Quoting your way to becoming intellectual (atleast sound like one)

Today morning, while still enjoying my first cup of coffee in the office, I ran into one of my "well read" colleagues. I tried some small talk but she was ruffled by the cat that crossed her path in the morning, "do you believe in superstitions Mr. Dubey", she asked with apprehension in her voice, here was the point where my genes kicked in, being a guy asks for being witty and smart sounding in such situations. I said with a smile "Well, I don't believe in superstitions but whats the harm in touching wood"(bulls eye!). She seemed impressed, "Bertrand Russell?", I was taken by surprise, I said "I think it is Sir George Bernard Shaw" (that is the only name I know, who people know but never read), "Wow!" came the reply "I am an avid follower of Mr. Shaw, what all plays have you read".....I thought "plays???? I thought he was a philosopher", clearly a catastrophe was about to happen here, I got myself together and answered "Well, I read a couple of them while I was young (mind you I am 23) "
before she could ask precisely which ones, her manager called for her, she left saying "We should meet over a coffee and discuss some of his works!", I smiled and she left.
"phew, it was close" I thought.

What is the point of this entire self embarrassing story of mine? To begin with, we all want to be intellectuals (if only we knew what intellect means), being one is a tough and time consuming job. So we all settle with sounding like one, at least so much that most of people we meet should think of us as well read, smart and full of wit (somewhere close to intellectual behaviour). Quoting Great people is the quickest and best way of doing this. However, in the process we end up making fools of ourselves, something like what I did today morning. So I decided, I need to enlighten you up with some do's and don't of the process. (remember the Reliance commercial, bhaiya hindustan mein muft ki advice bahut milti hai! :) )

Buy a quotes book, read it every morning. The catch here is there are two types of great people, one who all of us know about and the other only a few elite know about, for example Mahatma Gandhi and Friedrich Nietzche. Learn a mix of quotes from both these segments. Now, quoting Mahatma Gandhi would be safe, no one would ask whether you have read "My Experiment with truth", but the effect is not as grand as quoting Friedrich Nietzche but it may boomerang on you if the person asks you "Impressive, do you follow Nietzche?", and you end up wondering whether Nietzche was a philosopher or a 50's Hollywood star.
So depending on the person you are facing you could quote someone you know slightly about or you could quote someone whom none of you know anything about. The entire art is to judge the person. For instance while meeting someone over business, safely quote the author of last book you read (if you do not read books for god sake memorise the best seller (non-fiction) chart from India-Today), because the person in question would most likely be an MBA and he too shall be trying to give an impression of intellectual. Whereas, if you face a girl whom you want to hit on, quote some exotic unknown person, preferably French something like Jean-Paul Sartre (it sounds very exotic, trust me), in all probability she would be impressed without asking questions (again, we all have our bad days, like today morning).

Another big "in your face" problem is, confidently quoting someone whose book you have read or are reading...but you take a big hit when we are asked what other books have you read of the author. For instance, you are reading "Jurassic Park" and you quote something on Fractals or Chaos theory, when asked about what all other books you have read from Michael Crichton, you are clueless and the person is left thinking "AAh! it's just a one book tide you are riding on"...So it's always a good habit to read the "Other works from the author" page in the book, if possible also learn what the books are about.

Before I end, a quick reminder on who all are quotable and who all are not. I don't question your intelligence here, but I have seen people quoting Shahrukh Khan in an effort to look cool, for heaven's sake it is a sure shot recipe for disaster. A good quotes book would solve such a problem, but to be on the safe side, try not quoting someone from the entertainment or sports unless the person is very old or belonged to some golden era. You can safely quote Humphrey Bogart, but do not quote Tom Cruise. Prefer western names over Indian ones, quoting Indians is utterly uncool unless they are veteran politicians, poets or famous scientists also Indian names are risky as everyone would know about them.

I hope my unsolicited advice comes handy to you, although I have not written an separate disclaimer, if ever anything goes wrong with my unsolicited advice, then kindly use your brains and escape from the situation like I did today morning.

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." - Oscar Wilde


PS: I assume here that you are smart enough to avoid out-of-context quoting. You don't really need to read this post if you quote Winston Churchill's quotes on War when the discussion is about a cricket match.