Tracing Quotations
Abe Martin? Kin Hubbard? H. L. Mencken? Jim Courier? George Young? Gary Shelton? Mike Lupica? Dale Bumpers? Shannon Sharpe? Dear Quote Investigator: Contract negotiations are tough, and disputes usually involve money. Yet, participants sometimes highlight other issues as paramount. Jaded observers have crafted the following dictum: When they say it’s not about the money. Just …
Continue reading “When They Say It’s Not About Money, It’s About Money”
Charles M. Schwab? Reed Smoot? Pope John XXIII? Fliegende Blätter? Edgar Wallace? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A visitor to a large business watched as numerous workers moved purposefully along the hallways into offices. The visitor approached the leader of the company and asked: “This is such a busy place! How many people work here?” The …
Continue reading ““How Many People Work Here?” “About Half of Them””
Zora Neale Hurston? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Brilliant writers are often impelled to share a tale. Keeping an untold story inside can cause agony. The prominent author Zora Neale Hurston said something like this. Would you please help me to find a citation? Quote Investigator: In 1942 Zora Neale Hurston published “Dust Tracks on a …
Continue reading “There Is No Agony Like Bearing an Untold Story Inside You”
Dorothy Parker? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: If you experience a wild and tumultuous love affair then you will probably become bored with an episode of staid affection. The famous wit Dorothy Parker wrote a poem on this topic containing the following elegant line: They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm. Sometimes reference works …
Continue reading “They Sicken of the Calm, Who Knew the Storm”
A. K. Karlson? High School Motto? Evan Esar? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The word “can” designates the ability to accomplish a task. “Can” also specifies a container. I recall the following wordplay-based inspirational maxims: Success comes in cans, failure in can’ts. Success comes in cans—I can, you can, we can. Would you please explore this …
Continue reading “Success Comes In Cans. I Can, You Can, We Can”
Charlotte Chandler? Billy Wilder? Lyn Erhard? Stanley Kramer? Pablo Picasso? Dear Quote Investigator: Your alarm clock sounds, and you wake up groggily. You press the snooze button to get ten more minutes of sleep. The alarm buzzes again, and you press the button again. How can you prevent this unhappy cycle? Instead of returning to …
Continue reading “You Have To Have a Dream So You Can Get Up in the Morning”
Elbert Hubbard? H.C. Peters? Leonard Bernstein? Dear Quote Investigator: Dreaming about accomplishing a vaguely defined magnificent task at some unknown future date is unhelpful. True progress is made by formulating a plan and adopting a clear deadline. This notion has been attributed to U.S. publisher Elbert Hubbard and U.S. composer Leonard Bernstein. Would you please …
George Orwell? Coco Chanel? Mae West? Ingrid Bergman? Albert Camus? Abraham Lincoln? Edwin M. Stanton? Lucius E. Chittenden? Albert Schweitzer? Maurice Chevalier? William H. Seward? Edward Lee Hawk? William Shakspeare? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A person’s true character can be deduced by the careful study of the face according to believers in physiognomy. This notion …
Sinclair Lewis? Bennett Cerf? Storm Jameson? Leon Uris? Abraham Cady? Truman Capote? James Michener? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Classes which attempt to teach writing have proliferated in recent decades. Yet, an undercurrent of skepticism regarding the value of this pedagogical endeavor persists. According to a sardonic anecdote a successful author was once badgered into conducting …
Continue reading “What Are You Doing Here? Why the Devil Aren’t You Home Writing?”
Speaker: William Morris? Guy de Maupassant? Alexander Hadden? Elliot Paul? Gillian Widdicombe? Adlai Stevenson? Anonymous? Landmark: Eiffel Tower? National Theatre in London? Palace of Culture in Warsaw? Empire State Building? Dear Quote Investigator: Cultural critics have lamented that some massive structures dominating city skylines are unsightly, e.g., the Eiffel Tower, the National Theatre in London, …
Continue reading “This Is the Only Place Where I Can Avoid Seeing the Damned Thing”