A Tribute to abra a collection of her comments

[Synonymous]

A gem from abra:

"One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it. "
— Edward Forster


Comments on this Puzzle:
bazinga
January 13, 2012, 11:41 am
It is somewhat akin to Stockholm Syndrome.
kb83
May 19, 2014, 6:11 pm
great comment, bazinga!
abra
August 10, 2014, 8:53 am
I agree great comment.
abra
November 11, 2014, 10:21 am
I felt like this after reading Under the Dome, Stockholm Syndrome seems accurate.
LLapp
June 3, 2015, 9:51 am
I have no problem putting down a book that tries to hold me hostage.
Persephone59
April 1, 2017, 9:47 am
Try reading Hermann Hesse's Magister Ludi. It's worth it, but it will cause you problems.
Marboy
April 14, 2017, 6:26 pm
I remember once leaving a book just a dozen pages from the end - just as a demonstration of how bad I thought it was.
abra
April 24, 2019, 5:24 pm
About a year ago I was reading a book that held me hostage. I hated it so much, but it was a gift and I'd asked for it, so I felt compelled to finish it. I probably left at least three comments on here about how awful it was.
Roxanne
October 18, 2020, 12:19 pm
What was the book, abra, in case I don't run across your comments?
jbb33054
December 7, 2020, 6:26 pm
52
Jrdad
September 11, 2021, 4:52 pm
I struggled through to the end of The Goldfinch just to see why it won the Pulitzer; I'm still wondering.
abra
February 27, 2022, 10:29 pm
Roxanne, The Witches: Salem, 1692. And by the way Monty left a comment that he thought it was a good book, so maybe it was just me. I thought it was disorganized and it didn't answer the questions it would answer. For me it was a drudgery to read, but because I asked for it, I felt I had to finish it.
abra
June 21, 2022, 9:18 pm
*and it didn't aswer the questions it said it would answer. I just wrote on my last puzzle, that I gave up on The Name of the Rose, about a third of the way through. No Stockholm Syndrome there. I was glad to pick out a new book.

[LLapp]

"Then, like an old-time orator impressively he rose; I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes." — Sara Teasdale

abra
July 17, 2020, 9:59 pm
I don't know a lot about poetry, but I like Teasdale's poems. I've mentioned before, okay probably more than once, that when I was in HS I used to have a notebook where I copied poems, mostly love poems. I liked hers.

[JedMedGrey]

The mug or shirt that says "I don't have a favorite child, but if I did it would be my daughter-in-law." would have been a good gift for abra.

[LLapp]

"Behind every successful man is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law." — Hubert H. Humphrey

pootie49
March 10, 2009, 11:14 pm
I would like to see one quote that says successful women in it

bansaisequoia
June 7, 2010, 8:31 pm
They'd write one, but the father-in-law is so open-minded, his daughter-in-law's success would come as no surprise to him.

skoogie2
October 7, 2014, 11:35 pm
I find mothers of sons more surprised by the success of the daughter in law.

abra
April 24, 2016, 2:45 pm
My daughter-in-law is brilliant, and lovely. I wouldn't be surprised by any successful endeavor she made.

mmfs83
December 29, 2016, 4:11 am
How lucky you are abra. Not all of us are that fortunate.

abra
July 22, 2018, 5:41 pm
DIL is still brilliant and lovely. The daughter I never had.

[LLapp]

"Golf is a game in which you yell "fore," shoot six, and write down five." — Paul Harvey

wvwoman
August 9, 2014, 3:41 pm
"good day!"

Quizzical
February 11, 2015, 5:17 am
Great commentator. I grew up listening to him every day at noon on AM radio.

montyb
January 29, 2019, 1:02 pm
I don't ever recall playing with Mr. Harvey, but he knows my game so well.

highbrow
July 2, 2019, 8:07 am
"And now you know the rest of the story"

montyb
November 29, 2019, 12:07 pm
Besides, it averages out in the end.

abra
October 18, 2021, 2:53 am
Zillions of years ago when we were newlyweds, our really good friends had Paul Harvey's television set. He had donated it to a thrift shop. And now you know the rest of the story.

[LLapp]

"Don't laugh at youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find his own." — Logan Pearsall Smith

LLapp
July 22, 2015, 10:44 am
Great advice for parents who need to retain their own sanity while their teens metamorphose.

abra
November 12, 2022, 2:06 am
My grandsons are 19 and 17, growing up so fast, but I've watched them trying on faces, especially the 17 year old.

[hrossa]

"That's the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on a ball." — Bill Veeck

abra
March 21, 2016, 1:43 pm
Cubs home opener is April 11.. Wait'll this year.

bkmcincinnati
December 25, 2016, 3:52 am
And abra, you were so right!

abra
September 24, 2018, 9:25 am
I think for 108 years Cub fans said that. It still makes me smile that I lived to see it finally happen again. Merry Christmas bkmcincinnati .

[Synonymous]

So very nice to see abra's sister here amongst us. Welcome and your sister is sorely missed. Thank you for the recognition. I hope the tree we planted in her honor is doing well.

[LLapp]

"Do not be surprised when those who ignore the rules of grammar also ignore the law. After all, the law is just so much grammar." — Robert Brault

montyb
November 2, 2014, 1:23 pm
That's why you should trust the folks at POEM, the Professional Organization of English Majors.

LLapp
April 30, 2015, 7:59 am
Injured? Victim of medical negligence? Call me! I understand sequence of tenses and I'll beat any lawyer's price!

Labole
August 1, 2015, 3:11 am
Hmm. Funny. Does he really believe that?

kb83
August 21, 2015, 4:38 am
Yes grammatical mistakes are a gateway offence.

abra
October 25, 2015, 12:06 pm
Of all the stupid Robert Brault quotes, this must be the most stupid. Either that, or I'll find myself in prison, for reckless but not willful misplacement of commas and semicolons.

momn8r
March 30, 2016, 10:27 am
i"ll bake you a cake with White Out inside!

killdozer
April 30, 2016, 8:25 am
Laws was made to be broke.

marnita
May 4, 2016, 2:02 pm
I would not send you to prison for your indiscriminate use of commas, abra, but I might sentence you to some compulsory training sessions with LLapp.

abra
August 11, 2016, 9:36 am
momn8r, thank you. More and more I realize I'm going to need that cake, oh and the White Out too.

abra
September 13, 2016, 12:27 pm
If he was serious, this says terrible things about the workings of his mind. I've never even had a traffic ticket. I've never broken a law, willfully or otherwise. Grammar, now that's an entirely different thing.

kb83
September 15, 2016, 10:10 am
Once you start splitting infinitives, it is a slippery slope.

momn8r
November 18, 2016, 1:22 pm
abra, chocolate or vanilla?

[hrossa]

Glad to have you, abra's sister! She is missed. It's why people like to post her comments!

[Eureka]

Oh, I am thrilled to see that abra's sister has visited! Welcome! I know abra mentioned her sisters a number of times. I will try to find more examples to post here.

[Abrasister]

Thank you all for your reposts of my sister's comments. I really enjoy scrolling through them all, when I find myself missing her. It seems like forever since I haven't heard her voice. Thank you again for this.

[Synonymous]

Another classic humorous comment by abra:

"Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. "
— John Ruskin

Comments on this Puzzle:

slow1
January 2, 2016, 9:00 am
again! Why in the world would so many folks think this is offensive?
abra
July 1, 2017, 11:22 am
I truly think that there are a couple solvers who will mark a quote as offensive, just to see people react to it. Sort of their 3 seconds of fame.
susanith
October 31, 2017, 7:37 am
Hmm. The book of their art. I wonder how our nation would rate.
vintage38
December 10, 2017, 5:23 am
49 seconds
nedzeppelin1453
January 27, 2019, 7:03 am
A really good historical book can be all three.
skeeter
March 7, 2019, 4:24 pm
Maybe the offensive-markers misread the last word with an "f."
imsoeasy
April 2, 2019, 4:17 am
Great nations rise and fall, their books become dust.
badbob
September 11, 2019, 5:46 pm
who wrote the book of love?
jbb33054
October 9, 2019, 5:35 pm
57
abra
September 7, 2020, 2:21 am
The book of love is long and boring No one can lift the damn thing It's full of charts and facts and figures And instructions for dancing…
Eureka
March 15, 2021, 10:01 pm
LOL abra

[Eureka]

(I wonder how many names abra collected over the years.)

"My mother always used to say, 'There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.'" — Donald Freed

abra
June 15, 2019, 10:39 pm
It might be stretching a bit, but I'm adding Donald Freed to my list of quoters whose names are complete sentences.

[Eureka]

"Acting doesn't bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it. " — Marguerite Duras

montyb
March 17, 2012, 7:08 pm
On the contrary, I read Shakespeare for years in school and didn't get it until I saw some well-acted plays and films. Now I can read him straight from the text.

maradnu
September 13, 2013, 3:38 am
Spoken like a writer. I have been both actor and writer, and acting can bring to life what can be very stale on the page - or it may kill it altogether.

saipanwriter
August 26, 2014, 12:45 am
writer here with actor child--I disagree with the quote. maradnu has it right--good acting can bring depth and shades of meaning lost on the page, adding valuable subtext. but bad acting can rob writing of its beauty.

ericthirdrow
October 14, 2014, 8:10 am
Marguerite Duras was probably thinking of Nicolas Cage when she said this.

YorkiesRule
May 30, 2015, 10:05 pm
I'm not a writer nor an actor, but you have to admit that absolute majority of movies based on books detract from the book and not add to it.

abra
June 12, 2016, 10:41 am
ericthirdrow, (whose name I love) made me laugh. I agree with Yorkies. Even when the acting is supurb, like TKAM, the book was still better.

darkyr
August 24, 2016, 6:28 am
I'm going to have some friends act out all these comments to see what dimension it adds.

abra
January 24, 2019, 6:29 pm
Darkyr, when you come to my comments, do you have a friend who looks a little like Nicole Kidman, well maybe one who looks like Maggie Smith might be closer.