Tracing Quotations
Banksy? Andy Warhol? John Leland? Graham Greenleaf? John Hilvert? Neal Gabler? Dear Quote Investigator: The rise of the hacktivist group “Anonymous” reminded me of an artwork I saw by the graffiti provocateur Banksy. He (or she, or they) created a pink television set with a screen that displayed this message: In the future everyone will …
Continue reading “In the Future Everyone Will Be Anonymous for Fifteen Minutes”
William Gibson? Anonymous? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I work at Google, and a colleague of mine who leads our Search Education efforts pointed out your site as a great resource for people learning to search smarter. I love the site! There is a quotation credited to the influential and award-winning science fiction author William Gibson …
Continue reading “The Future Has Arrived — It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed Yet”
Noël Coward? Winston Churchill? W. Somerset Maugham? Joe Drum? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: After major news events people often start exchanging jokes related to the subject matter. The recent tragic cruise ship accident has caused two versions of a comical anecdote to enter circulation. The punch line has been attributed to the statesman Winston Churchill …
Continue reading “None of This Nonsense about Women and Children First”
Mark Twain? Chauncey Depew? Ring Lardner? William Allen White? Winston Churchill? Big Jim Watson? Joseph Hodges Choate? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: New Year’s resolutions often feature plans for more exercise. Mark Twain was once asked if he engaged in exercise, and he supposedly said: I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the …
Continue reading “I Take My Only Exercise Acting as a Pallbearer to My Friends Who Exercise”
Julia Child? Harriet Van Horne? Sydney Smith? Margaret Grade? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: While reading a cookbook I encountered an amusing quotation about cooking: Cooking is like love — it should be entered into with abandon or not at all. But the authors apparently did not know where it came from and labeled the words: …
Continue reading “Cooking Is Like Love. It Should Be Entered Into with Abandon or Not At All”