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 …
Author Archives: quoteresearch
Quote Origin: Make a Sentence Using the Word Horticulture
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 …
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Quote Origin: Love Triangles Generally Turn Out To Be Wrecktangles
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 …
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Quote Origin: Suppose You Call a Sheep’s Tail a Leg, How Many Legs Will the Sheep Have?
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 …
Quote Origin: Why Not Go Out On a Limb? Isn’t That Where the Fruit Is?
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: …
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Quote Origin: If What You Gave Me Last Was Tea, I Want Coffee. If It Was Coffee, I Want Tea
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 …
Quote Origin: I Am the Civilization You Are Fighting For
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 …
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Quote Origin: Suffering from Delusions of Adequacy
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 …
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Quote Origin: We Cannot Go Back and Start Over, But We Can Begin Now, and Make a New Ending
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 …
Quote Origin: The Crowd Came to the Funeral, Not To Mourn, But To Make Sure the Person Was Dead
Who Said It: Samuel Goldwyn? Mr. Jones? S. S. Van Dine? Joey Adams? Whispering Russian? Whose Funeral: Louis B. Mayer? Fogarty’s Brother? Joseph Stalin? W. Kerr Scott? Question for Quote Investigator: According to Hollywood legend when the tyrannical chief of a powerful movie studio died many were surprised to see that his funeral was well …