Not many years ago ex-Governor Alfred E. Smith complained that his autobiography, Up to Now, was not being promoted vigorously enough. “But, Governor,” remonstrated his publishers, “we planted your book in every bookstore in the country.” “Bookstores,” snorted the Governor, unconsciously summing up every publisher’s grievance for the past five generations. “Who in hell goes to bookstores?”

From Try and Stop Me, by Bennett Cerf, 1944. (Simon & Schuster, p. 107)

Categories: humor, libraries dw