Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Joking with Doyle during a rehearsal for one of his plays, a young three-pound-a-week actor called Charlie suggested that he and Sir Arthur should pool their incomes and take half each for the rest of their lives. Though amused by the proposal, Doyle declined for obvious reasons. "I don't think so, Mr. Chaplin," he replied.
Charles Dickens
When Charles Dickens moved into Tavistock House, he made sure that every detail of it was to his taste.
One of the features he installed was a hidden door to his study, made to look like part of an unbroken wall of books, complete with dummy shelves and fictitious titles.
Dickens clearly derived much amusement from the invention of titles for these volumes. They ranged from the purely facetious - Five Minutes in China, three volumes, and Heaviside's Conversations with Nobody - to straight puns, such as The Gunpowder Magazine.
In later years he added Cat's Lives (nine volumes) and The Wisdom of Our Ancestors, which consisted of volumes on ignorance, superstition, the block, the stake, the rack, dirt, and disease. The companion - The Virtues of Our Ancestors - was so narrow the title had to be printed sideways.
Benjamin Disraeli
A young lady was taken to dinner one evening by Gladstone and the following evening by Disraeli. Asked what impressions these two celebrated men had made upon her, she replied, "When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England."
Albert Einstein
The journal Scientific American once ran a competition for the best exposition of relativity in three thousand words. A prize of several thousand dollars was at stake.
"I'm the only one in my entire circle of friends who is not entering," remarked Einstein ruefully. "I don't believe I could do it."
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway's son Patrick asked his father to edit a story he had written. Hemingway went through the manuscript carefully, then returned it to his son.
"But, Papa," cried Patrick in dismay, "you've only changed one word."
"If it's the right word," said Hemingway, "that's a lot."
Urdu>>>
Joking with Doyle during a rehearsal for one of his plays, a young three-pound-a-week actor called Charlie suggested that he and Sir Arthur should pool their incomes and take half each for the rest of their lives. Though amused by the proposal, Doyle declined for obvious reasons. "I don't think so, Mr. Chaplin," he replied.
Charles Dickens
When Charles Dickens moved into Tavistock House, he made sure that every detail of it was to his taste.
One of the features he installed was a hidden door to his study, made to look like part of an unbroken wall of books, complete with dummy shelves and fictitious titles.
Dickens clearly derived much amusement from the invention of titles for these volumes. They ranged from the purely facetious - Five Minutes in China, three volumes, and Heaviside's Conversations with Nobody - to straight puns, such as The Gunpowder Magazine.
In later years he added Cat's Lives (nine volumes) and The Wisdom of Our Ancestors, which consisted of volumes on ignorance, superstition, the block, the stake, the rack, dirt, and disease. The companion - The Virtues of Our Ancestors - was so narrow the title had to be printed sideways.
Benjamin Disraeli
A young lady was taken to dinner one evening by Gladstone and the following evening by Disraeli. Asked what impressions these two celebrated men had made upon her, she replied, "When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England."
Albert Einstein
The journal Scientific American once ran a competition for the best exposition of relativity in three thousand words. A prize of several thousand dollars was at stake.
"I'm the only one in my entire circle of friends who is not entering," remarked Einstein ruefully. "I don't believe I could do it."
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway's son Patrick asked his father to edit a story he had written. Hemingway went through the manuscript carefully, then returned it to his son.
"But, Papa," cried Patrick in dismay, "you've only changed one word."
"If it's the right word," said Hemingway, "that's a lot."
Urdu>>>