Interview with Ralph Keyes

Introduction
It’s a pleasure to introduce Ralph Keyes, the author of fourteen books. His bestseller Is There Life After High School? was made into a Broadway musical that is still produced in this country and abroad. Chancing It was a New York Times "Notable Book." Timelock was selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club and excerpted in Reader’s Digest. John Jakes called The Courage to Write "one of the two or three best books on writing I’ve ever read."

What stands out here is not that Ralph has published a lot of books, but that he has written across such a wide range of subjects – and done a good job on them all. His latest book The Quote Verifier continues his tradition of excellence diversity and entertainment.

Welcome Ralph. I’d like to start with what is perhaps an obvious question, why did you pick that particular subject?

Ralph Keyes
Thanks, Kip. I've always been interested in the broader issue of how routinely misinformation crowds out real information. More years ago than I care to remember this led me to the subset of misquotations which is as clear an illustration of this phenomenon as can be found. Gathering examples for so many years led to my 1992 book "Nice Guys Finish Seventh": False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations. In that book I concluded "Misquotes drive out real quotes," and explored the reasons why this should be (not least reason being that misquotations invariably improve on real quotations). I wanted to do a sequel called Familiar Misquotations, but a reference librarian advised me that pulling a book by this title off her shelf to answer a patron's question might be dicey. ("Are you implying that I just asked you about a misquotation?") So I broadened my concept to include not just quotations that are misworded or misattributed but ones that we use routinely without necessarily knowing their origins: who first said them, where, when, and exactly what was said. The Quote Verifier is the result.

Kip Winsett
Ralph, in re the broader issue of how routinely misinformation crowds out real information I'm wondering if you tend to see that as being "not-good". By that I mean do you think that, in general, there is a cost to society that outweighs the benefits?

A second question too, if you don't mind. How can you (or anyone, for that matter) know that the information they have is, in fact, the real goods?

Richard Farson
Ralph, I guess there are probably many times when the misquotation truly distorts the orginial intention. I think of poet Robert Frost's often quoted line, something like "Fences make good neighbors" which apparently was not actually his intent. Is that correct, and is it often the case?

Ralph Keyes
In general I think decisions made on the basis of information are better than those made on the basis of misinformation (e.g., invading Iraq).

The whole issue of myths and legends is a special case. These can be the glue of community. However, in the absence of community - which is to say the way most of us live - even myths and legends distort our ability to deal with reality.

"Good fences make good neighbors" is an excellent illustration of how an original intent gets twisted into its opposite. In "Mending Wall" Frost was quoting a farmer-neighbor who recited this ancient proverb. But the narrator of this poem is clearly dubious, wondering who a fence might exclude:

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall

It's been Frost's fate to be associated with the antonym of the actual point he was trying to make.

Richard Farson
I'm sure I'm not alone in being uneasy about my legacy for my children when I hear my old friends and associates describe to them my words or behavior from years back in ways that I know were not even close to accurate, often opposite to my intent, always embarrassing, and maybe even quite detrimental. As a psychologist I know that memory is anything but an accurate recording of history. Which makes your work, Ralph, so important. Countless times you are able to correct those inaccuracies, and provide us a more solid footing for our legends.

I'm surprised at how interesting, and somehow comforting, it is to read your quote books.

I have a question. You've written lots of books, several highly prescient ones. I know you have a lot of ideas for books that you will never get around to writing. Would you be willing to share with us some of the subjects you would write about if you could?

Kip Winsett
I probably phrased my question poorly. You've said that quotes are often distorted in various ways (reworded, reattributed, etc.) in ways that make them "better" (more pithy, carry more weight, etc.)which I take to mean that the distortion is more beneficial than the original. That being the case, why is it important that we should know the original? Is there a cost to society for using the "better though inaccurate" quote.

Ralph Keyes
The list of books I wish I could write (including many an abortive project) is painfully extensive. Let me "get back to you" on that, Richard.

You're right, of course, about the vagaries of memory. Perception, too. A friend once had me make a presentation about the issue of physical height in human interaction (the topic of my third book) to his university writing class. I thought I'd made a balanced, nuanced presentation covering lots of bases. My friend then had his students write up what they'd heard. Very few of the results reflected what I thought I'd said. Most had more to do with the existing preconceptions of the writer (e.g., "short guys have Napoleonic complexes," etc.) Probably this is true more often than not: we have so many preconceptions filtering information that the actual content gets lost.

Your question is interesting, Kip: if a misquote is better than a real quote, where's the harm? None at all so long as we're clear that this is the case. I just get queasy when we give ourselves permission to "improve on the truth," then pass off the result as truth itself.

Kip Winsett
While it isn't at all related to your new book, I'm curious to know about your interest in collecting "vintage toasters, waffle irons, blenders, hair dryers, cocktail shakers, radios, and streamlined vacuum cleaners." Not being a collector myself I've no idea why people collect things nor why they choose to collect the things they do. How does this work for you?

Ralph Keyes
For years and years I used to admire my mother-in-law's gleaming chrome 1938 Sunbeam toaster. I wanted to ask her to save it for me if & when it stopped working. However, she was the type of person to respond to this sort of message by saying, "Please take it. Now. Who needs toast?" So I never said anythihg. And when it stopped working she put it in the trash.

Ever since, in a sort of penance, I've picked up nice shiny chrome toasters at garage sales & thrift stores and the like. Also a few blenders, waffle irons, hair dryers, and cocktail shakers. Over time they were taking up so much space that I bought some tall shelves, put them on display in our basement & called it a "museum."

I try not to take it too seriously, mostly picking up items at garage sales, cheap. There are serious appliance collectors who buy & sell for substantial sums. I figure if I'm ever tempted to join a collector's club or subscribe to a newsletter it's time to unload my stock.

Incidentally, you'd be surprised by how evocative toasters can be. For those of a certain age it's the ultimate comfort convenience. I often get e-mail from toasterites. Just yesterday a Canadian woman sent me a picture of her old Kenmore.

Kip Winsett
I just read an interesting article in the local newspaper. It seems that approximately 8% of male sheep will only try to have sex with other male sheep and some researcher had published a scientific article about trying to determine which ones. For a sheep rancher, of course, being able to identify such males before buying them would be useful. Well, the "popular" press got hold of it and twisted it around to make it seem that the researcher was trying to "cure" gay sheep. PETA, various gay groups, some celebrities and numerous blogs went ballistic and distorted the affair to make it appear his ultimate goal was to "cure" gay people.

I’m not positive, but I have the sense from various things I’ve read that the "press" didn’t start out as a reliable news source so much as a gossip sheet. Somewhere along the way the "rags" seem to have tried to legitimize themselves but today we seem to be commingling news with entertainment to a great extent.

Richard Farson
It is deeply humbling to be faced with the facts about what people get from one's lectures, even when the audience is in rapt attention, and give a standing ovation. They not only miss the items that we think most important, but come away with major distortions of what we really meant.

Your book about height was one of the prescient ones that I mentioned earlier. All the studies since reinforce what you presented about the overwhelming importance of height, in men particularly. That's why I asked for your thoughts about what books you think need to be written. I wouldn't want you to give away what you really plan to write about, but your list, even of just the subjects you don't have time to pursue, would give us an interesting idea of what you think is important and ignored in our society.

Mary Boone
Hi Ralph, you've been talking here a lot about the veracity of the quotes themselves...did you write about how often quotes are misattributed? Which do you think is the more egregious error?

Also, how many of your quotes related to facts versus philosophical musings? It seems to me that the former would be of even more concern than the latter (although I agree with you that being a stickler about the "truth" is really important under any circumstances -- it's ok to rearrange or alter things as long as we know the altering is taking place.). All of this is very critical in a society that is so heavily influenced by what happens online where we can't see each other and where accountability is greatly lessened.

Ralph Keyes
Welcome, Mary. I'm the world's worst misattributer, having thought for years that it was Churchill who said one who isn't a socialist at twenty has no heart, and who isn't a conservative at 40 has no head (it was Francois Guizot), and that it was Lincoln who said he wrote a long letter because he didn't have time to write a short one (it was Blaise Pascal). I did consider this issue in The Quote Verifier. As for egregiousness in general, misquotation of all kinds is the parking ticket of intellectual crimes. But I think there are shadings. If I say at a party "As Mark Twain said, 'Giving up smoking is easy. I've done it hundreds of times,'" as I did dozens of times before discovering that no one knows where this one originated, that's hardly a mortal sin. Nor is is so questionable when a reporter on deadline gets a quotation wrong. But when a magazine writer does, or a book writer, I do wonder about their work/research ethic in general.

Ralph Keyes
Getting back to you on book ideas, Richard: Ever since writing We, the Lonely People in 1973 I've wanted to revisit the issue of community because that's a far greater concern today than it was three decades ago. Here's the problem, though: it's my experience that all of us, including me, want a stronger sense of community in our lives, yet few of us, and I'm not one, are willing to do the things that could achieve one. So we're left with our yearning, and our hope that the author of a book on this subject might show us the path toward community without asking us to take the steps that might actually lead us there. This is a dillema I've yet to resolve.

For years, decades actually, I've struggled to find an avenue for writing a social history of everyday life since World War II, and have even gathered file cabinets full of data on that subject, but have yet to come up with a viable frame. I once tried to conceive of a book on the year 1938 as one in which the foudnations of today's world were laid (an early computer designed, Xerography invented, and the ballpoint pen, creation of the 1939 World's Fair, etc., etc.) but couldn't get that one off the ground either.

A decade or so ago I spent the better part of a year researching the underground railroad for a book on that subject, only to have no publisher make an offer based on my proposal. That experience remains one of the most frustrating ones of my professional life. On the other hand, and this seems to be a theme with me, the book I'd hoped to write was probably not one readers wanted to read. It would have questioned our romantic vision of the underground railroad, all the tunnels, hidden compartments, secret handshakes and code words whispered in the night that played little, if any, actual part in this venture. I also would have called attention to the conflict between northeastern abolitionists and midwestern underground railroad conductors, the racist attitudes of many in both camps, and the fact that unnamed slaves and conductors' wives did much of the work while more prominent figures reaped the glory. That's the book I wanted to write, but not the one publishers wanted to buy, let alone bookbuyers.

On another post I'll get into possible upcoming books, though writing one after another for the past decade has made it hard to think along those lines for now.

Richard Farson
Seems to me that I read a review or op-ed a few days ago indicating that someone, a woman I think, did just publish a book demythologizing the underground railway. Could be someone stole your idea?

I'm going to solve the community problem for you with my next book which will inspire architects and designers to move from a purely business orientation to a more professional one. Then they will increasingly operate in the public health area, and not do things they now do that erode community. So you can relax.

I think Philo Farnsworth invented the basic idea of television (noticing rows of corn on his farm) when he was 14 in 1920, but I think it was about 1938 when it was finally taken seriously, wasn't it? RCA began paying him royalties in 1939, I think. (His family were our neighbors when we lived in Bolinas, and his grandson Mark was one of my son Joel's best friends. Joel attended his funeral just two weeks ago. The Farnsworth story is a good one. He died unrecognized and broke. The La Jolla Playhouse is producing a play about it next month. His major competitor was a Russian/American who worked for Westinghouse, and who got the first patent on the fundamental idea but hadn't made the picture happen. Westinghouse, however, discouraged him, told him to work on something more useful.)

I'd love to read your 1938 book. Notice that most all of those advances were made by individuals, not by big research efforts, and not all at universities.

Ralph Keyes
There was a front page story in the NY Times a few days ago debunking the popular notion that slaves charted their escapes with symbolic quilt patches. Is that what you're thinking about?

At the time my proposal was circulating another book on the UR had been contracted by Random House which proved to be a major roadblock. That book never came out. Two have since but neither one makes a serious effort to debunk UR myths.

Richard Farson
Yes, that was the story. I guess it wasn't a book. So you should still do yours.

In asking for your book ideas, I'm really just trying to elicit your current thoughts about what needs to be addressed these days. You are always out front, and I can't help but wonder what occupies your mind.

On another subject, I know your books have been well received by the critics and the public. I wonder if you have any sense about how they might have had some major impact. For example, have your books about getting the courage to write motivated someone to write a good book as a result? Any stories to tell about that?

Ralph Keyes
Just back at my computer (late at night). Good questions, Richard. Will respond tomorrow.

Ralph Keyes
I think my books on community, risk-taking, and time pressure have had minor impact. The one on height seems to have helped confirm that this topic is okay to take seriously. Is There Life After High School? I think left more traces behind than is apparent in terms of our awareness of adolescent influences on adult behavior. But it is The Courage to Write which, during its twelve years in print, has elicited continual, heartfelt responses from readers who thought they were the only ones scared to put words on paper, including a number of respondents who have told me that starting a book, completing a book, and even getting a book published was due in part to reading my own. This has probably been the most gratifying part of my writing career.

As for what I'd like to write another book about:

I used to think political polarization was a good topic, but time & circumstances (& Barack Obama) seem to have taken care of that one.

I find myself thinking a lot about how much we seek our sense of connection in narrower and narrower social niches, especially via the Internet. Why & what does it mean?

Also wondering what parts of contemporary life are an actual improvement on life as it used to be lived (availability of ethnic foods & boutique beer), what no improvement at all (increased time pressure), and what some combination (e.g., cell phones, the Internet).

A book on Wagging Tails, or unintended consequences. For example how the ranking of colleges by US News & World Report has profoundly transformed the way institutions of higher ed. conduct their business.

Or one on Failure, Disappointment, and Regret.

To name just a few.

Richard Farson
I think you need a good co-author. My web site is..... Those all seem like fine ideas to me, and ones that your massive filing system and comprehensive outlook would serve well.

I've not heard the term Wagging Tails applied to unintended consequences, but I'm particularly interested in the US News and World Repor's effect on higher ed. I have come to have great respect for the market system, but also an increased wariness of it as it invades the professions, those sacrosanct institutions like the arts, education, ministry, architecture, medicine, journalism. Now some universities call their students "customers." Professions need to collaborate, not compete. And the for profit schools are setting an unfortunate model as they garner big profits from tuition alone.

If I had to pick a problem that I thought was most dangerous to the future of our democracy I would pick that one, because it is so invisible, and has so much support from other sectors than just the right. Well, actually I'm more afraid of what Bush and Cheney would do if there were a major terror attack. But the entry of professionals into business would rank a close second.

Is that your concern too?

Kip Winsett
Thanks for being so generous with your time, Ralph, especially as we've taken up much more of it than we had originally requested. I know we have a lingering question here, and I’d like to your answer but I don't want you to feel like this interview is an unending. I’ll leave the item open for another day in case you feel an irresistible urge to comment further.

Thanks for the interview and for sharing some insights into yourself, your world view, opinions and thoughts. It’s been a very interesting and entertaining time. I very much look forward to publishing this interview in our ILF Digest publication which will be out in the next week.

Ralph Keyes
As remote controls, TiVos, streaming video, etc. drastically reduce conventional advertising outlets, producers get desperate, imaginative, and unconscionable in their quest for new ad opportunities. I see their results in the big Pepsi logo on our high school's score board, the banker's logo on financial aid forms at my alma mater, the increasingly blurred line between editorial content and advertising in publications, etc., etc. I don't think this is exactly what you're referring to, Richard, but it's certainly a close cousin. I'm old enough to remember when daily life wasn't nearly so commercialized & I miss it.

Anyway, thanks for a good interview, one I've enjoyed & found thought-provoking