If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People?: Smart Quotes for Dumb Times [Deckle Edge] [Roughcut]

John Lloyd (Author), John Mitchinson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 4, 2009

John Lloyd and John Mitchinson have proven themselves to be masters at digging up obscure facts, abstruse information, and amusing anecdotes and presenting them effortlessly, somewhat slyly, with either great wit or at least a little bit of tongue in cheek. Their gifts are on full display in Quote Interesting, a lively, wonderfully enjoyable anthology of hundreds of quotes you probably have never heard before, arranged thematically from A to Z. From laugh-out-loud-funny bon mots to some real headscratchers, Lloyd and Mitchinson have gathered a universe of star-studded blurbs like:

“The Beatles are dying in the wrong order.” —Victor Lewis Smith
“When you forget to eat, you know you’re alive.” —Henry James

“I think people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.” —Nancy Reagan

“You know ‘that look’ women get when they want sex? Me neither.” —Steve Martin

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

JOHN LLOYD is the producer of the hit British comedy shows Not the Nine O’Clock News, Blackadder, and Spitting Image. He recently earned a lifetime achievement award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). JOHN MITCHINSON is a writer, and, with Lloyd, a producer for the British television show QI. They both drink at the same pub.

Product Details

• Roughcut: 400 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (August 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307460665
• ISBN-13: 978-0307460660
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.3 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #619,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A fun book of quotes! August 1, 2009

By YogaKat TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

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I have several books of quotes and this is one of my favorites. It is a nice little book to have around for thoughtfulness or just for a laugh. If you like reading quotes, you'll like this book! There are lots of interesting quotes from both modern and classic people

The book is broken down by subject A-Z and includes hundreds of topics and quotes. The table of contents lists all the topics and there is an index of all the people including their birthdates and deathdates and occupation (although in some instances the index page number was incorrect and I was unable to find the particular person). Also, be aware, some quotes may not be appropriate for younger readers.

Here are some samples:

Jerry Seinfeld "Introducing the `Lite'-The new way to spell "Light" but with 20% fewer letters"

Joan Baez "You may not know it, but at the far end of despair, there is a white clearing where one is almost happy."

Yogi Berra: You can observe a lot by watching.

Joan Rivers "A man can sleep around, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp."

Mark Twain: "The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter."

Frank Lloyd Wright: "The truth is more important than the facts."

Mae West "The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond."

Marty Feldman "I won't eat anything that has intelligent life, but I'd gladly eat a network executive or a politician"

Indira Gandhi "My grandfather one told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there."

Lucille Ball "The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age."

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A quote for every occasion June 23, 2009

By C. Bayne VINE™ VOICE

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Every occasion except reviews. I looked.

I love quote books. There is an amazing amount of wisdom contained in small phrases, and quote books are the kind of books that you can just turn to any page and get something funny, interesting, profound, or quite possibly all three.

And a quote book compiled by one of the guys who wrote Blackadder - where can you go wrong?

Um, I guess you can go wrong, but they didn't. Yay them! This book is divided up alphabetically by topic, like love, drinking, women, etc. There is an index at the end of "quotees" just in case you knew that Charles Kuralt had said something about Highways, but you can't remember what it was. ("Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.")

Oddly, there are four quotes in the potatoes section, but no pie section. If you want the Carl Sagan pie quote, you have to look in the index. ("If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.")

There's a Homer Simpson quote about Clown College.

Besides the quotes, some of the "quotees" even have a little explanation after their quote. The Charles Kuralt quote above mentions his "On the Road" series on CBS.

This is a fun book to have handy. I highly recommend it.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A good resource for quotes but nothing spectacular July 1, 2009

By Charles S. Holzheimer VINE™ VOICE

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I admire the authors' unwaivering claim that they live their lives for quotes. They pull them from books and interviews with the sole intention of compiling them for others. They must lead "interesting" lives.

As a quote resource this book is very good. The difference between this book and, let's say, a Bartlett's book is that this book has many more contemporary quotes, for now. Ten years from now, the pop-culture quotes will have aged as well.

The quotes are grouped in alphabetical topics and that helps when hopping around to access different subjects.

The only true reason I made this review a 3-star instead of higher is that there is nothing really spectacular or grabbing about this collection. Publishing collections of quotes is a pretty lean field to work in to say the least. This doesn't leave a lot of room for new entries. This is a good book with up to date quotations. But there is nothing spectacular about this gathering that would differentiate it from all the other quote books on the shelf.