Tracing Quotations
David Lynch? Margaret Atwood? Jacob Riis? Grant E. Hamilton? Wendy Wasserstein? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The following saying encourages an optimistic focus on what matters in life: Keep your eye on the doughnut, not the hole. The influential U.S. movie director David Lynch and the prominent Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood have both employed this …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Keep Your Eye On the Doughnut, Not the Hole”
Flannery O’Connor? Graham Wallas? E. M. Forster? Inger Stevens? August Heckscher? Paul Samuelson? Shirley MacLaine? Joan Didion? E. L. Doctorow? John Gregory Dunne? Edward Albee? Wendy Wasserstein? William Faulkner? Virginia Hamilton Adair? Stephen King? Question for Quote Investigator: The process of writing helps to clarify thoughts and ideas. For example, some novelists do not outline …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I Do Not Know What I Think Until I Read What I’m Writing”
Wendy Wasserstein? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: We are told that people should live up to expectations. Yet, the chronically underestimated are implicitly told to live down to expectations. A graduation speaker once told an audience to do something remarkable and to refuse to live down to expectations. Would you please help me to trace this …
Continue reading “Go Out There and Do Something Remarkable. Don’t Live Down To Expectations”