
“It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids.”
Variant: Old men only lie in wait for people to ask them to talk. Then they rattle on like a rusty elevator wheezing up a shaft.
Source: Dandelion Wine (1957), p. 81
“It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids.”
On Receiving News of the War (1914), Dead Man's Dump (1916)
" The Golden Year http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/tgy.htm", st. 3 (1842)
“I find people only listen to you when they ask you to talk to them.”
From 1980s onwards, Only Integrity is Going to Count (1983)
Royal Variety Performance in London (4 November 1963) attended by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret. Of this incident Mark Hertsgaard reports in A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles (1995): "The remark provoked warm laughter and applause, and was greeted with profound relief by Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who had feared Lennon would make good on his pre-performance threat to tell them to "rattle their fuckin' jewelry."
Interview on Scene And Heard by David Wigg (25 October 1971)