Julie loves “People I Have Loved…”

Now, now, it’s not what it sounds like.

It’s just that Julie at Happy Catholic is a good reader and she has given the big thumbs up to an out-of-print book that the world could probably stand to see back on the bookshelves, Leo Rosten’s People I Have Loved, Known or Admired.

Julie excerpts:
It is a pleasure for me to salute [this] benefactor of our inhuman race:

J. Irwin Miller, chairman of the board of Cummins Engine Company, whom I watched in a television “talk” show as he patiently tried to explain his views to three condescending panelists, indubitable highbrows, who insisted on demolishing points Mr. Miller had not made, and persisted in ridiculing policies Mr. Miller had never propounded.

When he saw that he could not persuade the deep thinkers to desist from their eloquent irrelevances, the deadpan businessman finally cleared his throat and sighed, with exemplary kindness: “In my house, we all try to follow a rule I have once suggested to my children. The rule goes like this: “You can disagree with a man’s position as much as you want — after you have been able to state it, to his satisfaction.”

I consider this dictum, which belongs in all anthologies of great quotations, the best statement ever made about the basic rule men of reason ought to follow during an argument…

I found this book in the back of a cab in the 1970’s and I credit Rosten with teaching me how to write, how to be a good reader and even how to think critically…but his essays are not work, they are perfectly crafted love songs to great and ordinary people, from artists to ball players, to inventors to soldiers to parents and teachers. When my kids were old enough to begin to appreciate good writing, I encouraged them to read this book. They too fell in love with the essays, and they learned to turn a phrase, as well.

You can get this gem of a book for a song – for a dang penny – used, at Amazon. Do yourself a favor and pick it up – it is a reader’s paradise.

UPDATE: Julie has added a link (via Siggy) to this wonderful piece on Rosten, via the excellent City Journal.