There once was a smart storyteller
Who hard pressed, cause neglected, poor feller,
Used his talent for tale
With the patron, to avail -
Think: autobiography (poignant), bestseller.

Carol Midgley mit einem großartigen Understatement in der Times (ganz unten, obwohl der Abschnitt über Schimpfwörter auch empfehlenswert ist) -- zitiert in toto:

My local paper reveals that Gordon Lorenz, who co-wrote the 1980 No1 hit There's No One Quite Like Grandma, sung by the St Winifred's School Choir, Stockport, has been fined £200 for twice failing to use the poop-scoop while out walking his dog, Bertie, in Llandudno. There's no punchline. I just thought you'd like to know.

Seltsame Argumente im Fall JK Rowling gegen das Harry Potter Lexikon.

If the guide were published, Ms. Cendali [= Anwältin Rowlings] said, she envisioned readers saying: “‘You know what? I guess I don’t really need the rest of the Harry Potter books because I just read the big giveaways.”

Die Geschichte summed up in der NY Times

*schüttelt Kopf*

Persönlich bin ich immer noch unsicher, ob ich das Kinderbuch (die sieben Kinderbücher) mit denselben literarischen Standards beurteilen soll, die ich auf andere belletristische Werke anwende, jedoch war mir nie wichtig, das Ende vor dem Ende zu erfahren, wenn der Weg dorthin interessant genug schien.

By a monk called a blasphemous sinner
he replied to that charge with a grin: a-
fter what Matthew told
- "you shall receive hundredfold" -
By the alms you give, you must choke on dinner.

There once was a monarch of France
Who was in for a little romance
But the lady was married,
so (worried) she carried
Out a scheme that said 'hands off my pants'.

"We are a process which has its genesis in roles, but grows into a characteristically human combination of self-consciousness and skill. The central self is not a substance but an effect, successful process. [...] We cannot strive for authenticity, for a real self. Like happiness, it seems to come en passant. We act in the world inevitably within a matrix of our own interests. We hope these will yield a genuine self, but no inevitability governs the process."

Richard A. Lanham: The Motives of Eloquence. Literary rhetoric in the Renaissance. New Haven: Yale UP, 1976, p.156

There was a young monk who was stuck
With a lover, but had the good luck
That his abbot as well
Had a fling with the gal,
So they said, who will care 'bout one carnal misstep.

"... Democracy will have none of your classics, it hates allusions and quotations; it likes a writer to be 'clear and sensible' ... the new literature will be a thing of loud, bawling books, shrieking headlines, and slovenly grammar."

H.G. Wells: "The Literature of the Future" in: Pall Mall Gazette, 11.10. 1893

[zitiert nach: John Lawton: "Introduction" in: H.G.Wells: When The Sleeper Wakes. London: J.M. Dent, 1999. p.xxix]

-- Ich hoffe (und bin mir fast sicher), daß Wells' Implikation, die Demokratie selbst sei es, die große Kunst verhindere, Unsinn ist. Tatsächlich hege ich den Verdacht, daß die Schuld nicht bei der Demokratie liegt, sondern bei einem ausschließlich marktorientierten Kunstbetrieb, der glaubt, den Leuten alles einzigartige vorenthalten und einen tatsächlich in dieser Form nicht existenten allgemeinen Geschmack bedienen zu müssen. Davon abgesehen allerdings scheint mir Wells durchaus richtig zu liegen.

The sultan a wise man to test
Asked him which of religions was best
The answer, of all things
Was: they are three like rings
For three sons - Allegory be blest.

Giannotto urged Abraham the jew:
"Become a Christian!" - said he "It is true:
You sin without end
Yet the church does expand
I'm in! - The holy ghost must be with you."