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Interviews | December 15, 2009

The Powells.com Interview with Eoin Colfer

2 comments By Jill Owens

Eoin Colfer is best known for his bestselling Artemis Fowl series, which inspires fanatical devotion in its fans. Entertainment Weekly raved: "The... Continue »

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1. 
   $18.19 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

   And Another Thing... (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #6)

   Eoin Colfer

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WKW, December 24, 2006

?If, with the literate, I am / Impelled to try an epigram, / I never seek to take the credit: / We all assume that Oscar said it.? But it was Dorothy Parker, not Mr. Wilde, who said that, drawn from over three thousand spokespersons, statesmen, saints, and singers: Du Bois and Friedan and W. C. Fields, Spinoza and Gertrude Stein and Snoop Doggy Dogg, Paine and Plath and Johnny Rotten, as well as me and you, aka Anonymous. (See ?Modern Proverbs.?)

Aided by scholars and volunteers, the heroic Fred R. Shapiro furnishes specific references, often with extra context, for an exuberant range of quotes, from the erudite---?Correct English is the slang of prigs? (p. 233)---to the airhead: ?[I]f you are killed, you have lost a very important part of your life? (p. 708). Again and again this magisterial collection reveals the earliest phrasing and earliest true deviser of many a modern catchphrase. Who?s responsible for ?Don?t ask, don?t tell?? Or ?Whatever is not nailed down is mine. Whatever I can pry loose is not nailed down?? Did Nietzsche actually claim that, ?Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger?? If Truman wasn?t the first to say ?If you don?t like the heat, get out of the kitchen?---and he wasn?t---who was? The ingenious Keyword Index enables you to find out. (See Harry Vaughan 1, p. 787.) To ascertain that ?The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose? is not from the Bible, as some believe, but Shakespeare took just the blink of an eye. And if you want the straight dope about Murphy?s Law, the Peter Principle, or the sentiment ascribed to German theologian Martin Niemoller (?When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore, I was not concerned. . . . Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant Church---there was nobody left to be concerned?), check out pages 529, 590, and 551.

Yale has lavished this thousand-page project with superb design, stylish typefaces, and good glare-free paper; yet the book is not heavy for its size, and it lies flat wherever opened. Man of letters Joseph Epstein contributes a smart and racy foreword, and portraits or photographs enliven the entries. (Will you recognize young Mae West when you see her?) In ?Wuthering Heights? Merle Oberon cries, ?Bring me back the world!? (See ?Film Lines.?) Ladies and gentlemen and others, here it is.

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