Quiz Competition Quotes

If not for 02 October being the national holiday, would any notice Gandhi’s birthday coming and going; I bet none remembers in which year he was born, save those readying themselves for the quiz competitions; yet, we come to lay store on our children’s birthdays when they wouldn’t be knowing what was going on around them.

As a kid, I always assumed the know-it-alls on Jeopardy! were obviously the smartest people in America. If you were smart, that's how you showed it: by knowing all your state flowers and kings of Saxony. But what if Rob's right and that's a different, much shallower kind of intelligence? Is my mountain of flash cards all for naught?

Two things that weren’t even on the agenda survived every upheaval that followed. General Akhtar remained a general until the time he died, and all God’s names were slowly deleted from the national memory as if a wind had swept the land and blown them away. Innocuous, intimate names: Persian Khuda which had always been handy for ghazal poets as it rhymed with most of the operative verbs; Rab, which poor people invoked in their hour of distress; Maula, which Sufis shouted in their hashish sessions. Allah had given Himself ninety-nine names. His people had improvised many more. But all these names slowly started to disappear: from official stationery, from Friday sermons, from newspaper editorials, from mothers’ prayers, from greeting cards, from official memos, from the lips of television quiz-show hosts, from children’s storybooks, from lovers’ songs, from court orders, from telephone operators’ greetings, from habeas corpus applications, from inter-school debating competitions, from road inauguration speeches, from memorial services, from cricket players’ curses; even from beggars’ begging pleas.

Two things that weren’t even on the agenda survived every upheaval that followed. General Akhtar remained a general until the time he died, and all God’s names were slowly deleted from the national memory as if a wind had swept the land and blown them away. Innocuous, intimate names: Persian Khuda which had always been handy for ghazal poets as it rhymed with most of the operative verbs; Rab, which poor people invoked in their hour of distress; Maula, which Sufis shouted in their hashish sessions. Allah had given Himself ninety-nine names. His people had improvised many more. But all these names slowly started to disappear: from official stationery, from Friday sermons, from newspaper editorials, from mothers’ prayers, from greeting cards, from official memos, from the lips of television quiz-show hosts, from children’s storybooks, from lovers’ songs, from court orders, from telephone operators’ greetings, from habeas corpus applications, from inter-school debating competitions, from road inauguration speeches, from memorial services, from cricket players’ curses; even from beggars’ begging pleas. In the name of God, God was exiled from the land and replaced by the one and only Allah who, General Zia convinced himself, spoke only through him. But today, eleven years later, Allah was sending him signs that all pointed to a place so dark, so final, that General Zia wished he could muster up some doubts about the Book. He knew if you didn’t have Jonah’s optimism, the belly of the whale was your final resting place.

So foolish was I; and ignorant…. —Psalm 73:22 (KJV) LORNE GREENE, ACTOR I was a very new, very inexperienced writer, just arrived in California on my first Guideposts assignment. I was checking into my hotel when my editor phoned with another story lead: “I’ve got you an interview with Lorne Greene!” Lorne Greene? I’d never heard of him, but from the excitement in the editor’s voice, I knew it must be someone famous. And rather than expose my ignorance, I said, “Great!” “He’ll meet you on the Bonanza set.” He gave me a TV studio address. We didn’t yet own a TV, but I’d read about the new quiz shows offering big prizes. Bonanza, I decided, must be one of those. I’d interview Mr. Greene about competitiveness! I spent two hours writing out a long list of questions. The next day I stood in the wings of the soundstage, staring at a log cabin, a covered wagon, a backdrop of Ponderosa pines…I crumpled my sheet of questions. We sat at a table while I fumbled for a question. Beneath his broad-brimmed hat, smiling brown eyes met mine. He must have perceived immediately that a novice writer had asked a busy man for his time and then arrived unprepared. He took pity on my floundering efforts. “I was a radio interviewer in Canada before I got into acting,” he said. “I think I have a story you’ll like.” No thanks to me, I flew home with a wonderful piece. And a new petition for my daily prayers: Father, grant me the grace to say, “I don’t know.” —Elizabeth Sherrill Digging Deeper: Prv 22:4; Jas 4:6

Southwick informs us that a Colonel Townsend of Dublin had the ability to stop his heartbeat at will and 'at last lost his life in the act,' that lightning turns milk sour, and that Adam, of Adam-and-Eve fame, was born on October 28, 4004 B.C. Adam is a Scorpio!

The Strugglers" He was born on a Friday. And it was raining that day. He still does not know whether the Gods were happy or sad at his arriving on earth. He saw the world. He saw sadness. He saw misery. He saw the struggle of his dad and mom. They both struggled to give a good life to their children. He started becoming serious in life. He started winning awards in academics and in quiz competitions to begin with. Then he tried essay competitions and debates. His sole aim was to win awards to make his parents feel proud of him. He wanted to become an IAS officer to make his family (uncles, aunts, cousins) feel proud of him. He came to Delhi to prepare for the Civil Services. He thought he will do a job and not be dependent on his parents, and still clear the Civil Services. It did not happen. He lost out on becoming a Civil Servant of the people. He tried a few odds jobs. He eventually became a Teacher, Poet, and Writer. His inspirations to writing - his Mom who manages to writer Poetry even now along with her struggles of life, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, Franz Kafka, Roald Dahl, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, and all the other poets, artists, writers, and strugglers in Life.

The Strugglers" He was born on a Friday. And it was raining that day. He still does not know whether the Gods were happy or sad at his arriving on earth. He saw the world. He saw sadness. He saw misery. He saw the struggle of his dad and mom. They both struggled to give a good life to their children. He started becoming serious in life. He started winning awards in academics and in quiz competitions to begin with. Then he tried essay competitions and debates. His sole aim was to win awards to make his parents feel proud of him. He wanted to become an IAS officer to make his family (uncles, aunts, cousins) feel proud of him. He came to Delhi to prepare for the Civil Services. He thought he will do a job and not be dependent on his parents, and still clear the Civil Services. It did not happen. He lost out on becoming a Civil Servant of the people. He tried a few odds jobs. He eventually became a Teacher, Poet, and Writer. His inspirations to writing - his Mom who manages to write Poetry even now along with her struggles of life, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, Franz Kafka, Roald Dahl, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, and all the other poets, artists, writers, and strugglers in Life.

In America today, anyone over fifty lives in dread of the Big A—Alzheimer’s disease. Small social gatherings (dinner, cocktail parties, etc.) take on the atmosphere of a segment from NPR’s weekly quiz show “Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me.” That’s the one where guests vie with each other in intense competitions to be the first to come up with the names of such things as the actor playing a role in the latest mini-series everybody is binging on. Almost inevitably, someone will pull out a cellphone to check the accuracy of the person who responded first. Quick, quicker, quickest lest others suspect you of coming down with the initial symptoms of the Big A. Although Alzheimer’s disease is not nearly as common as many people fear, nevertheless worries about perceived memory lapses are increasingly expressed to friends. They are also the most common complaint that persons over fifty-five years of age bring to their doctors. Such memory concerns are often unjustified and arouse needless anxiety. This widespread anxiety has helped create a national pre-occupation with memory and signs of memory failure. One of the reasons for this panic is the confusion in many people’s minds about how we form memories.