Will Rogers? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: While searching for a quotation on the subject of government in a reference book I came across a quip from the famous cowboy and Native American humorist Will Rogers: I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. But the supporting citation was dated 1962, …
Search results for: Ann Frank
Make a Sentence Using the Word Horticulture
Dorothy Parker? The Virginia Spectator? The Daily Standard of Sikeston, Missouri? Alexander Woollcott? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Dorothy Parker was famous for her coruscating wit, and she once employed a notoriously bawdy pun based on the word horticulture. Was she responsible for originating this pun? Quote Investigator: There is substantive evidence that Dorothy Parker created …
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Why Not Go Out On a Limb? Isn’t That Where the Fruit Is?
Mark Twain? Will Rogers? Frank Scully? Arthur F. Lenehan? H. Jackson Brown? Mother of H. Jackson Brown? Shirley MacLaine? Dear Quote Investigator: To succeed one must be willing to take risks and to enter the precarious realm of punishments and accolades. Here are four versions of an expression that appears in many self-help books: 1) …
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War Does Not Determine Who Is Right — Only Who Is Left
Bertrand Russell? Frank P. Hobgood? Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre? Reader’s Digest? Montreal Star? Andrew Carnegie? Winston Churchill? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A piquant slogan has been used by pacifists and peace activists for decades. Here are two variants: War does not determine who is right — only who is left. The atom bomb will never …
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That’s Not Writing; That’s Just Typing
Truman Capote? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The authors of The Beat Generation were an influential disaffected group whose works jolted the culture of 1950s America. The spontaneous prose technique employed by the central figure Jack Kerouac in the composition of his 1957 novel “On the Road” was acclaimed and disparaged. The most trenchant criticism reportedly …
Act One: Get Character Up a Tree. Act Two: Throw Rocks. Act Three: Get Character Down.
Vladimir Nabokov? Harry B. Smith? Augustus Thomas? George M. Cohan? George Abbott? Steven Spielberg? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently, I saw a fascinating quotation about writing that was attributed to the brilliant prose stylist Vladimir Nabokov: The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, …
Life Is Just One Damn Thing After Another
Mark Twain? Lilian Bell? Elbert Hubbard? Frank Ward O’Malley? Bruce Calvert? H. L. Mencken? Charles Dickens? Edna St. Vincent Millay? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The following statement of exasperation and resignation has been attributed to the luminary Mark Twain, the aphorist Elbert Hubbard, and the journalist Frank Ward O’Malley: Life is just one damn thing …
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Just Walk Beside Me and Be My Friend
Albert Camus? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The French writer and philosopher Albert Camus was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1957. His influential works have been called absurdist and existentialist although he personally rejected the label existentialist. The following lines have been widely attributed to him: Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Don’t …
Any Time You See Anything Big and Working Well, You Want To Take It Over
Winston Churchill? Clement Attlee? Emmanuel Shinwell? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: There was an extraordinary and ribald conversation between Winston Churchill and his political opponent Clement Attlee that supposedly took place in the men’s room of the House of Commons. Was this event authentic or apocryphal? Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located by QI appeared in …
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Ah, Would That I Were Only 80 Years Old!
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle? Samuel Rogers? Walter Besant? Helmuth von Moltke the Elder? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Georges Clemenceau? Dear Quote Investigator: An amusing remark about longevity and libido has been ascribed to septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians. A venerable gentleman was sitting on a park bench with a friend, and he gazed at …