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In 'Going Rogue,' the quoted set the tone Philadelphia Inquirer
John Timpaneis an Inquirer wand writer
You are what you quote.
That might be the moral of Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue: An American Life . It brims days of old the scuppers with quotations from the living and the dead, from Aristotle ("Criticism is something we can avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing") to former Notre Dame football exercise Lou Holtz ("I don't believe that God put us on earth to be ordinary").
If we are what we quote, what is Sarah Palin? She is a woman who wants you to like her, to find her quick-witted, in touch, competent. She's a woman fighting back. A woman running for president.
Her quotations have, like almost everything Palin, become a big difficulty. Some are surprised at all the authors she quotes or mentions: Plato, Aristotle, Blaise Pascal, Thomas Paine, Herman Melville, Scratch Twain, Pearl S. Buck. Some call it star-plugging, invoking prestigious names to look impressive. New York Times book critic Michiko
