Tracing Quotations
Margaret Atwood? Posy Simmonds? Guy Bellamy? Marilyn Duckworth? R. D. Laing? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The following quotation may be morbid, but I still consider it cleverly humorous: Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease. Would you please explore its provenance? Reply from Quote Investigator: Tracing this statement is difficult because it emerged from …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Life Is a Sexually Transmitted Terminal Disease”
George Bernard Shaw? Otto Penzler? James Thurber? Harold Ross? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Reportedly, George Bernard Shaw once presented an idiosyncratic list of the three most famous individuals: Jesus Christ, Sherlock Holmes, and Harry Houdini. Did Shaw really put forward this triptych? Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence known to QI appeared in the 1976 biography …
H. Croccoquill? Alfred Crowquill? Alfred Henry Forrester? Dear Quote Investigator: I recently encountered an insightful quotation that begins: Don’t allow idleness to deceive you. . . Someone with the unusual name “H. Croccoquill” was credited, but I have been unable to learn anything about him or her. Is this ascription accurate? Quote Investigator: No. The …
Arthur C. Clarke? Carleton Ray? Ann Henderson-Sellers? James E. Lovelock? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The water covering our planet makes it look like a blue marble in pictures taken from outer space. Roughly three-quarters of the surface is enveloped in H₂O in liquid or frozen form. The science fiction luminary Arthur C. Clarke suggested that …
Continue reading “Planet “Earth”: We Should Have Called It “Sea””
Winston Churchill? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Scientists have successfully produced meat in culture without the need to grow an entire animal. Apparently, long ago Winston Churchill envisioned this possibility, and he predicted that chicken wings would be created without growing a full chicken. Would you please locate Churchill’s remarks on this topic? Quote Investigator: The …
Prophet: Harriet Martineau? William Tweed? John Tyndall? Auguste Comte? Robert G. Ingersoll? Karl Marx? Charles Darwin? Herbert Spencer? Henry George Atkinson? Paul Dirac? Felix Adler? Critic: Mark Twain? Douglas William Jerrold? George Grote? J. P. Jacobsen? Isaac M. Wise? Wolfgang Pauli? Dear Quote Investigator: The prominent physicist Paul Dirac was hostile toward religion, and sometimes …
Continue reading “There Is No God, and Harriet Martineau Is His Prophet”
Albert Einstein? H. M. Harwood? R. Gore-Browne? John Conwell? Estelle Getty? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Did Albert Einstein’s genius extend from physics to psychology? The following remark has been ascribed to him: Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are …
H. L. Mencken? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: For many years H. L. Mencken was an influential and acerbic commentator with a national reputation in the U.S. His sharp witted and ferocious columns appeared in either “The Evening Sun” or “The Sun” of Baltimore, Maryland. Mencken’s low opinion of the general populace led him to …
Oscar Wilde? Frank Harris? Irish Barrister? Wilton Lackaye? Margaret Waters? Well-Known Young Clubman? Gustav Traub? Mike Romanoff? Samuel George Blythe? Arthur M. Binstead? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The scintillating conversationalist Oscar Wilde enjoyed modifying dusty platitudes to construct comical alternatives. For example, he reportedly permuted an old complaint about the working class to yield: …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Work is the Curse of the Drinking Classes”
Elizabeth I. Adamson? Ronald Knox? Ronald Reagan? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a definition that refers to the two ends of a baby. One end consists of a loud voice or a big appetite, and the other end is given a comical description. Are you familiar with this joke? Would you please research its …