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Examples
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Though he doesn't understand, he is glad just now to be alive, and as he wanders away he feels charmed for a time, blessed by the golden face, anointed with lightning-bug glow.
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Finally, I will leave you with the words of Mark Twain, because really, what more do you need: “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug.”
In Gordath Wood: Writer Patrice Sarath » Writing lessons — a writer’s toolbox 2009
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He said "Some folks mistake vivacity for wit; whereas the difference between vivacity and wit is the same as the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning."
'Who Is Mark Twain?' 2009
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Twain wrote: "The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug,"
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His non-novels “nonfiction” seems a lightning-bug word as it applies to Mark Twain tended to be sprawling pastiches, grab bags of personal narrative, some of it true, mixed with found art: sections from other books, recollected tales, happenstance memory fragments, self-plagiarized letters and essays, anything to meet the required word count.
Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005
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His non-novels “nonfiction” seems a lightning-bug word as it applies to Mark Twain tended to be sprawling pastiches, grab bags of personal narrative, some of it true, mixed with found art: sections from other books, recollected tales, happenstance memory fragments, self-plagiarized letters and essays, anything to meet the required word count.
Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005
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“Some folks mistake vivacity for wit; whereas the difference between vivacity and wit is the same as the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”
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With the lightning-bug constellations overhead, the effect was quite striking.
Perseus Spur May, Julian, 1931- 1998
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QUOTATION: The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large mattertis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.
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[Footnote A: The American lampyris, vulgarly called the lightning-bug.]
Alonzo and Melissa The Unfeeling Father Daniel Jackson
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