Tracing Quotations
Alexander Hamilton? Gordon A. Eadie? Irene Dunne? Peter Marshall? Theodore DeVries? William Sloane Coffin Jr.? Alex Hamilton? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a popular exhortative statement that employs the contrasting words “stand” and “fall”. Here are three versions: (1) If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. (2) Those who stand for …
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John Barth? Mary McCarthy? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I am trying to locate a statement made by the prominent metafictionalist author John Barth. The quotation was similar to the following: Everyone is the hero of his own life story. Do you know where this appeared? Quote Investigator: John Barth did scribe a closely matching …
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Dr. Seuss? Theodor Geisel? Robert Fulghum? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I hope you will be able to trace a quotation for Valentine’s Day. The statement is usually attributed to Theodor Geisel who is better known as Dr. Seuss, and it begins as follows: We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird… I …
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Pablo Casals? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Pablo Casals was a brilliant cellist, and I love a remark that he reportedly made when he was in his eighties or nineties. He continued to practice intensely with his cello in those golden years, and when he was asked why he was so diligent he replied with one …
Chuck D? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Perhaps you can help locate a quotation attributed to the rapper Chuck D of the group Public Enemy. I do not know the exact wording, but the gist was the following: Rap music is the CNN for black people. He apparently said this during an interview in the late …
Neil deGrasse Tyson? Robert Benchley? Kenneth Boulding? Ross F. Papprill? Groucho Marx? Jeremy Bentham? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I enjoy humor based on clever self-referential statements, and a great example is the following: There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who divide everybody into two kinds of people, and those who don’t. …
Mark Twain? Margaret Millar? Elizabeth P. O’Connor? Rebecca West? Leo Buscaglia? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The following entertaining remark is often attributed to Mark Twain: Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses. I have also seen these words ascribed to the award-winning mystery writer Margaret Millar. Could you determine who should …
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Mark Twain? Satchel Paige? William Purkey? Susanna Clark? Richard Leigh? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The following words are attributed to a variety of people including Mark Twain, Satchel Paige, and William Purkey: Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching, and live like it’s heaven on earth. …
Winston Churchill? Evan Esar? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The following humorous definition is often attributed to the statesman Winston Churchill: A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. Could you explore the accuracy of this ascription? Quote Investigator: There is some evidence that Winston Churchill employed this phrase circa …
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Ambrose Bierce? Alan Le May? Jack Benny? Mark Twain? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The increasing popularity of ebooks is threatening to make one of my favorite quotations obsolete. The wonderful humorist Ambrose Bierce was asked to evaluate a lengthy soporific tome and according to legend he handed in a devastating and hilarious one-line review: The …
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