@BESW I've found a few more taglines which might potentially be good for ads on various sites:

> "Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree." -- Ezra Pound

> "Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself." -- Karen Marie Moning

> "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." -- George RR Martin

> "Literature is the question minus the answer." -- Roland Barthes

> "Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life." -- Fernando Pessoa

#1 would be great for English Language & Usage, #2 and #3 might work for Movies & TV, #4 for Role-playing Games, and #5 and #6 are more general.

@Randal'Thor Heh, nice.

@Randal'Thor this most of all. To me, it emphasises the discussion surrounding lit, which is what we're here for. The rest aren't about community as much.

My client for today cancelled, so I'll take some time to finish up the ad. Quotes like yours are the reason I'm offering an ad with fill-in-the-blank space.

@BESW Yeah, I could have just filled in some of those quotes into the blank myself, but I'm sure you have access to much better fonts and tools.

Let me finalise the form first. [grin]

The longest quote is the Marx one, but we could use a little poetic licence (advertiser's licence?) and say "Every time somebody turns on the TV, I go into the other room and read a book."

There's a protocol for that.

When you're paring down a quote to the pithiest bit but need to clarify things which are only referred to obliquely in the juicy part you want to quote, it's often done like this:

> Every time somebody turns on the [television] set, I go into the other room and read a book.

I'm still unsure about the Marx and Moning quotes though. I get the idea that the M&TV mods 'tolerate' the Literature site because they don't see it as competition for any of their questions (unlike certain other sites), but they might still frown upon an ad which criticises the medium of choice for their site.

Agreed. It's not neighbourly.

There are plenty of more... agreeable... quotes comparing books and TV.

@BESW Oh, I know about the square-brackets rule. But don't they look a bit ugly in an ad?

[shrug] In a literature.se ad I think it'd be amusing.

> Books and movies are like apples and oranges. They both are fruit, but taste completely different. ― Stephen King

> The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader. – Paulo Coelho

(We'll leave out the bit where he says That’s why we go to movies and say, “Oh, the book is better.”)

@BESW That's much better in terms of tone, but maybe a bit banal?

@BESW +1. Very nice.

> I like watching zombie movies and I read zombie books. – Kevin Bacon

Heck, just

> I read zombie books. – Kevin Bacon

Use that one for sff, too.

New improved ad.