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 …
Author Archives: quoteresearch
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 …
Continue reading “All Science Is Either Physics or Stamp Collecting”
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. …
Continue reading “Storytelling: Just Give Them Two and Two and Let Them Add It Up”
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. …
Continue reading “If George Washington Were Alive Today He’d Turn Over in His Grave”
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. …
Continue reading “You Can Avoid Reality, But You Cannot Avoid the Consequences of Avoiding 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 …
Continue reading “I Would Rather Have Two Girls at 21 Each Than One At 42”
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 …
Continue reading “I Had Six Theories About Bringing Up Children”
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 …
Continue reading “No Bastard Ever Won a War by Dying for His Country”
The Most Rewarding Things You Do in Life Are Often the Ones that Look Like They Cannot Be Done
Arnold Palmer? John Sutton? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The following statement about overcoming obstacles is attributed to the famous golfer Arnold Palmer: The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done. I am graduating soon and would like to use this as my yearbook quotation. …