Word: runyon
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...Paul Gallico. 4. Damon Runyon...
...Damon Runyon got his first newspaper job when he was a gawky 16-year-old Kansas kid. He has written about 80,000,000 words since then. Some of them were very good. As William Randolph Hearst's top sports-byliner, he could make a silk purse out of a cauliflower ear. When Collier's ballyhooed a Runyon short story on its cover, newsstand sales sometimes went up 60,000 copies. But last week, at 65, Damon Runyon looked back at his career, and said he wished he had been playing Pagliacci instead...
...daily column in 125 papers, Runyon reviewed his own latest book, (Short Takes, a selection from a 30-year accumulation of columns). Said...
...Damon Runyon in a simulation of humor often manages to say things which, if said in a serious tone might be erased because he is not supposed to say things like that. By saying something with a half-boob air . . . he gets ideas out of his system on the wrongs of this world which indicate that he must have been a great rebel at heart but lacking moral courage. . . . The newspapers of today are full of high-wire walkers like the Runyon of Short Takes . . . he is a hired Hessian of the typewriter ... a disguised defeatist...
...easily acquired trick which is conveying a thought by indirection. He makes it appear that he is not personally responsible for the thought, but there it is. . . . I tell you Runyon has subtlety but it is the considered opinion of this reviewer that it is a great pity the guy did not remain a rebel out-and-out, even at the cost of a good position at the feed trough...