Twain, Mark -- Dictation (1907-07-30)

Dave — Mon, 20 May 2024 15:08:51 +0000

A banquet is probably the most fatiguing thing in the world except ditch-digging.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Dictation (1907-07-30)
(Source)

In Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (pub. 2015).

Also recorded in Bernard DeVoto, ed., Mark Twain in Eruption, "The Last Visit to England," ch. 1 "White and Red" (1940). DeVoto identifies it coming from the dictations of July-August 1907.

Lawrence, Jerome -- Auntie Mame, Act 2, sc. 6 (1956) [with Robert E. Lee]

Dave — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 22:10:28 +0000

MAME: Yes! Life is a banquet, and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death! Live!

Jerome Lawrence (1915-2004) American playwright and author [b. Jerome Lawrence Schwartz]
Auntie Mame, Act 2, sc. 6 (1956) [with Robert E. Lee]

Based on the novel Patrick Dennis, Auntie Mame (1955), turned first into this Broadway play by Lawrence and Lee, a 1958 movie, then the musical Mame (1966), followed by a movie of the musical (1974). The line is original with Lawrence and Lee.

WIST Quotations

Twain, Mark -- Dictation (1907-07-30)

Lawrence, Jerome -- Auntie Mame, Act 2, sc. 6 (1956) [with Robert E. Lee]