The fundamental difference between the mystery story and the ghost story is the fact that a mystery demands a solution for its effectiveness; a ghost story is necessarily unsolvable; the reader must be willing to accept the fact that nothing is proved.
BENNETT CERFThe fact that we don’t read more books in America can be traced squarely to the fact that we have newspapers that are about a hundred times as big as the newspapers anywhere else.
More Bennett Cerf Quotes
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The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed.
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Do I believe in ghosts? Of course I do. So do you. Deep in the souls of the most sophisticated of us is lurking a fear of the supernatural which all the discoveries of scientists cannot eradicate.
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Middle age is when your old classmates are so grey and wrinkled and bald they don’t recognize you.
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I think it’s become fashionable for the snobbish egghead today to make fun of television. I’ve heard many people, boast, “I would never have a television set in my house,” well, these people are fools.
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Politicians are like ships: noisiest when lost in a fog.
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Oratory is the art of making a loud noise sound like a deep thought.
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I think the right to read, is one of our inherent rights, and I think that people in America today are intelligent enough to decide for themselves what they want to read. Without being told, by self-appointed people, you must not read this, or you cannot read this.
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There is a mass of people, we might as well admit, who if they weren’t watching television, would be doing absolutely nothing else.
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The fact that we don’t read more books in America can be traced squarely to the fact that we have newspapers that are about a hundred times as big as the newspapers anywhere else.
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Good manners: The noise you don’t make when you’re eating soup.
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One of the greatest threats facing book publishing, and the entire country for that matter, is censorship.
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In a notable family called Stein There were Gertrude, and Ep, and then Ein. Gert’s writing was hazy, Ep’s statues were crazy, And nobody understood Ein.
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Fame – anyone who says he doesn’t like it is crazy
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One of the troubles of the day, observes Mr. C.N. Peac, is that once we came upon the little red schoolhouse, whereas now we come upon the little-read school boy.
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The Atomic Age is here to stay – but are we?
BENNETT CERF