Never pick a fight...buys ink by the barrel; Politics is the art of the possible

[Baker, John]

        The Boston Globe has it from 3/8/1980, quoting actor Chad Everett, who purportedly is quoting his father:

        <<The interview ends with small talk. But it's small talk of a different variety. It is small talk with the dimension of a message, lessons learned from his father.

        "My father," he says, "taught me two things. He taught me never to steal another man's prerogative." He is talking about women who belong to other men.

        There is laughter here, laughter at the hidden meanings in the sentences.

        "And he taught me never to argue with a man who buys his ink by the barrel."

        He is talking about the power of the printed word. >>


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Fred Shapiro
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 6:48 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Never pick a fight...buys ink by the barrel; Politics is
the art of the possible


On Wed, 18 May 2005 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> "NEVER PICK A FIGHT WITH SOMEONE WHO BUYS INK BY THE BARREL"
> ...
>      _North Hills News Record _
> (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=4uFNimLMxoSKID/6NLMW2ko3dX40so6fMzyzfHF4wiKfsKzTu9uQpkIF+CsZYmrz)  Monday,
> October 12, 1992 _North Hills,_

This goes back to 1985 on Nexis, attributed to some Republican named
William I. Greener and often referred to as "Greener's Law."

Fred Shapiro

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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu
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