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M.E. Proctor's avatar

I have it on good authority that the correct Hemingway quote is : Write with your pants off ... the cats didn't mind, the wives did.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

And sometime just write on your pants. You’ll need a Sharpie. But you won’t lose them. Though I learned how to say I cannot find my pants in Swedish, and can’t wait to try that when I go there, 😂 One must be prepared.

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Dennis Martin Brooks's avatar

Correct! Sorry. It was the Brits he pissed off, right?

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Lev Raphael's avatar

Yes! The French went nuts, with Franklin plates and all sorts of "collectibles." He was a charmer and women were especially captivated.

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Dennis Martin Brooks's avatar

In my experience, if Shakespeare didn't say it, Mark Twain did! And if that's the case, when did Sammy get the time to write? Beaucoup de bon mots! But then there was that guy, Ben Franklin. Man, that guy couldn't shut up. But all he could do was write almanacs and piss the French off.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

The French adored him, actually, and there was a Franklin craze. Adams was the one they disliked. Stacy Schiff and Wlater Isaacson have to excellent bios of Franklin.

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

Nelson Mandela said it, and I have it on good authority: the Collected Works of Honoré de Fauteuil, volume II, section 3, p. 472 (sorry to be a pedant, but you did miss the nobiliary particle).

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Lev Raphael's avatar

He was a fraud and you can read about that in The Faux Fauteuil: A Shocking French Exposé, by M. Pappilon.

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

The whistleblower was a fraud, too, and people caught on. That's why he had to change his name from J. Papillon to M. Pappilon. At least that's what F. Scott Fitzgerald said, according to Goodreads.

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