So she tells us

November 15, 1887 -- Poet Marianne Moore born. She wrote:

"The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease. Distaste which takes no credit to itself is best."

Now go, and sin no more

Also on this day, in 1918, evangelist Billy Graham was born.

"Current evangelism is as far as one can go in the pursuit of faith without works. Graham has brought to perfection the notion of a global parish, that is, no parish at all. He is relieved of the need to make private visits, to gather boxes of old clothes in the church basement, to perform weddings, bury the dead, to encourage rummage-sales and pie-suppers. Not only is he relieved, but the saved are also...

"With their salvation kits, they are like patients making a single visit to a clinic and who are therefore recorded in the cure statistics." -- Elizabeth Hardwick.

Not at the same time, however

French author and existentialist Albert Camus was born on this day in 1913. He said:

"A single sentence will suffice for modern man: He fornicated and read the papers."

Not a real kick for him

November 6, 1869 -- First college football game played.

"To watch a football game is to be in prolonged neurotic doubt as to what you're seeing." -- Jacques Barzun.

Wonder if Rogers ever met this man

Humorist Will Rogers was born on this day in 1897. Despite his immense popularity and his reputation for biting political commentary, not everyone was a fan.

"The bosom friend ofd senators and congressmen was about as daring as an early Shirley Temple movie." -- James Thurber.

Oh, be quiet and leave us alone

November 3, 1901 -- French novelist and statesman Andre Malraux was born. He wrote:

"Men fear silence as they fear solitude, because both of them give them a glimpse of the terror of life's nothingness."

Welcome to November

Holiday of the Month: Thanksgiving.

"Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." -- Samuel Johnson.

Truth is not always beautiful

October 31 -- John Keats was born in 1795.

"I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what?" -- Jean Cocteau.

Fellow poet and contemporary Lord Byron called Keats "that dirty little blackguard."

He didn't even read his obituary

English dramatist Richard Sheridan was born on this day in 1751. He wrote:

"The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villanous--licentious--abominable--infernal--not that I ever read them--no--I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper."

The unkindest cut

October 29, 1882 -- English playwright Jean Giradoux was born. He wrote:

"Little by little, the pimps have taken over the world. They don't do anything, they don't make anything -- they just stand there and take their cut."

"Crass Materialism" wouldn't have the same ring

The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on this day in 1886.

"You have put up in New York Harbor a monstrous idol which you call 'Liberty'." -- George Bernard Shaw.

Irish poet Dylan Thomas was born on this day in 1914. He died at age 39, of acute alcohol poisoning. He once wrote:

"An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do."

The couldn't bear it

Thomas McCauley, English historian and essayist, was born on this day in 1800. He wrote:

"The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."

Brotherhood of the bewildered

October 25, 1881 -- Pablo Picasso born.

"Abstract art: A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered." -- Al Capp.

October 24 -- U. N. Day.

"Civilized man is born, lives and dies in slavery; at his birth he is confined in swaddling clothes; at death he is nailed in a coffin. So long as he retains the human form he is fettered by our institutions." -- Jean-Jacques Rouusseau.

Royalty of big screen and small

October 23, 1925 -- Johnny Carson (pictured as Carnac the Magnificent) was born.

"Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand." -- Anonymous.

October 22 -- Actress Joan Fontaine was born in 1917. She won the Oscar (for Suspicion) on her birthday in 1941.

"Nothing would disgust me more, morally, than to receive an Oscar." -- (Director) Luis Bunuel.