Tracing Quotations
Dorothy Parker? Walter Winchell? Fictional? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently, I gave a close friend a book as a gift, and on the accompanying card I included a quotation that Dorothy Parker once used in a book review: This must be a gift book. That is to say, a book which you wouldn’t take on …
Continue reading “Gift Book: A Book Which You Wouldn’t Take on Any Other Terms”
Tug McGraw? Joe Namath? Charles Edward Greene? Bill Lee? Fictional? Dear Quote Investigator: I laughed out loud when I read the answer given by Major League Baseball star Tug McGraw when he was asked whether he preferred grass or Astroturf: I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf. This quote appeared in a newspaper article last …
Wife of the Bishop of Worcester? Wife of the Bishop of Birmingham? Wife of Samuel Wilberforce? Wife of an English Canon? A Decorous Spinster? Fictional? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a remarkable quotation that dramatically highlights the controversial intersection between science and religion in the nineteenth century. The words were attributed to a Bishop’s wife …
Thomas Wolfe? Orlando Aloysius Battista? Eddie Rickenbacker? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: While searching for quotations about success I found the following: You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity. Several web pages credit this saying to the famous writer Thomas Wolfe, but I’ve read “Look …
John F. Kennedy? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: In 1960 President John F. Kennedy spoke at that Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah and used a quotation that he attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson [JKU]: What we are speaks louder than what we say, as Emerson said. I was surprised when I …
Continue reading “What You Do Speaks So Loudly that I Cannot Hear What You Say”
Virginia Woolf? Molière? Ferenc Molnár? Philippe Halsman? Ad Reinhardt? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently I was invited to conduct a workshop about writing and creativity. While reviewing materials on this topic I repeatedly came across a humorous quotation that pertains to commercialism. Here is one version: Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, …
Continue reading “I Did It For My Own Pleasure. Then I Did It For My Friends. Now I Do It For Money”
Albert Jay Nock? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Oliver Wendell Holmes? Henry David Thoreau? Henry Stanley Haskins? William Morrow? Expelled Wall Street Stock Trader? Dear Quote Investigator: I attended a graduation ceremony last year and was genuinely impressed by a quotation used in the keynote address: What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are …
Oscar Levant? Edmund Fuller? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I see on the website that you looked into a quotation credited to the pianist, actor, and wit Oscar Levant and showed that someone else probably said it first. But I am confident that the following quote was originally said by Levant, and it fits the theme …
Continue reading “An Epigram is Only a Wisecrack That’s Played Carnegie Hall”
Mohandas Gandhi? George Perry Graham? Louis Fischer? Henry Powell Spring? Martin Luther King? Dear Quote Investigator: Mohandas Gandhi’s policy of non-violence was famously used during the campaign for independence in India. There is a well-known quotation that helps to express the rationale for this non-retaliatory philosophy: An eye for an eye will leave everyone blind. …
Continue reading “An Eye for an Eye Will Make the Whole World Blind”
Benjamin Jowett? Father Strickland? William T. Arnold? Harry Truman? Ronald Reagan? Charles Edward Montague? Edward Everett Hale? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a quotation I love that presents an insightful guideline for the most effective way to achieve a goal by accenting humility: The way to get things done is not to mind who gets …
Continue reading “A Man May Do an Immense Deal of Good, If He Does Not Care Who Gets the Credit”