Nothing to do with fiddling, old-time music, or dulcimers today. But I like Mark Twain and I like banjos, so when I ran across these quotes, they seemed a good couple of things to pass along.
"When you want genuine music--music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose,--when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!"- Mark Twain, San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle, 6/23/1865
"A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't." - Mark Twain
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2 comments:
I was familiar with both quotes, but didn't know the second one was attributed to Twain...
In what work, exactly, did he write it?
I don't know the exact work, or even that there is one. Twain spoke extensively on the lecture circuit in his day and was quick with a funny remark. He also wrote for newspaper columns. It's entirely possible that this quote comes from one of those sources. All I know for sure is that I've heard the quote many times and always attributed to Twain.
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