Quote Origin: Experience Is What You Get While Looking For Something Else

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Mary Pettibone Poole? John Lennon? Randy Pausch? William Lundigan? Anonymous?

Volcanic eruption in Iceland from Unsplash

Question for Quote Investigator: A clever saying states that experience in life is obtained indirectly. Here are two versions:

(1) Experience is what you get while looking for something else.
(2) Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.

This saying has been attributed to computer scientist Randy Pausch, aphorism collector Mary Pettibone Poole, and musician John Lennon. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest close match known to QI appeared in the “Toledo Weekly Blade” of Ohio on May 10, 1923. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1

Experience is what you get while you are looking for something else.

The creator was anonymous. Mary Pettibone Poole included the saying in a 1938 collection, but the saying was already in circulation. Randy Pausch included the saying in “The Last Lecture” in 2008. Pausch heard the statement while working at a videogame company. John Lennon implausibly received credit in 1997.

Below is an overview depicting the evolution of the phrasing together with some precursors and thematically related expressions:

1892: Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes (Oscar Wilde in “Lady Windermere’s Fan”)

1920 Mar 18: Trouble is apt to find you when you are looking for something else (Anonymous in “The Howard Courant” of Kansas)

1923 May 10: Experience is what you get while you are looking for something else (Anonymous in “Toledo Weekly Blade” of Ohio)

1923 May 17: Experience is what you get while looking for something else (Acknowledgement to “Toledo Blade”)

1923 Sep 13: Experience is what one gets while he is looking for something else (Anonymous)

1923 Oct 25: Experience is what people often get when looking for something else (Anonymous)

1924 Feb 1: Too often experience is what one gets when he is looking for something else (Anonymous)

1930 Apr 21: Experience is what you get when you don’t listen to what the old folks tell you (Arthur Dean)

1938: Experience is what you get looking for something else (Mary Pettibone Poole)

1938 Jul 15: Experience is what you always get when you don’t get what you want (Anonymous)

1939 Sep 22: In Hollywood, experience is what you get while looking for something else (Attributed to William Lundigan)

1962 May 13: Experience is what you get when you don’t get anything else (Acknowledgment to Wood Wind)

1968 Jul 17: Experience is what you get when you don’t read the small print (Bob Curran)

1975: Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want (Attributed to Anonymous by Robert J. McKain Jr.)

1997 Dec: Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want (Tentatively attributed to John Lennon)

2008: Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted (Attributed to Anonymous by Randy Pausch)

Here are a selection of detailed citations.

A pertinent saying about experience appeared in the 1892 play “Lady Windermere’s Fan: A Play About a Good Woman” by Oscar Wilde. A minor character named Mr. Dumby delivered the line:2

DUMBY: Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.

In 1920 “The Howard Courant” of Kansas printed a miscellaneous collection of sayings under the title “Potpourri”. A germane saying about “trouble” instead of ‘experience” was included:3

Trouble is apt to find you when you are looking for something else.

In May 1923 the saying under examination appeared in the “Toledo Weekly Blade” as mentioned previously. During the same month the saying was reprinted in other newspaper such as “The Jameson Gem” of Missouri4 and “The Victoria Advocate” of Texas which printed a shortened instance:5

Experience is what you get while looking for something else.—Toledo Blade.

In September 1923 “The Colfax Press” of Illinois printed an alternative phrasing using “one” instead of “you”:6

It took the Freshmen only a few days to realize the following axiom: “Experience is what one gets while he is looking for something else.”

In October 1923 “The Lebanon Rustic” printed an instance using “people” and “when”:7

Experience is what people often get when looking for something else.

In 1924 “The Alva Record” of Oklahoma printed an instance that began with “Too often”:8

Too often experience is what one gets when he is looking for something else.

In 1930 columnist Arthur Dean of “The Arizona Daily Star” published a comical variant:9

EXPERIENCE IS WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU DON’T LISTEN TO WHAT THE OLD FOLKS TELL YOU

In 1938 Mary Pettibone Poole published a collection of sayings in her book “A Glass Eye at a Keyhole”. She included this instance:10

Experience is what you get looking for something else.

In July 1938 “The Dayton Forum” of Ohio printed a version with the phrase “don’t get what you want”. The ellipsis appeared in the original text:11

EXPERIENCE . . . is what you always get when you don’t get what you want.

In 1939 gossip columnist Jimmy Fidler attributed to actor William Lundigan a version tailored to Hollywood:12

A nod to Bill Lundigan’s witty truism: “In Hollywood, experience is what you get while looking for something else.”

In 1947 the saying appeared in the collection “Gems Of Expression” compiled by Wendell Ware:13

Experience is what you get when looking for something else.

In 1962 another instance appeared in the “Sunday World-Herald” of Omaha, Nebraska:14

Experience is what you get when you don’t get anything else. —Wood Wind.

In 1968 columnist Bob Curran of the “Buffalo Evening News” in New York published a humorous variant:15

TELL THE NEWLYWEDS that experience is what you get when you don’t read the small print.

In 1975 Robert J. McKain Jr. published the self-help book “Realize Your Potential” which included the saying:16

The creative man takes the risk of making mistakes. A businessman said to me: “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. For example, when I was a salesman I learned most from the sales I didn’t make, and when I was wrestling in college I learned from the matches I lost.”

In 1996 “The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women” contained this entry:17

Experience is what you get looking for something else.
Mary Pettibone Poole, A Glass Eye at a Keyhole (1938)

In 1997 “Interzone” magazine published a book review by David Mathew which tentatively credited John Lennon:18

I think it might have been John Lennon who said that experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.

It is possible that the reviewer above was thinking of the expression “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” from the lyrics of John Lennon’s 1980 song “Beautiful Boy”. A separate Quote Investigator article about this statement is available here.

Randy Pausch included the saying in his 2008 book “The Last Lecture”:19

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. That’s an expression I learned when I took a sabbatical at Electronic Arts, the videogame maker. It just stuck with me, and I’ve ended up repeating it again and again to students.

Pausch repeated the  saying together with a cogent comment:

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.

In conclusion, this family of sayings has an anonymous origin. The first close match appeared in 1923 within the “Toledo Weekly Blade” of Ohio. The statement occurred together with a miscellaneous group of sayings without attributions. The phrasing has evolved over time. The version with the phrase “don’t get what you want” was circulating by 1938.

Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Dave Eckhardt whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Many thanks to previous researcher Barry Popik who examined this topic and found several helpful citations including a 1923 citation referring to the “Toledo Blade” and the Randy Pausch citation. Also, thanks to Jonathan Lighter who sent QI a collection of modern proverbs which included this saying.

Image Notes: Picture of the volcanic eruption at Geldingadalir, Fagradalsfjall taken by Toby Elliott and posted an Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.

  1. 1923 May 10, Toledo Weekly Blade, (Filler item), Quote Page 4, Column 1, Toledo, Ohio. (GenealogyBank) ↩︎
  2. 1893 Copyright, Lady Windermere’s Fan: A Play About a Good Woman by Oscar Wilde, (Performed at St. James Theatre in London on February 22, 1892), Third Act, Quote Page 96, Elkin Mathews and John Lane, London. (HathiTrust Full View) link ↩︎
  3. 1920 March 18, The Howard Courant, Potpourri by Polk Daniels, Quote Page 2, Column 3, Howard, Kansas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  4. 1923 May 17, The Jameson Gem, Here and There, Quote Page 4, Column 2, Jameson, Missouri. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  5. 1923 May 17, The Victoria Advocate, Topics of the Day, Quote Page 2, Column 4, Victoria, Texas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  6. 1923 September 13, The Colfax Press, Doings at the Community High School by Our School Reporter, Quote Page 1, Column 2, Colfax, Illinois. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  7. 1923 October 25, The Lebanon Rustic, (Filler item), Quote Page 2, Column 3, Lebanon, Missouri. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  8. 1924 February 1, The Alva Record, Brain Storms From the Anthony Republican, Quote Page 7, Column 4, Alva, Oklahoma. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  9. 1930 April 21, The Arizona Daily Star, Your Boy and Girl by Arthur Dean, Quote Page 6, Column 2, Tucson, Arizona. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  10. 1938, A Glass Eye at a Keyhole by Mary Pettibone Poole, Section: Excess Prophets, Quote Page 50, Published by Dorrance and Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Verified with scans; thanks to Dennis Lien and the University of Minnesota library system) ↩︎
  11. 1938 July 15, The Dayton Forum, Done At Random by Ralph L. Lester for ANP, Quote Page 7, Column 1, Dayton, Ohio. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  12. 1939 September 22, The Capital Times, Hollywood Gossip by Jimmy Fidler (Syndicated column), Quote Page 5, Column 1, Madison, Wisconsin.  (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  13. 1947, Gems Of Expression, Compiled by Wendell Ware,  Quote Page 58, Column 2, Wetzel Publishing Co., Inc. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  14. 1962 May 13, Sunday World-Herald, Section: Sunday World-Herald Magazine, The Cheering Section Conducted by Bruce Patterson, Quote Page 26, Column 1, Omaha, Nebraska. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  15. 1968 July 17, Buffalo Evening News, The Draft-Card Burners Throw Up a Smoke Screen by Bob Curran, Quote Page 45, Column 2, Buffalo, New York. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  16. 1975 Copyright, Realize Your Potential by Robert J. McKain Jr., Chapter 6: The Whole Man, Quote Page 176, AMACOM: A Division of American Management Association, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  17. 1996 Copyright, The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women, Compiled by Rosalie Maggio, Topic: Experience, Quote Page 229, Column 1, Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  18. 1997 December, Interzone, Number 126, Only the Strong Survive by David Mathew, Quote Page 57, Column 2, Interzone, Brighton, England. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  19. 2008, The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (Professor Carnegie Mellon), Chapter 39: Be the First Penguin, Quote Page 148 and 149, Hyperion, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎