Tracing Quotations
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”
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”
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 …
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”
Franz Werfel? John LaFarge? George Seaton? Irving Wallace? Charles Brent? James G. Stahlman? Dwain Hobbs? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Events deemed miraculous have always been controversial. Believers readily accept a supernatural explanation, but skeptics are unwilling to endorse this viewpoint. Religious pilgrimage sites such as the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France boast …
Helen Keller? Socrates? Plato? Seneca the Younger? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A person has two genetic parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. The number of ancestors in a generation roughly doubles when going backwards in time, and this exponential growth implies that each individual has an enormous number of ancestors. This line of reasoning suggests …
A. H. Reginald Buller? Resident of Brighton? E. V. Lucas? Carolyn Wells? Walter Winchell? Robert Conquest? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a comical limerick about a “family” named Stein. The three referents were prominent writer Gertrude Stein, influential sculpture Jacob Epstein, and famous scientist Albert Einstein. Wordplay was used to split “Stein” from “Gertrude”, …
Continue reading “A Notable Family Named Stein With Gertrude, Ep, and Ein”
George Washington Carver? Alvin D. Smith? Martin Luther King Jr.? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Prominent scientist and educator George Washington Carver believed that fear lay at the root of hatred, and hatred would eventually lead to the destruction of the hater. Would you please help me to find a citation? Quote Investigator: Alvin D. Smith …