Tracing Quotations
Mark Twain? Jack Benny? Satchel Paige? Muhammad Ali? Unknown gerontology researcher? Dear Quote Investigator: On a popular website recently I saw a slide show of quotations ascribed to Mark Twain that included the following: Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. I thought this was said by …
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Mark Twain? Joseph D. Eggleston Jr.? Inland Steel Company? Quin Ryan? Abigail Van Buren? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Mark Twain is credited with a marvelous saying about the importance of reading: A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read. I was unable to determine when this saying was created, …
Robert Benchley? Mark Twain? Walter Winchell? Groucho Marx? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: One of the funniest quotations about writing is usually credited to the brilliant wit Robert Benchley: It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too …
Mark Twain? W. C. Fields? Harris Dickson? Barracuda Pete? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: I mentioned a joke credited to Mark Twain to a friend recently: It’s easy to quit smoking. I’ve done it hundreds of times. She said that the jest was actually created by the famous comedian W. C. Fields and not Twain. …
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Mark Twain? William Allen White? Franklin P. Adams? Brock Pemberton? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I’ve been quoting an editor-friend’s advice for years, and suddenly tonight I see it online attributed to Mark Twain: Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it …
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Mark Twain? Edwin E. Slosson? Harry Lloyd Miller? Professor Rathburn? Mortimer J. Adler? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Mark Twain is credited with a very funny description of college lectures. For some teachers and students I think this quotation is accurate: College is a place where a professor’s lecture notes go straight to the students’ lecture …
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Mark Twain? Robert Heinlein? A Schoolchild? Caroline B. Le Row? Andrew John Herbertson? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I am preparing a book about the weather and climate, and I would like to include the following quotation: The climate is what you expect; the weather is what you get. Several web sites attribute this remark to …
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Jimmy Durante? Edna Mae Oliver? Robert M. Hutchins? Chauncey Depew? Mark Twain? Paul Terry? Robert Benchley? Max Beerbohm? J. P. McEvoy? Dear Quote Investigator: The funniest quotation about exercise is usually credited to Mark Twain: Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes away. But this statement is also …
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Mark Twain? Merle Johnson? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Comments about stylish clothing always remind me of Mark Twain’s comment: Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society. But I cannot seem to find any direct reference for this quote. The best citation I have seen was dated more than fifteen …
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Mark Twain? Heinrich Heine? Otto von Bismarck? George Bernard Shaw? James Boswell? Will Rogers? Dear Quote Investigator: As a one-time resident of Cincinnati I knew that Mark Twain once worked in the city, and I always enjoyed the comment he reportedly made about it: When the end of the world comes, I want to be …