Tracing Quotations
Donald Barthelme? Fannie Hurst? Gore Vidal? Dear Quote Investigator: A wide variety of sayings have employed the following template: You may not be interested in X, but X is interested in you. Different terms have been substituted for X including: war, politics, dialectic, and strategy. In addition, variant templates have occurred: We may not be …
Continue reading “You May Not Be Interested in Absurdity, But Absurdity Is Interested in You”
Donald Barthelme? William Butler Yeats? Dear Quote Investigator: A poet once proclaimed with despair that the center cannot hold. The postmodern storyteller Donald Barthelme quipped that the center would not hold if it was welded together by a distracted worker. Would you please help me to find a citation. Also, I cannot recall the name …
Donald Barthelme? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: When I was a young child I found the number of books in my local library overwhelming. I wondered how one could find the time to read so many books? When I was a slightly older child, I concluded that there were a enormous number that you don’t have …
Continue reading “The Thing About Books Is, There Are Quite a Number You Don’t Have To Read”
Margaret Mead? Paul Brand? Philip Yancey? Steven C. Beering? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A primordial human who fell and broke a femur (thigh bone) would have faced terrible odds of survival. A vulnerable individual who was unable to walk and gather food would probably expire. Yet, a caring and supportive culture would enable recovery. An …
Continue reading “A Healed Femur Is the Earliest Sign of True Civilization”
Maya Angelou? Bertha Flowers? Bill Moyers? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Rhyme and rhythm often produce a lovely euphony in poems. This notion has been expressed as follows: Poetry is music written for the human voice. These words have been attributed to Renaissance woman Maya Angelou, but some people assert that she disclaimed credit. Would you …
Continue reading “Poetry Is Music Written for the Human Voice”
Ernestine Ulmer? Arthur Murray? Earl Wilson? Leopold Fechtner? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: T-shirts and bumper stickers present a modern proverb about the precariousness of existence. Here are two versions: Eat dessert first because life is uncertain. Life is uncertain, so eat dessert first. Ernestine Ulmer often receives credit although that name is somewhat obscure. Would …
Anton Chekhov? Ivan Bunin? André Maurois? Paul Engle? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A famous author offered the following astonishing advice: After completing a story one should cross out the beginning and the end. This guidance has been attributed to the prominent Russian playwright and short-story writer Anton Chekhov. Would you please explore this topic? Quote …
A Leading Banker? President of the Michigan Savings Bank? Sarah T. Bushnell? Horace Rackham? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: An investor was given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase stock in Henry Ford’s nascent automobile company. The cautious capitalist asked a prominent banker what he thought, and he received an erroneous prediction: The horse is here to …
Continue reading “The Horse Is Here To Stay, But the Automobile Is Only a Novelty — a Fad”
Albert Einstein? Jerome Halprin? Abba Eban? Leonard Lyons? Sidney Greenberg? Paul Connett? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A popular quip highlights the distinction between the adjectives clever and wise: A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. This notion can also be expressed as follows: A clever person gets out of a situation …
Continue reading “A Clever Person Solves a Problem. A Wise Person Avoids It”
Howard Rheingold? John Gilmore? Michael Sattler? Philip Elmer-DeWitt? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Modern communication systems are designed to distribute messages even when some connections and modules are damaged. This resilience inspired an adage in the 1990s about the suppression of information. Here are two versions: The net views censorship as damage and routes around it. …
Continue reading “The Net Interprets Censorship As Damage and Routes Around It”