Name That Author

[GeorgeStGeorge]

Basic rules for all the "Name That..." threads:

Correct guesser gets to post the next clues.

No googling to find an answer, though the puzzle poster may google for clues to give.

It's usually best to wait for confirmation that you've guessed correctly, but if you're ablsolutely sure, you can go on and post a new one.

If no one gets the right answer in a day or two, post some more clues.

Glad to have you aboard, Twinky! Don't forgeet to check out the other games, too!

George

[now I see]

Tom Clancy?

Welcome Twinkey, I've been playing down here for a few months now, and I'm still learning...George will attest to that... :P :P :P

[GeorgeStGeorge]

Ton Clancy is correct. Quotes from "The Sum of All Fears" and "The Hunt for Red October."

George

[now I see]

I've had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of them never gave me the repulsion which I have for this fellow.

Perhaps when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand.

What I know is unofficial; What he knows is official. I have the right to private judgment, but he has none. He must disclose all, or he is a traitor to his service.

Edited October 11, 2008 by now I see

[now I see]

It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes

Surely our profession, Mr. Mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we did not sometimes set the scene so as to glorify our results. The blunt accusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder -- what can one make of such a denouement? But the quick inference, the subtle trap, the clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold theories -- are these not the pride and the justification of our life's work?

[GeorgeStGeorge]

Sounds like it could be Hercule Poirot, so I'll guess Agatha Christie.

George

[now I see]

Close, the author was from the other side of the pond...

[wrdsandwrks]

It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes

Surely our profession, Mr. Mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we did not sometimes set the scene so as to glorify our results. The blunt accusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder -- what can one make of such a denouement? But the quick inference, the subtle trap, the clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold theories -- are these not the pride and the justification of our life's work?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

[now I see]

You are correct!  Well done!

[wrdsandwrks]

New Author:

When every crumb of the cornbread was gone, the Indians rose up. The skunk smell was stronger when they moved. One of them made harsh sounds in his throat again. Ma looked at him with big eyes; she did not say anything. The Indian turned around, the other Indian turned, too, and they walked across the floor and out through the door. Their feet made no sound at all.

[now I see]

James Mitchner?

[wrdsandwrks]

James Mitchner?

No, not Mitchner. Here's more:

There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky above it, and birds flying up from it and singing with joy because the sun was rising. And on the whole enormous prairie there was no sign that any other human being had ever been there.

Edited October 19, 2008 by wrdsandwrks

[Raf]

Laura Ingalls Wilder

[wrdsandwrks]

Laura Ingalls Wilder

You got it! Quotes are from Little House on the Prairie.

[Cynic]

Bump.

[Raf]

Ah, thanks...

In 1902, Father built a house at the crest of the Broadview Avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York... The family took possession of this stout manse on a sunny day in June and it seemed for some years thereafter that all their days would be warm and fair. The best part of Father's income was derived from the manufacture of flags and buntings and other accoutrements of patriotism, including fireworks... There were no Negroes. There were no immigrants...In New York City the papers were full of the shooting of the famous architect Stanford White by Harry K. thaw, eccentric scion of a coke and railroad fortune. Harry K. Thaw was the husband of Evelyn Nesbit, the celebrated beauty who had once been Stanford White's mistress.

By the way, all of this, and more, is in the first paragraph of the book.

Edited November 7, 2008 by Raf

[GeorgeStGeorge]

Not obvious to me, but I think bumping it up might bring some interest.

George

[Raf]

It occurred to Father one day that Coalhouse Walker Jr. didn't know he was a Negro. The more he thought about this the more true it seemed. Walker didn't act or talk like a colored man. He seemed to be able to transform the customary deferences practiced by his race so that they reflected to his own dignity rather than the recipient's.

They believed they were going to die in a spectacular manner. This belief produced in them a dramatic, exalted self-awareness. Younger Brother was totally integrated in their community. He was one of them. He awoke every day into a state of solemn joy.

[hiway29]

"Ragtime"- E. L. Doctorow

I don't have time to enter a new one right now, though.

[Raf]

This game seems more patient than most, but you are correct. Let us know if you're going to post anything.

[hiway29]

someone can jump in, as I'm so swamped with work, that I can't come up for air.

[Cynic]

someone can jump in, as I'm so swamped with work, that I can't come up for air.

I’ll jump in.

I came across this one years ago in Bartlett’s (which presents it as being from a single section of a single work), though I saw something recently identifying it as a compilation of two statements in two of the author's works:

A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating.

[now I see]

E W Bullinger?

[Cynic]

No.

[Cynic]

During the time the author was a Roman Catholic, his conscience was so tortured by guilt that he reportedly would spend hours each day in confession, leading his monastic superiors to loathe hearing his lengthy daily litany of sins and to begin questioning whether the author were using confession as a means to shirk monastic duties.

The author’s emergence from a theological and psychological dungeon was due, in part, to reading a version of the Bible produced by Desiderius Erasmus that contained a better rendering of a verse in Romans than the version in common use. Erasmus, however, became an opponent of the author in theological and ecclesiastical matters.

In response to a polemical work by Erasmus affirming freedom of the will and criticizing the author’s views, the author penned a response taking on Erasmus, affirming the sovereignty of God, and characterizing the human will as corrupt.

A quote from that work:

ANOTHER part of the sum of Christianity is, to know, whether God foreknows any thing by contingency, or whether we do all things from necessity. This part also you make to be irreligious, curious, and vain, as all the wicked do: the devils , and the damned also, make it detestable and execrable. And you shew your wisdom in keeping yourself clear from such questions, wherever you can do it. But however, you are but a very poor rhetorician and theologian, if you pretend to speak of “Free-will” without these essential parts of it . . . Whereas, it is impossible that you should know what “Free-will” is, unless you know what the human will does, and what God does or foreknows.

Do not your rhetoricians teach, that he who undertakes to speak upon any subject, ought first to show, whether the thing exist; and then, what it is, what its parts are, what is contrary to it, connected with it, and like unto it, &c.? But you rob that miserable subject in itself, “Free will,” of all these things: and define no one question concerning it, except this first, viz., whether it exist: and even this with such arguments as we shall presently see: and so worthless a book on “Free-will” I never saw, excepting the elegance of the language. The Sophists, in reality, at least argue upon this point better than you, though those of them who have attempted the subject of “Free-will,” are no rhetoricians; for they define all the questions connected with it: whether it exists, what it does, and how it stands with reference to, &c.: although they do not effect what they attempt. In this book, therefore, I will push you, and the Sophists together, until you shall define to me the power of “Free-will,” and what it can do: and I hope I shall so push you, (Christ willing) as to make you heartily repent that you ever published your Diatribe.

Edited November 22, 2008 by Cynic