I believe most booksellers are, by nature, hoarders." Rock Toews

10. "Incipient fascism is still thought to be curable. When presented with a sufferer of the common bureaucratic malady called cranio-rectal inversion, immediate prophylaxis is indicated." Andris Danielsons

11. "The difference between liberals and right-wing nuts is that right-wing nuts believe that *They* are better than *We and You*, whereas liberals believe that *We and You and They* should be treated equally under the law." Jessie Munro

12. "Specializing in Non-Moveable Type books. Some haven't moved in 17 years." Joe Oprisch

13. "The only effective protection from lies is the developement of critical thinking. Keeping kids in a kind of intellectual padded cell, fed only what their parents believe is true, is a guarantee that they will grow up gullible." Marc de Piolenc, in reply to a news story on parents stealing books from school libraries 'to protect them from lies'

14. "I'm not anti-religion -- I'm anti people who claim religion and practice cruelty." Shirley Bryant

15. "[Vice President Dick] Cheney is a white cat and an eye patch away from being a Bond Villain." Joyce Godsey, 2008

16. "Pricing [antiquarian and collectible books] is an acquired skill, an art, as long-time antiquarian specialists can attest. The presence or lack of a single mark on a single page can triple the price. No algorithm will ever take that into account." -- anonymous, quoted by Chris Hartmann, 2003

17. "Some of those books are too old to have first editions." comment by customer to bookdealer Doreen Steinbeck

18. "People with white carpeting never have good books. I think it's because they care more about appearances than brains." Jessie Munro, only half sarcastically, on how to judge the book potential at an estate sale by the decor in the front room, 2007

19. "These days if I find a mistake that could have been corrected by an editor, I fling the book across the room with great force. Who am I kidding? I stopped reading modern books when I ran out of spackle back in '02." Joyce Godsey, 2008

20. "Learn something new every day, if I'm not careful." Christopher Crockett

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Celebrating the ninth anniversary of the all-bookdealer-owned, all-bookdealer-run TomFolio.com!

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24 Goldwynisms from UUs

. . . The word Goldwynism was coined in the early 20th century for a quotation that carries an internal contradiction. It was named for famed movie producer Samuel Goldwyn (1879-1974) who was notorious for making firm pronouncements that seemed clear but, technically speaking, simply made no sense, such as: "Include me out"; "I'll give you a definite maybe"; "We're overpaying him but he's worth it."

The following Goldwynisms, lovingly collected over many years, sprung from the mouths of confused Unitarians and Universalists all across the world.


1. "I cherish the greatest respect toward everybody's religious obligations, never mind how comical." Herman Melville

2. "Say NO to negativity." the Rev. John Corrado

3. "The Garden of Eden is boring as Hell." the Rev. Davidson Loehr

4. "He's universally loved by dozens." U. Utah Phillips, singer-songwriter

5. "If you're going to misuse a word, do it right." Jessie Munro, author, critic

6. "I know what pot smells like because I've read all about it." Jessie Munro

7. "It just isn't Christmas until we've sung the Hanukkah song." overheard during coffee hour at a UU church, reported by Elizabeth Norton, 2008

8. "I have approximately nothing to report." William Hatton, committee chair

9. "It's so hot my armpits are sticking to each other." college student Kathleen Jacobs-Johnson

10. "I like the Ann Arbor art fair better because they have a better variety of crap." art fair visitor Kathleen Jacobs-Johnson

11. "Compassionate conservativism? When I hear neocons using the word compassion I just want to slug them." liberal-minded Kathleen Jacobs-Johnson

12. "Turn off that noise—I can't hear a word edgewise!" disgruntled roommate Kathleen Jacobs-Johnson

13. "I've had an excellent vocabulary since before I could talk." Gwen Foss

14. "You're throwing money out the window when you leave the door open." Gwen Foss, trying to convice thoughtless roommates to close the door during winter

15. "There are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't." overheard

16. "I washed a sock. Then I put it in the dryer. When I took it out, it was gone." overheard

17. "You can go with me or we can go together; it's up to you." Henry Clerval, college professor

18. "Occasionally I decide to be impulsive." Vanity Decklestad, author, folklorist

19. "Can you keep your voices down so everyone can see?" Bonnie Schorer Clark, trying to run church auction, to unruly crowd

20. "No one can shut me up unless they tie my hands behind my back." Heather Hicks, religious education teacher

21. "Does the album have any songs you like that aren't on it?" Henry Newt, music critic

22. "He had the same condition I've got, only mine is much worse." overheard at a funeral

23. "The show's only a half hour long. You can't do Hitler justice in half an hour." Peter H. Foss, my dad, complaining about the length of a certain television documentary

24. "If you haven't seen it before, it's certainly worth seeing again." Millie Foss, my mom, trying to talk a friend into seeing one of her favorite movies

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Many of these quotes first appeared in The Confused Quote Book: 395 Slips, Misses and Errors Spoken by the High, the Mighty and other Celebrities, compiled by Gwen Foss, Avenel NJ: Gramercy Books/Random House Value Publishing, 1997, long out of print

Click here for my book of UU jokes, The Church Where People Laugh

And please visit TomFolio.com, a cooperatively-owned website of independent professional book and paper dealers, for all your used book needs.

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