Spoonerism: You Have Hissed All My Mystery Lectures

William A. Spooner? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The funniest reproach aimed at a student that I have ever heard was spoken by Reverend William A. Spooner who was the Warden of New College, Oxford. The clergyman was famous for jumbling the letters and sounds of words when he spoke. His castigation of the student began …

Spoonerism: You Are Occupewing My Pie

William A. Spooner? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I love spoonerisms, humorous phrases in which the initial sounds or letters of some words are swapped. According to a popular anecdote William A. Spooner who was the Warden of New College, Oxford was late to church services one day and found that a woman was sitting in …

All Science Is Either Physics or Stamp Collecting

Ernest Rutherford? John Desmond Bernal? Richard Feynman? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently, while reading about the discovery of a new species of frog I marveled at the remarkable diversity of the biosphere. But, I was also reminded of the following humorous and barbed assertion: All science is either physics or stamp collecting. This statement has …

There Are Only Two Plots: (1) A Person Goes on a Journey (2) A Stranger Comes to Town

Fyodor Dostoyevsky? Leo Tolstoy? Mary Morris? John Gardner? David Long? Ernest Hemingway? Deepak Chopra? Dear Quote Investigator: A provocative remark about stories has been attributed to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, John Gardner, and others: There are only two plots in all of literature: 1) A person goes on a journey. 2) A stranger comes to …

Storytelling: Just Give Them Two and Two and Let Them Add It Up

Billy Wilder? Ernst Lubitsch? Ted Elliott? Terry Rossio? Ray Bradbury? Vince Gilligan? Andrew Stanton? Dear Quote Investigator: On the commentary track of a video I once heard a screenwriter discuss the requirement to engage the audience’s cognitive powers while spinning a tale: Give the audience two plus two, and let them come up with four. …

If George Washington Were Alive Today He’d Turn Over in His Grave

Who made the remark? Samuel Goldwyn? Yogi Berra? William Cuffe? George Arliss? Corey Ford? Gerald Ford? Who was turning? Richard Cobden? Aunt Harriet? Jules Verne? Franklin D. Roosevelt? George Washington? Abraham Lincoln? Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky? John Foster Dulles? Casey Stengel? Dear Quote Investigator: Samuel Goldwyn and Yogi Berra were both famous for constructing humorous phrases. …

You Can Avoid Reality, But You Cannot Avoid the Consequences of Avoiding Reality

Ayn Rand? Henry F. Cope? Josiah Stamp? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Here are two versions of an expression attributed to the influential and controversial novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand: You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality. …

I Would Rather Have Two Girls at 21 Each Than One At 42

W. C. Fields? Great Lester? Fred Allen? Anonymous Vaudevillian? Dear Quote Investigator: I have been trying to trace the following gag: I’d rather have two girls at 21 each than one girl at 42. This line is usually attributed to the famous comedian W. C. Fields who played cantankerous and henpecked characters in movies. Would …

I Had Six Theories About Bringing Up Children

Lord Rochester? John Wilmot? James A. Magner? Mrs. John McLauchlan? Leonard Lyons? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A very funny comment about child-rearing has implausibly been attributed to John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester: Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories. Wilmot died …

No Bastard Ever Won a War by Dying for His Country

George Patton? T. W. H. Crosland? Edmund Kozalla? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: General George S. Patton made the most incisive remark about war that I have ever heard. He was rallying Allied troops who were attempting to defeat the Axis Powers during World War II. His assertion about the two-edged sword of patriotism was cloaked …