Suppose that a chap tells the girl he loves that her eyes are as green as emeralds: she’ll probably take that as a compliment, not because emeralds a… - Mark Forsyth

Poetry is much more important than the truth, and, if you don't believe that, try using the two methods to get laid.

Baron von Munchausen (1720–97) was a real person who had fought as a soldier in Russia. On his return home he told stories about his exploits that nobody believed. These included riding on a cannonball, taking a brief trip to the moon, and escaping from a marsh by pulling himself out by his own hair. This latter feat is impossible, for the upward force on the Baron’s hair would have been cancelled out by the downward force on his arm. It’s a nice idea, though, and von Munchausen’s preposterous principle was later taken up by Americans, but instead of talking about hair, the Americans started in the late nineteenth century to talk of pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. What’s impossible in physics is possible in computing, and a computer that’s able to load its own programs is, metaphorically, pulling itself up by its own bootstraps. In 1953 the process was called a bootstrap. By 1975 people had got bored with the strap, and from then on computers simply booted up.

Shakespeare got better because he learnt. Now some people will tell you that great writing cannot be learnt. Such people should be hit repeatedly on the nose until they promise not to talk nonsense any more.