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As part of my research for An Anthology of Authors' Atrocity Stories About Publishers, I conducted a study (employing my usual controls) that showed the average shelf life of a trade book to be somewhere between milk and yoghurt.

Calvin Trillin

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Calvin Trillin
Age: 89
Born: 1935
Born: December 5
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Kansas City
Missouri
Calvin Marshall Trillin
Book
Usual
Shelf
Life
Somewhere
Atrocities
Average
Controls
Trade
Shelves
Research
Publishers
Atrocity
Study
Authors
Anthology
Stories
Showed
Employing
Part
Milk
Conducted

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If bumblebee leavings and stump paste are so good for you, why can't any of those guys (in the health stores) grow full beards?
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I suppose that there are endeavors in which self-confidence is even more important than it is in writing -- tightrope walking comes immediately to mind -- but it's difficult for me to think of anybody producing much writing if his confidence is completely shot.
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I like chili, but not enough to discuss it with someone from Texas.
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There's always a source for humor.
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If Lincoln freed the slaves and preserved the Union, how come 'Lincolnesque' just means tall?
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When it comes to Chinese food I have always operated under the policy that the less known about the preparation the better. A wise diner who is invited to visit the kitchen replies by saying, as politely as possible, that he has a pressing engagement elsewhere.
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Since nostaglia is fueled by inflation, could it be that inflation is the result of a conspiracy by the people who are trying to palm off McGovern buttons and Howdy Doody puppets and their Aunt Thelma's toaster as antiques.
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Everything was blamed on Castro. Mudslides in California. The fact that you can't buy a decent tomato anymore. Was there an exceptionally high pollen count in Massapequa, Long Island, one day? It was Castro, exporting sneezes.
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Money not spent on a luxury one considered even briefly is the equivalent of windfall income and should be spent accordingly.
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Taking pleasure in the dark side may be some sort of occupational hazard for reporters.
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I actually think of being funny as an odd turn of mind, like a mild disability, some weird way of looking at the world that you can't get rid of.
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A new regulation for the publishing industry: The advance for a book must be larger than the check for the lunch at which it was discussed.
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We all know funny people who can't get it down on the page - even funny writers who can't get it down on the page.
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I don't cook. I don't know anything about food. I've never reviewed a restaurant.
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Being on a book tour is a lot easier than reporting.
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Law professors were never like economics professors, a Harvard Law professor told me. If you disagreed with someone, you didn't call him a fool.
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People, not just reporters, are more interested in politics than in government, so the actual issues wouldn't be something that interested them.
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When someone reaches middle age, people he knows begin to get put in charge of things, and knowing what he knows about the people who are being put in charge of things scares the hell out of him.
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Anybody who doesn't think that the best hamburger place in teh world is in his home town is a sissy.
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