
In reply to the question 'Are you a crook?', from BBC Panorama http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/7243095.stm interviewer Fergal Keane, 11 February 2008
Miles "Pudge" Halter, p. 218
Looking for Alaska (2005)
In reply to the question 'Are you a crook?', from BBC Panorama http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/7243095.stm interviewer Fergal Keane, 11 February 2008
"To His Mistress", cited from The Works of His Grace, George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham (London: T. Evans, 1770) vol. 2, p. 138.
Context: She that would raise a noble love must find
Ways to beget a passion for her mind;
She must be that which she to the world would seem,
For all true love is grounded on esteem:
Plainness and truth gain more a generous heart
Than all the crooked subtleties of art.
“My mother used to say that my tones are all crooked: it’s like hearing a song sung out of tune.”
On her limited Cantonese skills in “Madeleine Thien: ‘In China, you learn a lot from what people don’t tell you’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/08/madeleine-thien-interview-do-not-say-we-have-nothing in The Guardian (2016 Oct 8)
“The path of least resistance leads to crooked rivers and crooked men.”
“Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?”
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70), Apology
Context: Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
Telling a tale not too importunate
To those who in the sleepy region stay,
Lulled by the singer of an empty day.
I've earned everything I've got.
Televised press conference with 400 Associated Press Managing Editors at Walt Disney World, Florida. (17 November 1973)
Often transcribed as "I am not a crook."
'I Am Not A Crook': How A Phrase Got A Life Of Its Own http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245830047, on National Public Radio
1970s
Brown Penny http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1454/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)