Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Quote of the Day (Christopher Buckley, on a Magazine’s Meager Expense Account for Author Lunches)


“Dr. [Lewis] Thomas and I had our business lunch. He was erudite, charming and gracious. Not, as I recall, a great enthusiast of stuffed grape leaves or mutton kebab. The good news was that he didn't drink at lunch. If memory serves, he declined dessert (could it have been the baklava?). This much I do remember: He never wrote a single word for us, probably out of fear that his fee would be a voucher at the Balkan Armenian. Thus did I learn at an early age Business Lunch Lesson No. 1: You get what you paid for.”—Christopher Buckley, recalling the Spartan business-lunch account permitted him as a “tadpole editor” by an unnamed national magazine, in “Etiquette: What’s the Golden Rule of a Business Lunch?”, The New York Times Magazine, October 2, 2011 (Food and Drink issue)

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