Pook Said It

Collections of humorous quotations are rare birds indeed, and the few in existence rely heavily on the celebrated wits to the extent that the quotes suffer from exposure fatigue and lose their impact, like old jokes. Ever since I began to write mirth novels many years ago I realized that humour, above all subjects, needs freshening up at regular intervals, and it has always been my ambition to help fill this gap with a broadside of my own original lines. As far as I can ascertain, nobody has attempted such a formidable one-man compilation before.

Original! Well, as a writer I am a compulsive loner who abhors plagiarism, so to the best of my belief they are original. If some literary detective discovers the odd similarity here and there I shall be flattered rather than surprised because it happened to all the epigrammatists of the past. So much so that Doctor Johnson explained it as two men alighting on the same happy thought — but Shakespeare had it first. There is nothing new under the sun; we can merely strive to create dissimilarity.

So here is my contribution of epigrams, maxims, sallies, gags, bon mots, ranging from the trivial to the titanic, the simple to the sophisticated, the saucy to the solemn, slapstick to satire — mostly ripped out from the twenty-three Pook Books I have written.

A banquet for the browser seeking light entertainment; the writer looking for ideas; the student researching the devices of humour; the speaker desperate for quotations; the poet striving after that fascinating skill of word-juggling; the author wondering how on earth he can make his readers laugh; the journalist exploring new ways of saying old things; the apprentice learning his craft with the pen; the philosopher contemplating the follies of human behaviour.

For whatever reasons you read this book I sincerely hope it will prove man enough for the job and give you a great deal of pleasure, so you will agree not only that Pook Said It but that Pook Said It Well.