The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere
necromancy. People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can
take a nations' pulse, you can't be sure that the nation hasn't just
run up a flight of stairs, and although you can take a nation's blood
pressure, you can't be sure that if you came back in twenty minutes
you'd get the same reading. This is a damn fine thing.
-- E.B. White New Yorker 11/13/1948, reprinted
in E. B. White: Writings from the New Yorker, 1927-1976
Rebecca M. Dale, ed., 1990. p.60