Unutterably Silly Quiz

[SneakySnake]

Thanks so far so good. vegemite toast and tea appear to have helped. Making lentil base for tuna patties and eating microwave pappadums. i wonder if migraines make you hungry? I could take some imigran on the off chance, but at $25 per pill I don't want to waste it on a non-migraine.

[pdurrant]

I knew 2, 3, and seven, but I was too late!

The others I don't recognise at all.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by issybird

Beautiful! Of course now inquiring minds want to know the loathed middle names bestowed on them by their mum.

Ah, you remembered . Rae, Taite and Mason, respectively.

I'm afraid I don't know any of the quotes apart from the Jerome K Jerome one, and I'd guess that #8...
"She was trusted and valued by her father, loved and courted by all dogs, cats, children, and poor people, and slighted and neglected by everybody else."

...is one of the Bronte sisters, though I don't know which .

[Shayne Parkinson]

You're right, #8 is a Bronte. I suppose strictly speaking that's worth 0.3 of a point. Let's call it 0.5, as Charlotte is already on the list, and there are no repeats. [Edited to add: identified by Orlok as Anne Bronte]

1. "Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?"

2. "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - Issybird

3. "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien - Poohbear

4. "When women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole."

5. "We are never told what would have happened."

6. "No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato.... " Villette by Charlotte Bronte - Issybird

7. "I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours." Three men in a Boat by Jerome K.Jerome - Poohbear

8. "She was trusted and valued by her father, loved and courted by all dogs, cats, children, and poor people, and slighted and neglected by everybody else." ? by Anne Bronte - Orlok

9. "A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes." - Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - Poohbear

10. "How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after." Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare - Issybird

[orlok]

Is it Anne?

[Shayne Parkinson]

It is indeed Anne!

[Shayne Parkinson]

I'm heading off to bed. Clues tomorrow if any remain unanswered.

Just to be going on with:
- All three are what I'd consider well-known authors (I haven't sneaked in any obscure ones just to be mean)
- All three authors are deceased

[maianhvk]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

52 = (7+3!)*(5-1)
53 = 3!*(7+1)+5
54 = (3!+1)*7+5
55 = (5+3)*7-1
56 = (5+3)*7*1
57 = (5+3)*7+1

Just wanted to ask if you've come up with how to do the number 58 yet. I'm stuck on it for 2 days now.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

Just wanted to ask if you've come up with how to do the number 58 yet. I'm stuck on it for 2 days now.

Well, if it had been obvious, I would have included it! I'll have a think now.

[Stephen_Melling]

My Wife knew number four, but I cheated with search to confirm, so of course I'll not post. Great idea for a quiz.

[pdurrant]

Hmm... I think that perhaps it can't be done.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

Just wanted to ask if you've come up with how to do the number 58 yet. I'm stuck on it for 2 days now.

I've been trying it on and off for a few days now as well with no success either (although the fact that I can't get it is far from proving it to be impossible )

[Shayne Parkinson]

Originally Posted by Stephen_Melling

My Wife knew number four, but I cheated with search to confirm, so of course I'll not post. Great idea for a quiz.

Kudos to your wife! That's the trickiest one, I think.

[Shayne Parkinson]

Clues for the remaining quotations:

1. "Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?" - An English writer. The book is set partly in England, partly elsewhere.

2. 4. "When women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole." - An American writer.

5. "We are never told what would have happened." - This one is the trickiest, so here's a better-known quotation from the same book: "... that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of."

8. "She was trusted and valued by her father, loved and courted by all dogs, cats, children, and poor people, and slighted and neglected by everybody else." - Orlok identified the writer as Anne Bronte, so there aren't many titles to choose from.

[PeterT]

5: CS Lewis (one of the Narnia books but not sure which)

Actually, as I think back it's Prince Caspian...