["And that's the news from Lake Wobegon -- where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average"] to name a peculiar "Lake Wobegon" effect: In a study of scholastic achievement in Mississippi in the 1980s, each school reported test results which were above the state average.

["I believe in looking reality straight in the eye," Keillor once declared, "and denying it."]