“These are not men of great imagination, but one can hardly blame them for not being prepared for this particular contingency, the sight of a tweet-jacketed, tenured, middle-aged, senior professor and department chair in a fake nose and glasses, brandishing a live, terrified goose... (Richard Russo, Straight Man)”

“I liked that he was a tenured professor in the Department of Slightly Crooked Smiles with a dual appointments in the Department of Having a Voice that Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin.”

“Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time”

“A straight nose is a great help if one wishes to look serious'.”

“... Mr. Purty has cheered me up. The task he has chosen for himself, of wooing my mother with a bright red pickup truck, a Patsy Cline tape, and a string of malapropisms, is ample justification to me for not taking the world too seriously, its relentless heartbreak notwithstanding… (Richard Russo, Straight Man)”

“The Professor doesn’t have a problem being called Dick? If my name was Richard, I’d go by Richard or Rich . . . not Dick. Hell, I’d even settle for being called Chard.”