Tracing Quotations
Alexander Woollcott? Karl Harriman? Marie Belloc-Lowndes? Nancy Vincent McClelland? Kenneth Herford? Dear Quote Investigator: I recently watched an excellent British film from the 1950s called “So Long at the Fair” and was fascinated by the plot [SLW] [SLI]. When I searched the net I discovered that I was not the only person intrigued by the …
Continue reading “Legend: The Vanishing Lady and the Vanishing Hotel Room”
Oscar Levant? Ed Gardner? Henry Morgan? Dear Quote Investigator: Every time I hear Hollywood referred to as Tinseltown it reminds me of the following quote: Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath. I have read this phrase in several places but was unsure who first created it. The …
Continue reading “Beneath the Phony Tinsel of Hollywood You’ll Find the Real Tinsel”
Benjamin Disraeli? Washington Irving? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently, I was reading the top-selling book “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” and encountered this sentence:[1] 2007, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Page 95, Random House, New York. (Verified with Amazon Look Inside) Nero did not …
Groucho Marx? Ted Atkinson? Jimmy Husson? Jim Brewer ? Mary Stuart? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: You have researched some quotes credited to Groucho Marx, so I am hoping that you will be able to look into a saying that interests me. I work in a library and have long enjoyed the following quip: Outside of …
Christopher Columbus? Larry Ferguson? John McTiernan? Dear Quote Investigator: One of the best action-adventure films of the 1990s in my opinion is “The Hunt for Red October” which largely takes place on three submarines. The movie ends with a poignant quotation due to Christopher Columbus that is delivered by screen virtuoso Sean Connery. Captain Marko …
Continue reading “And the Sea Will Grant Each Man New Hope, As Sleep Brings Dreams of Home”
Ira Hayes? James Bradley? John Bradley? Rene Gagnon? Fictionalized? Dear Quote Investigator: One of the men who appeared in the famous flag-raising photograph taken on Iwo Jima during WWII was invited to the White House when he returned to the United States. The following 2005 news article describes a heart-rending comment that was supposedly said …
Continue reading “How Could I Feel Like a Hero When Only Five Men in My Platoon of 45 Survived?”
James Michener? Zen Buddhist saying? L.P. Jacks? Dear Quote Investigator: I have been deeply moved by an inspirational passage that I thought was written by a Zen Buddhist master: The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, …
Dorothy Parker? Robert Benchley? Frank Sullivan? Dear Quote Investigator: The writer Dorothy Parker was famous for her clever and barbed witticisms. Her remarks were often aimed at others, but sometimes she laughed at herself with a self-deprecating comment. I particularly enjoy the statement she made when asked about her fame: Yes, I once was the …
Continue reading “I was the Toast of Two Continents: Greenland and Australia”
Gary Player? Arnold Palmer? Jerry Barber? Jack Youngblood? Lee Trevino? Ethel Merman? L. Frank Baum? Dear Quote Investigator: I am a fan of the golfing legend Gary Player, and the Wikipedia article about him says he: “Coined one of the most quoted aphorisms of post-War sport”: The harder you practice, the luckier you get. Is …
Enrico Fermi? Bernt Øksendal? Earl C. Kelley? Dear Quote Investigator: My favorite quotation should resonate with anyone who has tried to master a difficult subject: We have not succeeded in answering all our problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways we feel we …
Continue reading “Confused on a Higher Level and About More Important Things”