Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 29, 1990 TAG: 9008010050
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Put this slender posthumous volume on the shelf beside "The Portable Curmudgeon." It's a collection of skeptical epigrams; some original, others stolen and reworked. The subjects are sex, religion, progress, sports, life and such. They reveal an opinionated, hard-headed writer who never saw a clothed emperor.
It's a refreshing book to dip into when the world is too much with you. Here are a few samples:
"The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny."
"Henry James: our finest lady novelist."
"Susan Sontag: What she really wanted, throughout her career, was to grow up to be a Frenchman."
"The feminists have a legitimate grievance. But so does everyone else."
"How to Avoid Pleurisy: Never make love to a girl named Candy on the tailgate of a half-ton Ford pickup during a chill rain in April out on Grandview Point in San Juan County, Utah."
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
And finally, "I've never yet read a review of one of my books that I couldn't have written much better myself."
by CNB