Gelett Burgess

artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist

Frank Gelett Burgess (January 30, 1866September 18, 1951) was an American artist, art critic, poet, author and humourist. He is credited with coining the word blurb, a short promotional statement about a piece of creative work, and bromide, a trite or unoriginal phrase intended to soothe or placate, or the boring person who utters those phrases.

Burgess circa 1910

Quotes

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  • To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.
    • From the essay The Sense of Humor first published in The Romance of the Commonplace (1902).
  • there are no roads in all Bohemia !
  • A woman and a mouse, they carry a tale wherever they go.
    • Gelett Burgess, The Maxims of Methuselah (1907).
 
The Purple Cow
 
Publicity for 1909 Burgess book, expanding his 1906 essay of the same name

The Purple Cow (1895)

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  • I never saw a purple cow,
    I never hope to see one;
    But I can tell you, anyhow,
    I'd rather see than be one!

Confession (1897)

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  • Ah, yes, I wrote the "Purple Cow"—
    I'm Sorry, now, I wrote it;
    But I can tell you Anyhow
    I'll Kill you if you Quote it!
    • Poem Confession: and a Portrait Too, Upon a Background that I Rue (1897)
    • Reacting to the many parodies of his poem.

Are You A Bromide? (1906)

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  • I don't know much about Art, but I know what I like. (p. 24)
  • She doesn't look a day over fifty. (p. 24)
  • You'll feel differently about these things when you're married. (p. 25)
  • It isn't so much the heat... as the humidity. (p. 28)
  • You're a sight for sore eyes. (p. 29)
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