As a punishment for refusing to serve in the army, poet Robert Lowell was imprisoned for five months by the U.S. courts. While waiting to be transferred to Connecticut to serve the sentence, Lowell spent a few days in New York's West Street Jail. During his stay there he was put in a cell next to Louie Lepke, a convicted member of Murder Incorporated. "I'm in for killing," Lepke told the poet. "What are you in for?" Lowell answered, "Oh, I'm in for refusing to kill.

—Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

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By nature, French artist Edgar Degas was conservative. His friend the etcher Jean-Louis Forain believed in progress. Forain had recently installed that newfangled invention, the telephone. Arranging to have a friend phone him during the meal, he invited Degas to dinner. The phone rang; Forain rushed to answer it, then returned, beaming with pride. Degas merely said, "So that's the telephone. It rings and you run.

—Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

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A patient complaining of melancholy consulted Dr. John Abernethy. After an examination the doctor pronounced, "You need amusement. Go and hear the comedian Grimaldi; he will make you laugh, and that will be better for you than any drugs." Said the patient, "I am Grimaldi.

—Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

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In 1927, when he began his courtship of Dorothy Thompson, Sinclair Lewis followed her across Europe, all the way to Moscow. At Moscow Airport . . . the press was waiting to greet him. "What brought you to Russia?" Lewis was asked.
    "Dorothy," he said.
    "We mean, what's your business here?" the press persisted.
    "Dorothy," said Lewis.
    "You misunderstand. What do you plan to see in Russia?"
    "Dorothy," said Lewis.

—Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

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Henry Thoreau was languishing in jail after he had refused to pay the Massachusetts poll tax in 1843 [to protest the Mexican-American War]. Ralph Waldo Emerson came to visit him and asked him why he was there. "Waldo, why are you not here?" said Thoreau.

—Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

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When composer Igor Stravinsky was fifty-seven, he settled in the United States and a year later decided to apply for American citizenship. He made an appointment to see the appropriate official. At his first interview the official asked the famous composer his name. "Stra-vin-sky," he replied, speaking each syllable distinctly. "You could change it, you know," suggested the official.

—Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

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