Tracing Quotations
Frank Sinatra? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I greatly enjoy the singing of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, so I was surprised to hear that Sinatra once attacked the type of music that Elvis popularized. Supposedly Sinatra said: Rock n Roll is the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune …
Continue reading “Rock n Roll: The Most Brutal, Ugly, Degenerate, Vicious Form of Expression”
Yogi Berra? George Lichty? Buddy Blattner? Joe Garagiola? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Famed baseball player Yogi Berra is credited with many hilarious remarks. Once Yogi was driving to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York with some other players. After passing the same landmark three times a fellow player named Joe Garagiola …
Carl Jung? Sigmund Freud? Guy Bellamy? Jolande Jacobi? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: As part of a book project I have been tracking down quotations credited to the famed psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. One of the most interesting was: Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you. The best citation I have …
Bertrand Russell? William Butler Yeats? Eden Phillpotts? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I adore the following quotation which is attributed to the philosopher Bertrand Russell: The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. But recently I saw a different version in which two words had been changed: The world …
Winston Churchill? Rudy Vallee? Army Captain? High School Teacher? The Strand Magazine? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: My question concerns a memorable anecdote about the statesman Winston Churchill and the fine points of grammar. In the past many books offering grammatical advice told readers that they must never end a sentence with a preposition. Years ago …
Continue reading “This Is the Sort of Nonsense Up With Which I Will Not Put”
Groucho Marx? A. E. Thomas? Beatrice Faber? Sidney Skolsky? Hugh Herbert? Walter Catlett? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: When Groucho Marx was leaving a boring party he supposedly said: I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it. Did Groucho really insult a host or hostess in this way, or did he use this …
Continue reading “I’ve Had a Perfectly Wonderful Evening, But This Wasn’t It”
Ralph Waldo Emerson? Bessie A. Stanley? Albert Edward Wiggam? Harry Emerson Fosdick? Ann Landers? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: In church this morning I listened to a short discourse on the definition of success. It began: To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the …
Continue reading “He Has Achieved Success Who Has Lived Well, Laughed Often and Loved Much”
Mark Twain? Robert Heinlein? A Schoolchild? Caroline B. Le Row? Andrew John Herbertson? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I am preparing a book about the weather and climate, and I would like to include the following quotation: The climate is what you expect; the weather is what you get. Several web sites attribute this remark to …
Continue reading “The Climate Is What You Expect; The Weather Is What You Get”
Oscar Wilde? Ada Leverson? Leslie Stokes? Violet Wyndham? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The alcoholic psychoactive drink absinthe was banned in the United States and many European countries in the previous century. But now it is legal again. Supposedly, the brilliant wit Oscar Wilde once discussed the phantasmagorical effects of the potion. His description began: After …
Continue reading “Absinthe: After the First Glass, You See Things As You Wish They Were”
Ray Bradbury? Franco Mancassola? Kurt Vonnegut? Annie Dillard? Anonymous? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The influential publisher Tim O’Reilly recently tweeted a great quotation about entrepreneurship that was used in a commencement address given by DJ Patil, a Data Scientist at a venture capital company. Here is an excerpt from the speech given at the University …
Continue reading “Jump Off the Cliff and Build Your Wings on the Way Down”