Tracing Quotations
Peter De Vries? Philip Larkin? C. E. Lombardi? Larry Gelbart? Avi’s Young Reader? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: When faced with the difficult task of writing effectively some people insist on a guaranteed formula. As a confirmed scribbler I am convinced that there is no formula, but I laughed when I heard this: A story consists …
Continue reading “A Story Should Have a Beginning, a Muddle and an End”
Thomas Wolfe? Red Smith? Paul Gallico? Friedrich Nietzsche? Ernest Hemingway? Gene Fowler? Jeff MacNelly? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Whenever I have trouble writing I am reminded of a family of sayings which employ a gruesomely expressive metaphor to describe the difficult process of composition. Here are three instances: (1) Writing is easy. You just …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Writing Is Easy; You Just Open a Vein and Bleed”
Bill Gates? James E. Fawcette? Nancy Andrews? Jerry Pournelle? InfoWorld? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Bill Gates is the one of the richest men in the world, but that does not mean that he correctly foresaw the future. In the early days of the personal computer industry Gates supposedly said the following about the IBM PC: …
Continue reading “Computer Memory: 640K Ought to be Enough for Anyone”
Albert Einstein? William Bruce Cameron? Hilliard Jason? Stephen Ross? Lord Platt? George Pickering? Quote Investigator: QI has updated the entry about a popular quotation attributed to Einstein. The saying combines two distinct but related phrases: Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted. The entry now presents earlier evidence …
Continue reading “Update: Not Everything That Counts Can be Counted”
Charles Kingsford-Smith? Ernest K. Gann? TWA Captain? Yachtsman? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: In the aviation world there is an axiom that avers: The only time an aircraft has too much fuel on board is when it is on fire. This pearl of wisdom is commonly attributed to the pioneer Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, …
Continue reading “The Only Time an Aircraft Has Too Much Fuel On Board Is When It Is On Fire”
World War I? World War II? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Years ago some military orders had to be sent via a series of radio relays. Each radio operator would listen to a command and then repeat it to the next operator in a series. If you have ever played the game “broken telephone” or “Chinese …
Continue reading “Military Command: Send Three and Fourpence. We’re Going to a Dance”
Carl Gustav Jung? John William Gardner? A Wise Man? My Friend’s Pillow? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I run a daily email quote list, and I try to do a quick Google search to see if I’ve got the correct attribution. I came across your site and thank you for the help. Here is a stumper …
Oscar Wilde? Irishmen? Australian? Scot? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The prominent English actor and author Stephen Fry once said something about Oscar Wilde that I found fascinating: Oscar Wilde, and there have been few greater and more complete lords of language in the past thousand years, once included with a manuscript he was delivering to …
Continue reading “I Feel Sure My “Woulds” And “Shoulds,” My “Wills” and “Shalls,” Are All Wrong”
Winston Churchill? W. C. Fields? Mr. Robinson? Dr. Tanner? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a famous anecdote featuring Winston Churchill and the British politician Bessie Braddock that might be fictional. Supposedly Braddock encountered an intoxicated Churchill, and she expressed her displeasure. The rejoinder was harsh: “Sir, you are drunk.” “And you, Bessie, are …
Sigmund Freud? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was famous for interpreting symbols with special emphasis on the imagery in dreams. In photos he was often shown smoking a cigar, and that is why I always found the following quotation attributed to him very amusing: Sometimes a cigar is just a …