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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great for writers/speakers, March 25, 2002
This review is from: Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Times (Paperback)
A lot of quote books focus on the timeless and famous or the "witty" and not-so-meaningful. Peter's Quotations is a clasic among public speakers and essayists because it focusses on what these people are likely to need. It addresses broad, abstract topics such as "kindness" but also lays out the lawyer jokes. The topics are a good mix of the immortal and the current and, while often witty, are never ridiculous or campy (well, almost never campy). I've used it for years as a debater and public speaker, as a coach, and as a teacher. The best indication I can give you of its outstanding usefulness is that I buy a new copy for my speech team every year because a graduating senior always steals the old one. I'm on my third personal copy because I've worn two others out.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sharp and Pointed, August 8, 2000
This review is from: Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Times (Paperback)
Not a "real" quotation reference like, say, Bartlett's, but a great compendium of mostly modern quotes. The book has a sharp, sassy, punchy, pointed sensibility (which only lags, unfortunately, in Dr. Peter's own added asides which are uniformly below the standard of the rest of the book). This is a quotation book that you will read cover to cover. Organization is handy so that when you want to find that pithy bon mot that struck you the last time you read the book, you'll be able to locate it easily. Highly recommended.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
good, in specific situations, January 26, 2008
This review is from: Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Times (Paperback)
I prefer Bartlett's for one major reason: You know where what you're looking for came from. There's plenty of good material in here, don't get me wrong, but if it's a Shakespeare quotation, I like to know *exactly* where it came from in MacBeth, so I can find it and cite it!
It does have an interesting organization-- by theme-- which is different from Bartlett's and can make flipping through it amusing. In that way, you can actually pick this up and just browse instead of reading 16 pages of lines from Paradise Lost, all together.
However, if you're looking for something practical, something you can use to give people an answer if they ask you, "Hey, that was interesting, where did it come from, exactly?," you're not going to be able to answer the "exactly" part. Just be aware of that.
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