Samuel Goldwyn? Bill Keisler? Bobby Wayne? Vladimir Semyonov? Sam Levenson? Laurence J. Peter? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: The following astringent remark perfectly embodies the attitude of a high-handed boss who ignores feedback:
When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.
This line has been ascribed to movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn. The statement has also been attributed to the domineering partner of a marriage. Would you please trace this expression?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match found by QI appeared in “Coronet” magazine in February 1952. Boldface added to excepts by QI:1
In a New York restaurant, a woman was overheard to tell her henpecked husband: “Keep quiet. When I want your opinion I’ll give it to you!”
—Bill Keisler
The item above was submitted to a section of “Coronet” called “Grin and Share It” by Bill Keisler. Strictly speaking, the creator of this line was an anonymous woman. The person who recognized its humour was Keisler.
Singer Bobby Wayne received credit for the joke in March 1952. Soviet administrator Vladimir Semyonov received credit in 1953. Samuel Goldwyn received credit in 1965.
Below are details for selected citations in chronological order.
In early February 1952 the joke was repeated with an acknowledgment to Bill Keisler and “Coronet” in an Oklahoma newspaper.2
In March 1952 the widely syndicated gossip columnist Earl Wilson attributed an instance of the joke to a singer:3
A wife, says the singer, Bobby Wayne, is a person who tells you, “Listen, when I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”
In August 1953 an article from the United Press news service printed an East German joke in which the line was ascribed to a powerful Soviet administrator named Vladimir Semyonov:4
But most of all the East Germans laugh at their own Communist leaders. For instance, in a briefing at Soviet headquarters Deputy Premier Ulbricht expressed his opinion on a disputed matter.
Soviet High Commissioner Vladimir Semyonov glared at him and snapped: “Shut up, Ulbricht. When I want your opinion I’ll tell you what it is.
In 1956 the book “New Guide for Toastmasters and Speakers” compiled by Herbert V. Prochnow included this item without attribution:5
Woman to her husband: “When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”
In October 1956 a columnist in the “Los Angeles Times” mentioned the joke:6
Rod Maclean heard one flustered executive bark to an underling, “Look, when I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you”.
In 1965 journalist Norton Mockridge published “Fractured English” which contained a section about Samuel Goldwyn:7
Sam never has felt that anybody’s thinking equipment is superior to his and, to his credit, he hardly ever hides his belief in a bushel. “When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you,” he told a writer.
In 1966 humorist Sam Levenson published a memoir titled “Everything But Money” which included an instance:8
The last thought that would have entered my parents’ minds was to ask their children what was good or bad for children. We were not their contemporaries, nor their equals, and they were not concerned with our ideas on how to raise a family. “When I need your opinion I’ll give it to you.”
In 1968 “Joey Adams’ Encyclopedia of Humor” attributed the line to Sam Levenson:9
Sam Levenson was a teacher who loved to plant his routines on his pupils: “When I need your opinion—I’ll give it to you.”
In 1977 the joke appeared in “Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time” compiled by Laurence J. Peter. Parentheses were used to enclose commentary from Peter himself:10
When I say “everybody says so,” I mean I say so. —Ed Howe
(When I want your opinion I’ll give it to you.)
In 1986 “The Fitzhenry & Whiteside Book of Quotations” included the following entry:11
When I want your opinion I’ll give it to you. Laurence J. Peter
Also, in 1986 Michael Freedland published “The Goldwyn Touch: A Biography of Sam Goldwyn”. Freedland ascribed the line to Goldwyn:12
There were those, of course, who when faced with some of Sam’s more excitable moments of conversation, could have come to a similar conclusion. But then, as he told one writer: ‘When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.’
In 1987 “Anguished English” by Richard Lederer stated that the line was a Goldwynism.13
In conclusion, the earliest instance located by QI appeared in “Coronet” magazine in February 1952. The line was attributed to an anonymous woman who was berating her husband. Bill Keisler submitted the comical scenario; hence, he popularized the line. If the scenario was fictional then Keisler is the leading candidate for creator of the line. More than a decade later, in 1965, Norton Mockridge attributed the line to Samuel Goldwyn.
Image Notes: Picture of four microphones from Rob Sarmiento at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Craig Good whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Good mentioned the attribution to Goldwyn.
- 1952 February, Coronet, Volume 31, Number 4, Grin and Share It, Quote Page 96, Esquire Inc., Chicago, Illinois. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1952 February 9, The Enid Daily Eagle, Laffaday, Quote Page 1, Column 8, Enid, Oklahoma. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1952 March 18, Courier-Post, It Happened Last Night by Earl Wilson, Quote Page 14, Column 6, Camden, New Jersey. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1953 August 21, The Evansville Press, East Germans Using Laughter To Battle Communist Masters by Joseph Fleming (United Press Staff Writer), Quote Page 6, Column 4, Evansville, Indiana. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1956 Copyright, New Guide for Toastmasters and Speakers, Compiled by Herbert V. Prochnow, Chapter 7: Epigrams and Quips, Quote Page 274, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1956 October 8, Los Angeles Times, Cityside with Gene Sherman, Quote Page 2, Column 2, Los Angeles, California. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1965, Fractured English by Norton Mockridge, Chapter 4: How to Cohabit on a Movie, Quote Page 28, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1966 Copyright, Everything But Money by Sam Levenson, Part 1: Sweet Horseradish, Quote Page 141, Simon and Schuster, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1968 Copyright, Joey Adams’ Encyclopedia of Humor, Edited by Joey Adams, Chapter: Regional Jokes, Quote Page 25, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, Indiana. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1977, Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time, Compiled by Laurence J. Peter, Section: Opinion, Quote Page 357, William Morrow and Company, New York. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
- 1986, The Fitzhenry & Whiteside Book of Quotations, Revised and Enlarged, Edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry, Section: Opinion, Quote Page 255, Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, Toronto. (Verified on paper) ↩︎
- 1986, The Goldwyn Touch: A Biography of Sam Goldwyn by Michael Freedland, Chapter 6: We Live Again, Quote Page 78, Harrap, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1987, Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language by Richard Lederer, Section: Goldwynisms and Berraisms, Quote Page 88, Wyrick & Company, Charleston, South Carolina. (Verified on paper) ↩︎