Tracing Quotations
Noel Coward? Frank Sinatra? Margaret McManus? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The popular English playwright Noel Coward apparently once suggested that he welcomed any amount of criticism as long as it was unqualified praise. Would you please help me to find a citation? Quote Investigator: In January 1956 Noel Coward was interviewed by journalist Margaret McManus …
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Kurt Vonnegut? Frank Sinatra? Jean-Paul Sartre? Dale Carnegie? Bud Crew? Socrates? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The 1982 novel “Deadeye Dick” by the popular author Kurt Vonnegut mentioned the following piece of graffiti: “To be is to do”—Socrates. “To do is to be”—Jean-Paul Sartre. “Do be do be do”—Frank Sinatra. I think this tripartite list first …
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Frank Sinatra? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I greatly enjoy the singing of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, so I was surprised to hear that Sinatra once attacked the type of music that Elvis popularized. Supposedly Sinatra said: Rock n Roll is the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune …
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Drake? Schlitz Beer? Fritz Lang? Honoré de Balzac? Joe E. Lewis? Frank Sinatra? Fyodor Dostoevsky? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: In 2011 a song called “The Motto” by Drake was released, and it contained this expression: You only live once. The acronym YOLO was popularized by this song, I think. But I have heard the catch …