Tracing Quotations
Maya Angelou? Nathaniel Hawthorne? Thomas Hood? Richard Brinsley Sheridan? Charles Allston Collins? Anthony Trollope? Lord Byron? William Makepeace Thackeray? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Writers should strive to create texts that are informative, interesting, stimulating, and readable. But one of my favorite sayings reveals that this can be a remarkably difficult task: Easy reading is …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Easy Reading Is Hard Writing”
Richard Brinsley Sheridan? Lord Byron? Ernest Hemingway? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There are two complementary and intertwined statements about reading and writing that I would like you to investigate: 1) Easy writing results in hard reading. 2) Easy reading requires hard writing. Many different phrases have been used to express these two thoughts, and …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Easy Writing’s Vile Hard Reading”
Muhammad Ali? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a statement attributed to Muhammad Ali about the natural changes in viewpoint an individual experiences during decades of growth and maturation. Ali stated that a person who does not change his or her perspective over a long period of time has wasted the years. Are you …
Yogi Berra? Sol Hurok? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Baseball luminary Yogi Berra is famous for comical pronouncements that contain a kernel of wisdom. One of my favorites is about fan attendance at baseball games: If people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them. Recently, I heard that …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: If People Don’t Want to Come, Nothing Will Stop Them”
Orson Welles? Oscar Wilde? James Aswell? Richard Lederer? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The influence of William Shakespeare’s works on the English language has been enormous; consider the following phrases: To thine own self be trueIt was Greek to meBrevity is the soul of witTo be, or not to beNot a mouse stirring The cultural …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Now We Sit Through Shakespeare in Order to Recognize the Quotations”
Scott Adams? Ricky Gervais? Douglas Adams? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Using creativity to solve a problem or create an artwork requires openness, originality, and imagination. Yet, the process inevitably produces some missteps and gaffes. That is why the following is my favorite quotation: Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which …
Sigmund Freud? William Gibson? @debihope? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a saying about maintaining emotional health that is both heartfelt and sardonic. The words have been attributed to the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the award-winning science fiction author William Gibson. Here are two versions: Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Before You Diagnose Yourself with Depression or Low Self-Esteem…”
Dorothy Parker? Lillian Hellman? Ford Model T Label? Frank Sullivan? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The witty author Dorothy Parker was once asked to suggest an epitaph for her tombstone. Over the years she crafted several different candidates, and I am interested in the following saying which can be expressed in multiple ways: If …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: If You Can Read This, You’ve Come Too Close”
Vince Lombardi? Mark Twain? Arthur Brisbane? Vidal Sassoon? Stubby Currence? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is an astute saying about gaining achievements through effort that deftly refers to the alphabetical order of a dictionary. Here are two versions: 1) Success comes before work only in the dictionary. 2) The dictionary is the only place …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: The Dictionary Is the Only Place Where Success Comes Before Work”
Dorothy Parker? George R. R. Martin? Frank Norris? Robert Louis Stevenson? Cornelia Otis Skinner? Clive Barnes? Jack Klugman? Gloria Steinem? Hedley Donovan? Question for Quote Investigator: Writing is an arduous task for many skilled authors. There is a popular family of sayings that contrasts the elation of accomplishment with the struggle of composition: 1) I …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Don’t Like to Write, But Like Having Written”