Tracing Quotations
George M. Cohan? P. T. Barnum? Mae West? Elinor Glyn? Babe Ruth? Damon Runyon? James J. Johnston? Charley Murphy? Max Schmeling? Walter Winchell? Oscar Wilde? Samuel Johnson? Ed Sullivan? Question for Quote Investigator: A person once planned to write an article or book containing derogatory material about a celebrity. The unruffled response of the celebrity …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Say Anything You Like About Me, But Spell My Name Right”
Jean Racine? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The 17th-century French dramatist Jean Racine once presented a scenario in which a powerful emperor wished to split apart two lovers. The emperor ordered one lover to banish the other without revealing that the rejection was occurring under coercion. The emperor further stated that he would hide and …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I Will Hear Those Glances That You Think Are Silent”
Don Marquis? Christopher Morley? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Crafting a bright witticism or a clever aphorism is a difficult task especially for a writer who is facing a tight deadline. One strategy is described as follows: Stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram. This remark has been ascribed to Don Marquis who …
Charlie Sheen? Don Simpson? Dashiell Hammett? Adela Rogers St. Johns? Clark Gable? Charles Fleming? Stephen J. Cannell? Susan Kelly? Germaine Greer? Ian Ayres? Joy Fielding? Jack Nicholson? Question for Quote Investigator: Attractive, wealthy, and famous people sometimes obtain intimate services via the underground commercial market. This behavior is surprising because these individuals should be able …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I Don’t Pay Them To Come Over; I Pay Them To Go Away”
Thomas Hardy? John Ruskin? William Stearns Davis? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Comedy and tragedy are sometimes intertwined. The prominent English novelist Thomas Hardy has received credit for the following remark: Comedy is tragedy, if you only look deep enough. This statement has also been ascribed to the influential English art critic John Ruskin. Would …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: All Comedy Is Tragedy, If You Only Look Deep Enough Into It”
Joan Baez? Phillip L. Berman? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: An artist who is crafting a powerful song, poem, or story may feel a lack of control. The mind and body are simply operating as a channel for the emergence of the work. A songwriter once made this point by saying something like: The lyrics …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: The Words Have Just Crawled Down My Sleeve and Come Out On the Page”
Jonathan Swift? Benjamin Franklin? Shirley Chisholm? Thomas Moffett? John Ward? King James I of England? Thomas Fuller? John Gay? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: During a commencement address I heard the following vivid advice offered to students: Be as bold as the first man or woman to eat an oyster. Apparently, the famous Irish literary …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Whoever First Ate an Oyster Was a Brave Soul”
Benjamin Graham? Warren Buffett? Ronald A. McEachern? Ben Bidwell? John C. Bogle? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A brilliant metaphorical framework for understanding the stock market can be summarized with the following cogent remark: In the short-run, the stock market is a voting machine. Yet, in the long-run, it is a weighing machine. Each purchase …
Fannie Hurst? Charlotte Whitton? Joan Lowell? Jack Lewis? Lewis Browne? Myrtelle L. Gunsul? Lilias F. Evans? Anna Judge Vetters Levy? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Fannie Hurst was a popular novelist who was born in 1885. She believed that women faced greater obstacles to professional success than men. Apparently, she employed the following expression: A …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: A Woman Has To Be Twice as Good as a Man To Go Half as Far”
F. Scott Fitzgerald? Lionel Trilling? Katherine A. Powers? H. Maynard Smith? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Our experiences in the world are often complex, ambiguous, and ill-defined. We must be able to accommodate conflicting hypotheses. Here is a pertinent adage: The truest sign of intelligence is the ability to entertain two contradictory ideas simultaneously. A …