Tracing Quotations
Helen Keller? Anne Sullivan? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Helen Keller was once asked about the price she would pay to gain the sense of sight. Her reported response was thoughtful and poignant: I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than walk alone in the light. What were the circumstances surrounding this quotation? …
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W. Somerset Maugham? Oscar Wilde? Mark Twain? Bret Harte? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: With the rapid growth of ebooks it seems that everyone is writing a book. Here is the funniest advice I have heard on this topic: There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. Several prominent …
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Al Capp? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The cartoonist Al Capp was famous for creating the long-running comic strip Li’l Abner. During the 1960s he reportedly described abstract art with the following amusing and acerbic phrase: A product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. Today this description could be applied to …