Tweet This Book: The 1,400 Greatest Quotes of All Time in 140 Characters or Less [Paperback]

If you've ever wanted to squeeze a quote into 140 character or less, then this book will give you something to chirp about. It contains 1400 of the greatest quotes of the greatest minds of all time, and Paris Hilton. It comes pre tweeted.

I have been a fan of quotations for several years, whenever I had something on my mind which I wished to clarify, I would go to my favortie quote website, and punch in two or three words, and see what some of the greatest minds of all time had to say. What did Shakespeare think, or Einstein, or Churchill, or Wilde, or Shaw? Usually I would come away with a different point of view. I felt that it sharpened and improved my mind.

A few months ago I opened up a twitter account, and many quotes do not fit this 140 character format, even things you write yourself you have to chop and cut to make it fit. I found though that when you do chop and cut, your communication becomes a little sharper and more inventive. I definitely belive if you can say something in one line instead of four do it.

If you're like me, then as you read you may be pleasantly surprised at how good these quotes are. Often with a bigger quotation book you have to wade through several pages for a good quote. Here, you will find several outstanding ones on every page. Obviously, the authors, one a librarian, the other a copywriter, have a good sense of an effective quotation, study the effect of a line, and have vetted these for quality.

I did go on Twitter and tweet a few quotes and picked up several followers, including, much to my surprise, an Olympic gold medalist.

It does not matter if you twitter, you will find this quite entertaining. It's light, it's portable, it's easy to use. And can post it on your facebook wall or use it to spice up a presentation or throw into a conversation.

As Shakespeare said: "Brevity is the soul of wit."

So, if you want to get 1400 of the greatest quotes of the greatest minds of all time, and Paris Hilton this is the book.

I think you will enjoy it, and I hope this was helpful.

I got this book for Christmas, and I couldn't help reading lines from it out loud to my holiday visitors. Take these for example:

"Time to wash the dishes and clean your house? Look inside your pants. If you find a penis in there, it's not time." Jo Brand

"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for example." Franklin P. Jones

"Giving birth is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head." Carol Burnett

"I am not a complete vegetarian. I eat only animals that have died in their sleep." George Carlin (You can imagine how well this one went over with my vegan sister.)

Of course not all the lines are funny. Some are wise, thought provoking, even tender. But they are all well chosen. As I read I could easily imagine how much fun the Van Youngs had collecting these quotations.

I don't use Twitter, but I am a daily facebook user, and I always aspire to post the kinds of status updates that I myself admire: pithy, humorous, provocative lines that will spark a reaction. This book provides a wealth of great material for facebook users like me.

But even if you don't use technology to connect with others, "Tweet This Book" provides great fodder for the old-school-style human connections. Remember conversation? I mean real, face-to-face conversation? Throw a line from Oscar Wilde or Paula Poundstone (or any of the other notables quoted in this little book) into your conversations now and then, and you will soon build a reputation as a witty interlocutor. . . . the kind who get invited to dinner parties after which no one is tempted to quote Groucho Marx: "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."

This short book combines our endless fascination with memorable and pithy quotes with the recent rise of Twitter. All of the quotes in this book were chosen so that they can fit the Twitter microblogging format - they are all at most 140 characters long. Some of the quotes are centuries old and are attributed to personages that are as far removed from our instant-information culture as they come, such as William Shakespeare, Lao Tzu and Abraham Lincoln. Nonetheless, even the quotes from these long-dead luminaries seem strangely appropriate for being posted on Twitter. This fact either speaks volumes about the timelessness of their insights, or perhaps how trite and banal they were all along and it took the advent of Twitter for us to realize this. I think I'll go with the first option, and post some of these quotes on my Twitter stream. You are all welcome to retweet them.