Tracing Quotations
Victor Kiam? Home Savings Bank? Painless Withers Dental Company? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Each opportunity in life has an expiration date. One must act quickly. The successful entrepreneur and investor Victor Kiam apparently employed the following vivid metaphor: Procrastination is opportunity’s natural assassin. Would you please help find a citation? Reply from Quote Investigator: …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Procrastination Is the Assassin of Opportunity”
Elmore Leonard? Marty Asher? Leonore Fleischer? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The funniest and most cogent writing advice I have ever heard was delivered by the best-selling author Elmore Leonard. According to folklore, an aspiring novelist implored Leonard to reveal the secret of his success, and he replied with something like this: I leave out …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I Try To Leave Out the Parts that People Skip”
Margaret Mead? Donald Keys? Norman Vincent Peale? Patrick E. Haggerty? R. H. Edwin Espy? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A popular energizing statement about small groups changing the world is usually attributed to the influential cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead. Yet, I have been unable to find a solid citation. Would you please help? Reply from …
Bill Gates? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: I saw an advertisement on the “USA Today” website that claimed Bill Gates once spoke about a technology that was ripe for invention and would be worth 10 Microsofts. The ad did not identify the technology. Did Bill Gates really make a remark of this type? Reply from …
James Matthew Barrie? Chub De Wolfe? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: When I am absorbed in performing a difficult and fascinating task I do not feel like I am working. James Matthew Barrie, the well-known creator of “Peter Pan”, addressed this phenomenon: Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. I …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: It Is Not Real Work Unless You Would Rather Be Doing Something Else”
Janis Joplin? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Janis Joplin was an American rock star of the late 1960s and early 1970s who tragically died when she was only 27. Her vocalizations and emotional delivery were distinctive. Apparently she said: Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got. Would you please help me to find a citation? …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: You Better Not Compromise Yourself. It’s All You Got”
Harry Cohn? Samuel Goldwyn? David O. Selznick? Jimmie Fidler? Lyndon B. Johnson? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: According to a Hollywood legend a movie mogul expressed his unhappiness by angrily upbraiding underlings. Eventually, an assistant cautioned him that delivering repeated harangues can cause stomach ulcers. The magnate snarled: I don’t get ulcers. I give them. …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I Don’t Get Ulcers. I Give Them”
Mark Twain? Frank Nelson Doubleday? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Mark Twain apparently held a very low opinion of book publishers. He suggested that publishers could be created via a multigenerational combination of individuals from lunatic asylums. Could you please help me find a citation for this sentiment? Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1897 Frank …
William F. Buckley Jr.? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: I am trying to verify a quotation from the conservative commentator and novelist William F. Buckley Jr. It goes something like this: I would rather be governed by the first 1,000 people listed in the phone book than by the faculty members from an Ivy League …
Jay Gould? John Livingston? Delmore Schwartz? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: In the 19th-century a class of powerful industrialists were accused of unethical business practices, and the critical epithet “robber baron” appeared in journals and newspapers. The following incendiary remark has been attributed to the wealthy railroad magnate Jay Gould: I can hire one half …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I Can Hire Half the Working Class To Fight the Other Half”