Tracing Quotations
Leon Shamroy? Alfred Hitchcock? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: According to Hollywood legend a vain actor or actress was deeply concerned about being photographed in a flattering manner. The following words were exchanged with a famous director: “You’re not photographing me with my best side to the camera.” “But how can I when you’re sitting …
Continue reading “Dialogue Origin: “Which Is My Best Side, Do You Think?” “You’re Sitting On It””
Leo Tolstoy? A. B. Goldenveizer? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: November is National Novel Writing Month; a participant is supposed to commit to writing 50,000 words during the 30 days of the month. Sustaining that pace would be difficult for me because I am irresistibly drawn to rewriting. The brilliant Russian writer Leo Tolstoy once …
Dorothy Parker? The Virginia Spectator? The Daily Standard of Sikeston, Missouri? Alexander Woollcott? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Dorothy Parker was famous for her coruscating wit, and she once employed a notoriously bawdy pun based on the word horticulture. Was she responsible for originating this pun? Reply from Quote Investigator: There is substantive evidence that …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Make a Sentence Using the Word Horticulture”
Jacob M. Braude? Robert Byrne? Sally’s Sallies? Mary Pettibone Poole? Bob Burns? Jimmie Fidler? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: I love terrible puns and the following is a great example: Most love triangles are wrecktangles. The quotation collector Robert Byrne included this statement in “The 2,548 Wittiest Things Anybody Ever Said” with an attribution to …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Love Triangles Generally Turn Out To Be Wrecktangles”
Abraham Lincoln? John W. Hulbert? Pious Clergyman? George Bradburn? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a famous riddle about the difference between a supposition and a fact: How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. There are …
Mark Twain? Will Rogers? Frank Scully? Arthur F. Lenehan? H. Jackson Brown? Mother of H. Jackson Brown? Shirley MacLaine? Question for Quote Investigator: To succeed one must be willing to take risks and to enter the precarious realm of punishments and accolades. Here are four versions of an expression that appears in many self-help books: …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Why Not Go Out On a Limb? Isn’t That Where the Fruit Is?”
Abraham Lincoln? Traveler? John Randolph of Roanoke? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: According to legend when Abraham Lincoln was served a cup of unpalatable brew he made the following hilarious remark: If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee. I have not been able …
George Bernard Shaw? William Butler Yeats? Anonymous? H. W. Garrod? Lord Dunsany? Lytton Strachey? Question for Quote Investigator: While the First World War was raging an unhappy woman approached a famous British scholar and poet and rebuked him for not enlisting. She stated emphatically that young men were fighting and dying to defend civilization. Here …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I Am the Civilization You Are Fighting For”
Who was speaking: Walter F. Kerr? Michael Foot? Erskine Johnson? Charlton Heston? David Brin? Who was criticized: Jay Robinson? Dwight Eisenhower? Charlton Heston? Question for Quote Investigator: The complaint that someone is exhibiting “delusions of grandeur” has become a cliché. However, a clever modification of the phrase was memorably employed by a theater critic who …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Suffering from Delusions of Adequacy”
Zig Ziglar? C. S. Lewis? Carl Bard? James R. Sherman? Philadelphia Eagles Football Team? Barrie M. Tritie? Dennis Reinhart? Maria Robinson? Jessie Jones? Michael York? Question for Quote Investigator: Whenever I reach a dead-end or feel that I am stuck in a rut I can be re-energized by the following inspirational saying. Here are two …