Tracing Quotations
Edgar Guest? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: When I was a child I found a book at my public library, a collection of poetry. My favorite poem in it was entitled “Cherry Pie” and was (I thought) by Edgar Guest. Since those days I have tried to relocate the work but with no luck. I remember …
Continue reading “As I Wend My Way to Heaven I’ll Be Full of Cherry Pie”
Oscar Wilde? William Collier? Daniel Frohman? George Bernard Shaw? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I have been involved in several theatrical productions and sometimes the response of an audience to a show is mystifying. A colleague told me that Oscar Wilde watched an early performance of Lady Windermere’s Fan, and the reception was unenthusiastic. Later when …
Continue reading “The Play Was a Great Success, But the Audience Was a Total Failure”
Albert Einstein? Louis Zukofsky? Roger Sessions? William of Ockham? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The credibility of a quotation is increased substantially if it can be ascribed to a widely-recognized genius such as Albert Einstein. Hence a large number of spurious quotes are attributed to him. I would like to know if the following is a …
Continue reading “Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler”
Mark Twain? James Wayle? Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar? Walter Winchell? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: In the past few days several phony quotations were widely disseminated on the internet; in other words, they went viral. My question is about a saying that might be genuine. A CNN article contains the following expression attributed to Mark Twain: I …
Continue reading “I Did Not Attend the Funeral, But I Sent a Nice Letter Saying I Approved of It”
Mark Twain? Clarence Darrow? Overland Monthly? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: I saw the quotation below when it was tweeted a few days ago. It was credited to Mark Twain, but apparently he never said it: I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure. Later I read news …
Frank Lloyd Wright? Herbert Hoover? Arch Oboler? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: When I was a child I saw a gallery of images showing a house built at the top of a waterfall. I fell in love with that house, called Fallingwater, and later learned that it was built by the extraordinary American architect Frank Lloyd …
Continue reading “The Architect Can Only Advise His Client to Plant Vines”
Dorothy Parker? James Webb Young? Owen H. Hott? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A friend and I recently wondered about the origin of the following poem. We did not have much luck tracking it: See the happy moron, He doesn’t give a damn, I wish I were a moron, My God! perhaps I am! There …
Mark Twain? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I have heard the following quote attributed to Mark Twain: A man who doesn’t smoke is like a sinking ship with no rats to desert it. True of false? Quote Investigator: QI was unable to locate a close match for that quotation in the works of Mark Twain; however, …
Continue reading “She Was a Sinking Vessel with No Freight to Throw Overboard”
Who was fighting? Russians? French? Zulus? English? Prussians? Boers? Dear Quote Investigator: When I worked on a student newspaper in college I was told a story about a late night editor at a major newspaper who received a terse wire report saying the “Russians Have Taken Umbrage”. The editor did not know the meaning of …
Continue reading “French Have Taken Umbrage. English Have Taken Cognizance.”
Robert Benchley? Mattie Barwick? David Niven? Dear Quote Investigator: You might enjoy looking into this confusing question. I have been searching newspaper databases for a project involving the Venice canals. The following humorous note appeared in a newspaper called the Miami News on October 30, 1958 [MNGB]: Word comes from European traveler, Mattie (Mrs. George) …