Tracing Quotations
Ann Landers? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Many years ago I read a poem I greatly enjoyed in a newspaper column by Ann Landers. Unfortunately, I only remember a few fragments: What will you give one small boy? … a tinker toy? No, give him a day he can call his own. Can you find …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Fathers Should Give the Gift of Time to Their Children”
Helen Gurley Brown? Lawrence Johnstone? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Helen Gurley Brown was a pioneering and controversial editor at Cosmopolitan magazine. One of her most famous lines was: Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere. I saw this quote in two of her recent obituary notices, but I have not seen a …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Good Girls Go to Heaven. Bad Girls Go Everywhere”
Mark Twain? Edwin E. Slosson? Harry Lloyd Miller? Professor Rathburn? Mortimer J. Adler? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Mark Twain is credited with a very funny description of college lectures. For some teachers and students I think this quotation is accurate: College is a place where a professor’s lecture notes go straight to the students’ …
Thomas Edison? Henry Dodd? Isaiah Hale? Paul Larmer? Lila Kroppmann? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The following quote is credited to Thomas Edison: Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Do you know when he said this and to whom? Reply from Quote Investigator: Both QI …
Mick Jagger? Ian Whitcomb? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The Rolling Stones’ song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” is one of their most popular tunes. The Hackney Diamonds Tour of the band ended in July 2024, and shortly afterwards Jagger became eighty years old. When he was much younger he supposedly said something like this: …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I’d Rather Be Dead than Sing ‘Satisfaction’ When I’m 45”
Jimi Hendrix? Bob Dawbarn? Chris Welch? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix died tragically when he was only 27 years old. Shortly before his death he supposedly said this: It’s funny how most people love the dead. Once you’re dead, you’re made for life. Was this quote created by mythmakers, or did …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Once You Are Dead, You Are Made for Life”
Earl Wilson? Cy N. Peace? Earl Nelson? Whitt N. Schultz? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: I am trying to unearth the source of a quote credited to the columnist Earl Wilson which seems to be everywhere on the web but without a source: Modern man drives a mortgaged car over a bond-financed highway on credit-card …
Gore Vidal? La Rochefoucauld? W. Somerset Maugham? Wilfrid Sheed? Iris Murdoch? David Merrick? Genghis Khan? Larry Ellison? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Competition and jealousy are reflected in a family of closely related cynical sayings: I have heard different versions of these quotations credited to the epigrammatist La Rochefoucauld, the writer Gore Vidal, and the …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: It Is Not Enough to Succeed; One’s Best Friend Must Fail”
Speaker: Gore Vidal? Peter Bogdanovich? Sue Mengers? Jason Epstein? Anonymous? Subject: Truman Capote? Elvis Presley? Michael Jackson? Gore Vidal? Question for Quote Investigator: Pop star Michael Jackson died in 2009 when he was only fifty years old. One memorably caustic remark I heard at that time was: His death was a good career move. Apparently, …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Death Was a Good Career Move”
Mohandas Gandhi? L. L. Bean? Kenneth B. Elliott? Great Western Fuel Company? Ray Noyes? Paul T. Babson? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a popular business motto that is used by corporate departments of Customer Relations and Human Resources: A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on …