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            Here are some well-known, and some not-so-well-known lines with key words missing. From the choices given, can you spot the words that appear in the original? Can you match wits with the true wits?

            1. “The night has a thousand _____.” a) ears, b) voices, c) eyes,

d) secrets. (John Lily)

            2. “Two great European narcotics: alcohol and _____.” a) beer, b) communism, c) Christianity d) religion. (Nietzche)

            3. “______, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below.” a) love, b)faith, c) money, d. music. (Addison)

            4. “That best academy, ______. a) experience, b) a mother’s knee, c) the rocky road of life, d) television. (J.R. Lowell)

            5. “There is a tide in the affairs of women which, taken at the flood leads ______.” a) God knows where, b) on to fortune, c) out of the home, d) to independence. (Byron)

            6. “Why, if it prosper, none dare call it ______.” a) folly, b) chance, c) treason, d) planned. (John Harrington)

            7. “A thing is not necessarily true because a man _____ for it.” a) lies, b) fights, c) dies, d) kills. (Oscar Wilde)

            8. “______, like the soul, never returns, once it is gone.” a) Youth, b) Beauty, c) Trust, d) Money. (Pubilius Syrus 

            9. “’Tis _____ forms the common mind: Just as the ______ is bent the tree’s inclined.” a) discipline, rod; b) custom, branch; c) education, twig; d) wisdom, trunk. (Alexander Pope)

            10. “There are few die well that die in _____.”  a) bed, b) vain, c) despair, d) battle. (Shakespeare)

            11. “This is the way the world ends – Not with a ______ but a ______.” a) boom, puff; b) shout, whisper; c)bang whimper; d) splash, ripple.” (T.S. Eliot)

            12. “If you want to take it with you, ______.” a) eat it, b) carry it, c) send it on ahead, d) mail it. (Ben Jonson)

            13. “To be born a  _____ is to know that we must labor to be ______.” a) slave, free; b) soldier, brave; c) woman, beautiful; d) child, loved. (W.B. Yeats)

            14. “It is as natural to ______ as to be ______.”  a) speak, dumb; b) die, born; c) cheat, honest; d) love, hungry. (Francis Bacon)

            15. “Before we ______, we should see if we can’t ______.” a) blame, excuse; b) sing, carry a tune; c) forgive, get even; d) lie, tell the truth. (Lichtenberg)

            16. “I could lie down like a _____.” a) spent swimmer, b) tired child, c) weary lover, d) contented cat. (Shelley)

            17. “______ the little children to come unto me.” a) Permit, b) Encourage, c) Suffer, d) Call. (Mark 10:14)

            18. “The secret of being a bore is to ______.” a) talk about yourself, b) tell everything, c) spoil the punchline, d) repeat yourself. (Voltaire)

            19. “A miracle drug is any drug that will do what the ______ says it will do.” a) doctor, b) label, c) ad, d) scientist. (Hodgins)

            20. “I have measured out my life with _____.” a) grains of sand, b) birthdays, c) coffee spoons, d) time clocks. (T.S. Eliot)

            21. “Let the  ______ inherit the earth – they have it coming to them.” a) strong, b) rich, c) meek, d) women. (James Thurber)

            22. “True wit is _____ to advantage dressed, what oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed.” a) nature, b) language, c) an idea, d) fortune. (Alexander Pope)

Answers: 1c, 2c, 3d, 4b, 5a, 6c, 7c, 8c, 9c, 10d, 11c, 12c, 13c, 14b, 15a, 16b, 17c, 18b, 19b, 20c, 21c, 22a.

          Bill Reynolds