Booth Tarkington tinha pavor de falar em público

Booth Tarkington teve um papel activo como legislador, mas tinha pavor de falar em público, o que era um contrasenso, porque para que as propostas de lei fossem avante era necessário discursar e muitas vezes falhava o seu intento:

Eu preferiria ser preso a ter que fazer um discurso.

No entanto, nem tudo ficou perdido ao reunir numa colecção In the Arena histórias políticas que foi escrevendo, resultando num convite inesperado do presidente Theodore Roosevelt  para que o escritor se reunisse com ele na Casa Branca para um almoço informal.

Numa carta ao pai Tarkington escreveria 

The President made a long & generally favorable comment about the stories. Of course, I just sat & purred—too pleased to eat.

The woman, Isabel, was a stranger to her son

He saw little essential difference between thirty-eight and eighty-eight, and his mother was to him not a woman but wholly a mother. He had no perception of her other than as an adjunct to himself, his mother; nor could he imagine her thinking or doing anything —falling in love, walking with a friend, or reading a book —as a woman, and not as his mother. The woman, Isabel, was a stranger to her son; as completely a stranger as if he had never in his life seen her or heard her voice.

in The Magnificent Ambersons por Booth Tarkington