Quote Investigator® – Page 194

Quote Origin: When I Was Younger, I Could Remember Anything, Whether It Had Happened or Not

Mark Twain? Albert Bigelow Paine? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Mark Twain formulated a wonderful expression about the fallibility of memory as one grows older. Here is the beginning of his humorous saying:

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.

My own memory may be failing because I think I have seen multiple versions of the full statement. Is there more than one version? Which version is correct?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Yes, there are three important variants of this quotation that have been ascribed to Mark Twain. Intriguingly, the meaning of the quotation and the nature of the joke changed as the statement was revised. Here are the three versions with dates. Boldface has been added:

1907: When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying, now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that happened.

1912: When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not; but I am getting old, and soon I shall remember only the latter.

1924: When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.

Mark Twain worked on his autobiography for many years, and during this process he sometimes published sections. The first statement above was included in a draft chapter of his autobiography that was printed in the March 1907 issue of “The North American Review”. Before presenting the statement Twain mentioned an incident from his memory which he now believed was a “delusion”:¹

My brother Henry was six months old at that time. I used to remember his walking into a fire outdoors when he was a week old. It was remarkable in me to remember a thing like that, which occurred when I was so young. And it was still more remarkable that I should cling to the delusion, for thirty years, that I did remember it — for of course it never happened; he would not have been able to walk at that age. If I had stopped to reflect, I should not have burdened my memory with that impossible rubbish so long.

Immediately preceding the quotation Twain presented another memory that he now considered unreliable:

For many years I believed that I remembered helping my grandfather drink his whiskey toddy when I was six weeks old, but I do not tell about that any more, now; I am grown old, and my memory is not as active as it used to be. When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying, now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it.

Twain’s joke was counterintuitive because he was comically arguing that his memory was actually improving as he aged. Impossible, and hence inaccurate, memories were being rejected. The conventional viewpoint usually asserts the opposite thesis that memory becomes less reliable as one ages. Indeed, the joke was later modified to accord with the conventional stance.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: If Tetris Has Taught Me Anything, It’s That Errors Pile Up and Accomplishments Disappear

@AlexeSixx? @_NanooChii? @ Soumi_S? @MissMagdo? @damana?

Question for Quote Investigator: I have spent hours playing the quasi-hypnotic computer game Tetris. The following astutely funny remark reveals the subversive lesson of the game:

If Tetris has taught me anything, it’s that errors pile up and accomplishments disappear.

I have seen this statement tweeted and retweeted many times. Can you determine who first said it?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Tracing a recent expression like this is often difficult because the timestamps listed on websites are easy to modify retroactively; hence, those timestamps may be inaccurate. On the other hand, the database of tweets does appear to have reliable dates, and this article will rely on twitter timestamps.

Another complication occurs when an expression is highly mutable. The earliest strong semantic match located by QI appeared in a tweet on March 26, 2011 from the twitter handle Alexandra Melo @AlexeSixx:¹

Life is a Tetris. Do something good, it disappears immediately. But mistakes, they accumulate themselves. In the end everyone loses.

The phrasing above differed from the common modern saying although the underlying meaning matched, and the key term “disappear” was shared. On March 27, 2011 a very similar tweet emanated from the handle rawwwwwwest @_NanooChii,² and on April 1, 2011 a similar tweet was sent by Soumi_A @Soumi_S.³

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I Used To Be Snow White, But I Drifted

Mae West? A College Student? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The actress, screenwriter, and sex symbol Mae West was well-known for delivering double entendres. Here are two examples of clever lines with multiple meanings:

I was once pure as snow, but then I drifted.
I used to be Snow White but I drifted.

Did Mae West coin either of these quips?

Reply from Quote Investigator: A version of the first joke was in circulation on college campuses by the 1920s. In 1921 the student publication “The Virginia Reel” from the University of Virginia printed the following:¹

“She was as pure and as white as snow.”
“Yes, but she drifted.” — Yale Record.

The earliest evidence known to QI of a match for the second joke appeared in 1938 in the syndicated Hollywood gossip column of Ed Sullivan who credited the words to West:²

Mae West tells vaudeville audiences: “I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.”

Note that West referenced the fairy tale character Snow White, but the earlier joke simply referred to white snow. Hence, West added another comical layer of symbolism.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Comedy Is Tragedy Plus Time

Carol Burnett? Woody Allen? Tig Notaro? Steve Allen? Lenny Bruce? Bob Newhart? Thomas Hardy? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Some humorists are able to transform disastrous or mortifying episodes in their own lives into hilarious comedy routines. Usually some time must pass before a painful memory is distant enough that it can be transmuted into something funny. The popular performer Carol Burnett once said:

I got my sense of humor from my mother. I’d tell her my tragedies. She’d make me laugh. She said comedy is tragedy plus time.

I have heard this formula attributed to other comics such as Woody Allen and Tig Notaro. It seems to apply to general events and not just personal incidents. Do you know who first crafted this formula?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence of this saying located by QI was published in Cosmopolitan magazine in February 1957. The television personality, actor, and polymath Steve Allen presented his viewpoint on the genesis of comedy. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

When I explained to a friend recently that the subject matter of most comedy is tragic (drunkenness, overweight, financial problems, accidents, etc.) he said, “Do you mean to tell me that the dreadful events of the day are a fit subject for humorous comment? The answer is “No, but they will be pretty soon.”

Man jokes about the things that depress him, but he usually waits till a certain amount of time has passed. It must have been a tragedy when Judge Crater disappeared, but everybody jokes about it now. I guess you can make a mathematical formula out of it. Tragedy plus time equals comedy.

Joseph Crater was a judge in New York City who puzzlingly disappeared in 1930.² Newspaper reports on the never-solved case mentioned: a secret blond mistress, missing money, corrupt politicians, and purloined papers. Eventually the event became grist for comedy and even graffiti scrawls such as:³

Judge Crater—Call Your Office

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: It Isn’t the Mountain Ahead That Wears You Out; It Is the Grain of Sand in Your Shoe

Muhammad Ali? Robert W. Service? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The following quotation about perseverance is attributed to the famed boxer Muhammad Ali:

It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.

While I was researching this phrase I came across another version that was attributed to the popular poet Robert W. Service who died in 1958:

It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out — it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.

Could you provide clarification?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located by QI was printed in 1916 in a trade publication for the insurance industry. The adage was printed with no accompanying text as a filler item, and no attribution was given:¹

It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it is the grain of sand in your shoe.

In 1920 the expression was published in “The Journal of the New York State Teachers Association”. Once again, no attribution was given. Other sayings emphasizing steadfastness and determination were printed adjacent to the statement:²

It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it is the grain of sand in your shoe.

Back up your ideas with courage that will not back down, and there will be no way too long, no road too rough.

The reason most men and women do not accomplish more is that they do not attempt more.

By 1925 the saying had been extended with an explanatory sentence. This longer version was published in Forbes magazine together with the single word acknowledgment: “Service”. QI hypothesizes that this word referred to a magazine or newsletter called “Service” and not to the poet Robert W. Service. If Forbes wished to credit the “Bard of the Yukon” then his full name would have been listed:³

It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out—it’s the grain of sand in your shoe. Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big worth while things.—Service.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: We Are Made of Star-Stuff

Carl Sagan? Albert Durrant Watson? Doris Lessing? Harlow Shapley? Vincent Cronin? Ancient Serbian Proverb? William E. Barton? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The chemical elements of life such as carbon, magnesium, and calcium were originally created in the interior furnaces of stars and then released by stellar explosions. This fact can be expressed with a beautiful poetic resonance. Here are three examples:

We are made of star-stuff.
Our bodies are made of star-stuff.
There are pieces of star within us all.

I think the well-known astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan said this. Would you please trace this expression? Was Sagan the first person to say this?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1973 Carl Sagan published “The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective” which included the following passage. Boldface has been added here and below:¹

Our Sun is a second- or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff.

Sagan was an important locus for the dissemination of this expression; however, it has a long history. An interesting precursor appeared in a North Carolina newspaper in 1913. A columnist pointed out that the Sun and Earth were made of star-stuff. This implied that humans were also made of star-stuff, but this was not directly stated:²

The spectroscope analyzes the light if you please, and shows what it is made of. What was the surprise of the tireless searchers when they found common earth metals burning in the mighty sun!

There was once a little girl who cried out with joy when she realized for one little moment that the earth is truly a heavenly body, and that no matter what is happening to us we are really living right up among the stars. The sun is made of “star stuff, and the earth is made of the same material, put together with a difference.”

In 1918 the President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada delivered a speech with the phrase “our bodies are made of star-stuff”, and he seemed to be reaching for a quasi-spiritual interpretation for this fact:³

It is true that a first thoughtful glimpse of the immeasurable universe is liable rather to discourage us with a sense of our own insignificance. But astronomy is wholesome even in this, and helps to clear the way to a realization that as our bodies are an integral part of the great physical universe, so through them are manifested laws and forces that take rank with the highest manifestation of Cosmic Being.

Thus we come to see that if our bodies are made of star-stuff,—and there is nothing else, says the spectroscope, to make them of—the loftier qualities of our being are just as necessarily constituents of that universal substance out of which are made

“Whatever gods there be.”

We are made of universal and divine ingredients, and the study of the stars will not let us escape a wholesome and final knowledge of the fact.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Quotation Is a Serviceable Substitute for Wit

Oscar Wilde? W. Somerset Maugham? George Bernard Shaw? Voltaire? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: I thought you might enjoy the following remark attributed to Oscar Wilde:

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

I saw this on the goodreads website, but the source of the saying was not listed. Further searching led to the following similar comment attributed to Somerset Maugham:

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

This situation is confusing. Is either of these quotations genuine?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive evidence that Oscar Wilde said or wrote either of these statements.

A version of the expression was included in the story “The Creative Impulse” by W. Somerset Maugham. This popular tale was reprinted several times and was even made into a television episode. Interestingly, the quote was not included in the first publication of the short story in Harper’s Bazaar magazine in 1926.¹

The story was revised, expanded, and published again in a 1931 collection called “Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular”. The expression was used when a character named Mrs. Albert Forrester was described. Boldface has been added:²

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit, and having for thirty years known more or less intimately a great many distinguished people, she had a great many interesting anecdotes to tell, which she placed with tact and which she did not repeat more than was pardonable.

Note that the phrasing of the sentence above was awkward if one desired a concise and witty stand-alone quotation. Over time multiple versions of the saying were advanced.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Your Manuscript Is Good and Original, But What is Original Is Not Good; What Is Good Is Not Original

Samuel Johnson? Martin Sherlock? Johann Heinrich Voss? Gotthold Ephraim Lessing? Richard Brinsley Sheridan? Daniel Webster? Samuel Wilberforce

Question for Quote Investigator: The great lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson is credited with a famously devastating remark about a book he was evaluating:

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

I have never found a source for this quotation in the writings of Johnson, and I have become skeptical about this attribution. Do you know if he wrote this?

Reply from Quote Investigator: No substantive evidence has emerged to support the ascription to Samuel Johnson. In this article QI will trace the evolution of this saying and closely related expressions which have been attributed to a variety of prominent individuals. The following four statements have distinct meanings, but they can be clustered together semantically and syntactically.

What is new is not good; and what is good is not new.
What is new is not true; and what is true is not new.
What is original is not good; what is good is not original.
What is new is not valuable; what is valuable is not new.

The earliest evidence known to QI of a member of this cluster appeared in 1781 and was written by Reverend Martin Sherlock who was reviewing a popular collection of didactic letters published in book form. Lord Chesterfield composed the letters and sent them to his son with the goal of teaching him to become a man of the world and a gentleman. Sherlock was highly critical:¹

His principles of politeness are unexceptionable; and ought to be adopted by all young men of fashion; but they are known to every child in France; and are almost all translated from French books. In general, throughout the work, what is new is not good; and what is good is not new.

This expression was similar to the one attributed to Samuel Johnson. The word “new” was used instead of “original”. Yet, this passage did not include the humorous prefatory phrase which would have labeled the work “both new and good” before deflating it.

In the 1790s a German version of the saying using “new” and “true” was published in a collection by the translator and poet Johann Heinrich Voss. This instance did include a prefatory phrase stating that the “book teaches many things new and true”:²

Dein redseliges Buch lehrt mancherlei Neues und Wahres,
Wäre das Wahre nur neu, wäre das Neue nur wahr!

Here is an English translation:³

Your garrulous book teaches many things new and true,
If only the true were new, if only the new were true!

In 1800 a reviewer in “The British Critic” lambasted a book using a version of the brickbat with “new” and “good”:⁴

In this part there are some good and some new things; but the good are not new, and the new are not good. Much time is employed in considering the opinion of the poet du Belloy, at present forgotten and of little consequence, who professed to prefer the French to the ancient languages.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Any Idiot Can Face a Crisis; It’s This Day-To-Day Living That Wears You Out

Anton Chekhov? Clifford Odets? Bing Crosby? George Seaton? Jean Webster? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Anton Chekhov, the brilliant Russian writer of stories and plays, reportedly said the following:

Any idiot can face a crisis; it’s this day-to-day living that wears you out.

I have been unable to locate a source for this statement. I even asked my Slavicist friend to look for it in the original Russian works, and she was unable to find it. Would you please examine its provenance?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI believes that this quotation and ascription are incorrect. The statement entered circulation because of a sequence of at least two errors.

The first appearance of a partial match for the quotation was a line spoken by Bing Crosby during the 1954 film “The Country Girl”. Crosby played a character named Frank Elgin who was an alcoholic attempting to return to show business. A self-destructive episode of drinking in Boston nearly derailed the comeback attempt, and near the end of the film the character discussed his probability of achieving success. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

I faced a crisis up there in Boston, and I got away with it. Just about anybody can face a crisis. It’s that everyday living that’s rough.
I’m not sure I can lick it, but I think I got a chance.

“The Country Girl” movie was based on a play written by Clifford Odets which was adapted to film by George Seaton. Thus, the line above was connected to Odets, and this was a key step in the multistep process of misattribution as shown by the next citation.

In 1971 a textbook titled “The Tradition of the Theatre” which was edited by the educators Peter Bauland and William Ingram was published. This volume was an anthology of plays, and it included a translation of Anton Chekhov’s famous drama “The Cherry Orchard”. The textbook authors wrote an introduction to the play, and the quotation under investigation was printed in this preparative text. The words were ascribed to the American dramatist Clifford Odets and not to Anton Chekhov:²

A character in a Hollywood film of the 1950’s casually drops this line: “Any idiot can face a crisis; it’s this day-to-day living that wears you out.” The screenplay was by Clifford Odets, America’s chief inheritor of the dramatic tradition of Anton Chekhov, and in that one line, he epitomized the lesson of his master.

QI conjectures that the quotation above was constructed from a flawed memory of the line in “The Country Girl” film. The textbook referred to a screenplay by Odets, but as noted previously the screenplay was by Seaton, and the play by Odets. QI has examined the edition of the play published in 1951, and the film line was absent. In addition, the modern quotation was absent; hence, QI would credit Seaton with the line.³

Another error contributed to the creation of the misquotation. A confused or inattentive reader assigned the quotation above to Chekhov instead of Odets. This combination of faults produced the expression and ascription presented by the questioner.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: When He Turned Out the Light He Was in Bed Before the Room Was Dark

Muhammad Ali? Satchel Paige? Cool Papa Bell? Hablarias? Moran and Mack? Abbott and Costello? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Renowned heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali was famous for his witty remarks which included humorous boasts such as this:

I’m so fast I hit the light switch in my room and jump into bed before my room goes dark.

Yet, I believe that I heard a similar comical description employed by the famous baseball pitcher Satchel Paige who used it when characterizing another lightning-fast pitcher named James (Cool Papa) Bell. Could you explore this expression?

Reply from Quote Investigator: By the 1970s Muhammad Ali was using this jocular hyperbolic self-description. Some years earlier, in the 1960s Satchel Paige was using this gag when discussing James (Cool Papa) Bell. Interestingly, the remark has a very long history.

The earliest instance located by QI was printed in 1917 in “The Marines Magazine”, a monthly for United States Marine Corps personnel. A correspondent from Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania using the pseudonym Hablarias employed the jape:¹

Corporal Smith is still in training and, believe me, he is some speed merchant. Here is one record he holds: It is 20 feet from the switchboard to his pile of alfalfa and he can switch off the lights and be back in bed before the room gets dark!

In 1919 an article covering the vaudeville circuit in the Chicago Tribune stated that the comedy team of Moran and Mack were using a version of the joke:²

“Are you quick?”
“Am I quick? Why, man, when I go to bed at night and turn out the light I’m in bed before the room is dark.”

In 1920 a newspaper in Kansas printed the remarkable tale of swiftness. Many individuals still relied on gas lighting rather than electric lighting in that year:³

An Atchison woman: “I’ll say my husband is fast. He is so fast that when he turns off the gas light he is in bed before the room gets dark.”— Atchison Globe.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.