Table Of Content

The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations PREFACE Preface =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This is a completely new dictionary, containing about 5,000 quotations. What is a "quotation"? It is a saying or piece of writing that strikes people as so true or memorable that they quote it (or allude to it) in speech or writing. Often they will quote it directly, introducing it with a phrase like "As ---- says" but equally often they will assume that the reader or listener already knows the quotation, and they will simply allude to it without mentioning its source (as in the headline "A ros‚ is a ros‚ is a ros‚," referring obliquely to a line by Gertrude Stein). This dictionary has been compiled from extensive evidence of the quotations that are actually used in this way. The dictionary includes the commonest quotations which were found in a collection of more than 200,000 citations assembled by combing books, magazines, and newspapers. For example, our collections contained more than thirty examples each for Edward Heath's "unacceptable face of capitalism" and Marshal McLuhan's "The medium is the message," so both these quotations had to be included. As a result, this book is not--like many quotations dictionaries--a subjective anthology of the editor's favourite quotations, but an objective selection of the quotations which are most widely known and used. Popularity and familiarity are the main criteria for inclusion, although no reader is likely to be familiar with all the quotations in this dictionary. The book can be used for reference or for browsing: to trace the source of a particular quotation or to find an appropriate saying for a special need. The quotations are drawn from novels, plays, poems, essays, speeches, films radio and television broadcasts, songs, advertisements, and even book titles. It is difficult to draw the line between quotations and similar sayings like proverbs, catch-phrases, and idioms. For example, some quotations (like "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings") become proverbial. These are usually included if they can be traced to a particular originator. However, we have generally omitted phrases like "agonizing reappraisal" which are covered adequately in the Oxford English Dictionary. Catch-phrases are included if there is evidence that they are widely remembered or used. We have taken care to verify all the quotations in original or authoritative sources--something which few other quotations dictionaries have tried to do. We have corrected many errors found in other dictionaries, and we have traced the true origins of such phrases as "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" and "Shaken and not stirred." The quotations are arranged in alphabetical order of authors, with anonymous quotations in the middle of "A." Under each author, the quotations are arranged in alphabetical order of their first words. Foreign quotations are, wherever possible, given in the original language as well as in translation. Authors are cited under the names by which they are best known: for example, Graham Greene (not Henry Graham Greene); F. Scott Fitzgerald (not Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald); George Orwell (not Eric Blair); W. C. Fields (not William Claude Dukenfield). Authors' dates of birth and death are given when ascertainable. The actual writers of the words are credited for quotations from songs, film-scripts, etc. The references after each quotation are designed to be as helpful as possible, enabling the reader to trace quotations in their original sources if desired. The index (1) has been carefully prepared--with ingenious computer assistance--to help the reader to trace quotations from their most important keywords. Each reference includes not only the page and the number of the quotation on the page but also the first few letters of the author's name. The index includes references to book-titles which have become well known as quotations in their own right. One difficulty in a dictionary of modern quotations is to decide what the word "modern" means. In this dictionary it means "twentieth-century." Quotations are eligible if they originated from someone who was still alive after 1900. Where an author (like George Bernard Shaw, who died in 1950) said memorable things before and after 1900, these are all included. This dictionary could not have been compiled without the work of many people, most notably Paula Clifford, Angela Partington, Fiona Mullan, Penelope Newsome, Julia Cresswell, Michael McKinley, Charles McCreery, Heidi Abbey, Jean Harder, Elizabeth Knowles, George Chowdharay-Best, Tracey Ward, and Ernest Trehern. I am also very grateful to the OUP Dictionary Department's team of checkers, who verified the quotations at libraries in Oxford, London, Washington, New York, and elsewhere. James Howes deserves credit for his work in computerizing the index. The Editor is responsible for any errors, which he will be grateful to have drawn to his attention. As the quotation from Simeon Strunsky reminds us, "Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly," but we have endeavoured to make this book more accurate, authoritative, and helpful than any other dictionary of modern quotations. TONY AUGARDE (1) Discussions of the index features in this preface and in the "How to Use this Dictionary" section of this book refer to the hard-copy edition printed in 1991. No index has been included in this soft-copy edition. See "Notices" in topic NOTICES for additional information about this soft-copy edition. HOWTO How to Use this Dictionary =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- HOWTO.1 General Principles =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The arrangement is alphabetical by the names of authors: usually the names by which each person is best known. So look under Maya Angelou, not Maya Johnson; Princess Anne, not HRH The Princess Royal; Lord Beaverbrook, not William Maxwell Aitken; Irving Berlin, not Israel Balin; Greta Garbo, not Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, Anonymous quotations are all together, starting in "Anonymous" in topic 1.43 They are arranged in alphabetical order of their first significant word. Under each author, quotations are arranged by the alphabetical order of the titles of the works from which they come, even if those works were not written by the person who is being quoted. Poems are usually cited from the first book in which they appeared. Quotations by foreign authors are, where possible, given in the original language and also in an English translation. A reference is given after each quotation to its original source or to an authoritative record of its use. The reference usually consists of either (a) a book-title with its date of publication and a reference to where the quotation occurs in the book; or (b) the title of a newspaper or magazine with its date of publication. The reference is preceded by "In" if the quotation comes from a secondary source: for example if a writer is quoted by another author in a newspaper article, or if a book refers to a saying but does not indicate where or when it was made. HOWTO.2 Examples =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Here are some typical entries, with notes to clarify the meaning of each part. Charlie Chaplin (Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin) 1889-1977 All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl. My Autobiography (1964) ch. 10 Charlie Chaplin is the name by which this person is best known but Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin is the name which would appear in reference books such as Who's Who. Charlie Chaplin was born in 1889 and died in 1977. The quotation comes from the tenth chapter of Chaplin's autobiography, which was published in 1964. Martin Luther King 1929-1968 Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Letter from Birmingham Jail, Alabama, 16 Apr. 1963, in Atlantic Monthly Aug. 1963, p. 78 Martin Luther King wrote these words in a letter that he sent from Birmingham Jail on 16 April 1963. The letter was published later that year on page 78 of the August issue of the Atlanta Monthly. Dorothy Parker 1893-1967 One more drink and I'd have been under the host. In Howard Teichmann George S. Kaufman (1972) p. 68 Dorothy Parker must have said this before she died in 1967 but the earliest reliable source we can find is a 1972 book by Howard Teichmann. "In" signals the fact that the quotation is cited from a secondary source. HOWTO.3 Index =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If you remember part of a quotation and want to know the rest of it, or who said it, you can trace it by means of the index (1). The index lists the most significant words from each quotation. These keywords are listed alphabetically in the index, each with a section of the text to show the context of every keyword. These sections are listed in strict alphabetical order under each keyword. Foreign keywords are included in their alphabetical place. The references show the first few letters of the author's name, followed by the page and item numbers (e.g. 163:15 refers to the fifteenth quotation on page 163). As an example, suppose that you want to verify a quotation which you remember contains the line "to purify the dialect of the tribe." If you decide that tribe is a significant word and refer to it in the index, you will find this entry: tribe: To purify the dialect of the t. ELIOT 74:19 This will lead you to the poem by T. S. Eliot which is the nineteenth quotation on page 74. CONTENTS Table of Contents =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Title Page TITLE Edition Notice EDITION Notices NOTICES Preface PREFACE How to Use this Dictionary HOWTO General Principles HOWTO.1 Examples HOWTO.2 Index HOWTO.3 Table of Contents CONTENTS A 1.0 Bud Abbott and Lou Costello (Louis Francis Cristillo) 1.1 Dannie Abse 1.2 Goodman Ace 1.3 Dean Acheson 1.4 J. R. Ackerley 1.5 Douglas Adams 1.6 Frank Adams and Will M. Hough 1.7 Franklin P. Adams 1.8 Henry Brooks Adams 1.9 Harold Adamson 1.10 George Ade 1.11 Konrad Adenauer 1.12 Alfred Adler 1.13 Polly Adler 1.14 AE (A.E., ’) (George William Russell) 1.15 Herbert Agar 1.16 James Agate 1.17 Spiro T. Agnew 1.18 Max Aitken 1.19 Zo‰ Akins 1.20 Alain (mile-Auguste Chartier) 1.21 Edward Albee 1.22 Richard Aldington 1.23 Brian Aldiss 1.24 Nelson Algren 1.25 Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) 1.26 Fred Allen (John Florence Sullivan) 1.27 Woody Allen (Allen Stewart Konigsberg) 1.28 Woody Allen (Allen Stewart Konigsberg) and Marshall Brickman 1.29 Margery Allingham 1.30 Joseph Alsop 1.31 Robert Altman 1.32 Leo Amery 1.33 Kingsley Amis 1.34 Maxwell Anderson 1.35 Maxwell Anderson and Lawrence Stallings 1.36 Robert Anderson 1.37 James Anderton 1.38 Sir Norman Angell 1.39 Maya Angelou (Maya Johnson) 1.40 Paul Anka 1.41 Princess Anne (HRH the Princess Royal) 1.42 Anonymous 1.43 Jean Anouilh 1.44 Guillaume Apollinaire 1.45 Sir Edward Appleton 1.46 Louis Aragon 1.47 Hannah Arendt 1.48 G. D. Armour 1.49 Harry Armstrong 1.50 Louis Armstrong 1.51 Neil Armstrong 1.52 Sir Robert Armstrong 1.53 Raymond Aron 1.54 George Asaf 1.55 Dame Peggy Ashcroft 1.56 Daisy Ashford 1.57 Isaac Asimov 1.58 Elizabeth Asquith (Princess Antoine Bibesco) 1.59 Herbert Henry Asquith (Earl of Oxford and Asquith) 1.60 Margot Asquith (Countess of Oxford and Asquith) 1.61 Raymond Asquith 1.62 Nancy Astor (Viscountess Astor) 1.63 Brooks Atkinson 1.64 E. L. Atkinson and Apsley Cherry-Garrard 1.65 Clement Attlee 1.66 W. H. Auden 1.67 W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood 1.68 Tex Avery (Fred Avery) 1.69 Earl of Avon 1.70 Revd W. Awdry 1.71 Alan Ayckbourn 1.72 A. J. Ayer 1.73 Pam Ayres 1.74 B 2.0 Robert Baden-Powell (Baron Baden-Powell) 2.1 Joan Baez 2.2 Sydney D. Bailey 2.3 Bruce Bairnsfather 2.4 Hylda Baker 2.5 James Baldwin 2.6 Stanley Baldwin (Earl Baldwin of Bewdley) 2.7 Arthur James Balfour (Earl of Balfour) 2.8 Whitney Balliett 2.9 Pierre Balmain 2.10 Tallulah Bankhead 2.11 Nancy Banks-Smith 2.12 Imamu Amiri Baraka (Everett LeRoi Jones) 2.13 W. N. P. Barbellion (Bruce Frederick Cummings) 2.14 Maurice Baring 2.15 Ronnie Barker 2.16 Frederick R. Barnard 2.17 Clive Barnes 2.18 Julian Barnes 2.19 Peter Barnes 2.20 Sir J. M. Barrie 2.21 Ethel Barrymore 2.22 John Barrymore 2.23 Lionel Bart 2.24 Karl Barth 2.25 Roland Barthes 2.26 Bernard Baruch 2.27 Jacques Barzun 2.28 L. Frank Baum 2.29 Vicki Baum 2.30 Sir Arnold Bax 2.31 Sir Beverley Baxter 2.32 Beachcomber 2.33 David, First Earl Beatty 2.34 Lord Beaverbrook (William Maxwell Aitken, first Baron Beaverbrook) 2.35 Carl Becker 2.36 Samuel Beckett 2.37 Harry Bedford and Terry Sullivan 2.38 Sir Thomas Beecham 2.39 Sir Max Beerbohm 2.40 Brendan Behan 2.41 John Hay Beith 2.42 Clive Bell 2.43 Henry Bellamann 2.44 Hilaire Belloc 2.45 Saul Bellow 2.46 Robert Benchley 2.47 Julien Benda 2.48 Stephen Vincent Ben‚t 2.49 William Rose Ben‚t 2.50 Tony Benn 2.51 George Bennard 2.52 Alan Bennett 2.53 Arnold Bennett 2.54 Ada Benson and Fred Fisher 2.55 A. C. Benson 2.56 Stella Benson 2.57 Edmund Clerihew Bentley 2.58 Eric Bentley 2.59 Nikolai Berdyaev 2.60 Lord Charles Beresford 2.61 Henri Bergson 2.62 Irving Berlin (Israel Baline) 2.63 Sir Isaiah Berlin 2.64 Georges Bernanos 2.65 Jeffrey Bernard 2.66 Eric Berne 2.67 Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward 2.68 Chuck Berry 2.69 John Berryman 2.70 Pierre Berton 2.71 Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg 2.72 Sir John Betjeman 2.73 Aneurin Bevan 2.74 William Henry Beveridge (First Baron Beveridge) 2.75 Ernest Bevin 2.76 Georges Bidault 2.77 Ambrose Bierce 2.78 Laurence Binyon 2.79 Nigel Birch (Baron Rhyl) 2.80 John Bird 2.81 Earl of Birkenhead 2.82 Lord Birkett (William Norman Birkett, Baron Birkett) 2.83 Eric Blair 2.84 Eubie Blake (James Hubert Blake) 2.85 Lesley Blanch 2.86 Alan Bleasdale 2.87 Karen Blixen 2.88 Edmund Blunden 2.89 Alfred Blunt (Bishop of Bradford) 2.90 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt 2.91 Ronald Blythe 2.92 Enid Blyton 2.93 Louise Bogan 2.94 Humphrey Bogart 2.95 John B. Bogart 2.96 Niels Bohr 2.97 Alan Bold 2.98 Robert Bolt 2.99 Andrew Bonar Law 2.100 Carrie Jacobs Bond 2.101 Sir David Bone 2.102 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 2.103 Sonny Bono (Salvatore Bono) 2.104 Daniel J. Boorstin 2.105 James H. Boren 2.106 Jorge Luis Borges 2.107 Max Born 2.108 John Collins Bossidy 2.109 Gordon Bottomley 2.110 Horatio Bottomley 2.111 Sir Harold Edwin Boulton 2.112 Elizabeth Bowen 2.113 David Bowie (David Jones) 2.114 Sir Maurice Bowra 2.115 Charles Boyer 2.116 Lord Brabazon (Baron Brabazon of Tara) 2.117 Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M. Marshman Jr. 2.118 Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Walter Reisch 2.119 F. H. Bradley 2.120 Omar Bradley 2.121 Caryl Brahms (Doris Caroline Abrahams) and S. J. Simon (Simon Jasha Skidelsky) 2.122 John Braine 2.123 Ernest Bramah (Ernest Bramah Smith) 2.124 Georges Braque 2.125 John Bratby 2.126 Irving Brecher 2.127 Bertolt Brecht 2.128 Gerald Brenan 2.129 Aristide Briand 2.130 Vera Brittain 2.131 David Broder 2.132 Jacob Bronowski 2.133 Rupert Brooke 2.134 Anita Brookner 2.135 Mel Brooks 2.136 Heywood Broun 2.137 H. Rap Brown 2.138 Helen Gurley Brown 2.139 Ivor Brown 2.140 John Mason Brown 2.141 Lew Brown (Louis Brownstein) 2.142 Nacio Herb Brown 2.143 Cecil Browne 2.144 Sir Frederick Browning 2.145 Lenny Bruce (Leonard Alfred Schneider) 2.146 Anita Bryant 2.147 Martin Buber 2.148 John Buchan (Baron Tweedsmuir) 2.149 Frank Buchman 2.150 Gene Buck (Edward Eugene Buck) and Herman Ruby 2.151 Richard Buckle 2.152 Arthur Buller 2.153 Ivor Bulmer-Thomas 2.154 Luis Bu¤uel 2.155 Anthony Burgess 2.156 Johnny Burke 2.157 John Burns 2.158 William S. Burroughs 2.159 Benjamin Hapgood Burt 2.160 Nat Burton 2.161 R. A. Butler (Baron Butler of Saffron Walden) 2.162 Ralph Butler and Noel Gay (Richard Moxon Armitage) 2.163 Samuel Butler 2.164 Max Bygraves 2.165 James Branch Cabell 2.166 C 3.0 Irving Caesar 3.1 John Cage 3.2 James Cagney 3.3 Sammy Cahn (Samuel Cohen) 3.4 James M. Cain 3.5 Michael Caine (Maurice Joseph Micklewhite) 3.6 Sir Joseph Cairns 3.7 Charles Calhoun 3.8 James Callaghan (Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff) 3.9 Joseph Campbell (Seosamh MacCathmhaoil) 3.10 Mrs Patrick Campbell (Beatrice Stella Campbell) 3.11 Roy Campbell 3.12 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 3.13 Albert Camus 3.14 Elias Canetti 3.15 Hughie Cannon 3.16 John R. Caples 3.17 Al Capone 3.18 Truman Capote 3.19 Al Capp 3.20 Ethna Carbery (Anna MacManus) 3.21 Hoagy Carmichael (Hoagland Howard Carmichael) 3.22 Stokely Carmichael and Charles Vernon Hamilton 3.23 Dale Carnegie 3.24 J. L. Carr 3.25 Edward Carson (Baron Carson) 3.26 Jimmy Carter 3.27 Sydney Carter 3.28 Pablo Casals 3.29 Ted Castle (Baron Castle of Islington) 3.30 Harry Castling and C. W. Murphy 3.31 Fidel Castro 3.32 Willa Cather 3.33 Mr Justice Caulfield (Sir Bernard Caulfield) 3.34 Charles Causley 3.35 Constantine Cavafy 3.36 Edith Cavell 3.37 Lord David Cecil 3.38 Patrick Reginald Chalmers 3.39 Joseph Chamberlain 3.40 Neville Chamberlain 3.41 Harry Champion 3.42 Raymond Chandler 3.43 Coco Chanel 3.44 Charlie Chaplin (Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin) 3.45 Arthur Chapman 3.46 Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin 3.47 Prince Charles (Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales) 3.48 Apsley Cherry-Garrard 3.49 G. K. Chesterton 3.50 Maurice Chevalier 3.51 Erskine Childers 3.52 Charles Chilton 3.53 Noam Chomsky 3.54 Dame Agatha Christie 3.55 Frank E. Churchill 3.56 Sir Winston Churchill 3.57 Count Galeazzo Ciano 3.58 Brian Clark 3.59 Kenneth Clark (Baron Clark) 3.60 Arthur C. Clarke 3.61 Grant Clarke and Edgar Leslie 3.62 Eldridge Cleaver 3.63 John Cleese 3.64 John Cleese and Connie Booth 3.65 Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn 3.66 Georges Clemenceau 3.67 Harlan Cleveland 3.68 Richard Cobb 3.69 Claud Cockburn 3.70 Jean Cocteau 3.71 Lenore Coffee 3.72 George M. Cohan 3.73 Desmond Coke 3.74 Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette) 3.75 R. G. Collingwood 3.76 Charles Collins and Fred W. Leigh 3.77 Charles Collins and Fred Murray 3.78 Charles Collins, E. A. Sheppard, and Fred Terry 3.79 John Churton Collins 3.80 Michael Collins 3.81 Betty Comden and Adolph Green 3.82 Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett 3.83 Billy Connolly 3.84 Cyril Connolly 3.85 James Connolly 3.86 Joseph Conrad (Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski) 3.87 Shirley Conran 3.88 A. J. Cook 3.89 Dan Cook 3.90 Peter Cook 3.91 Calvin Coolidge 3.92 Ananda Coomaraswamy 3.93 Alfred Duff Cooper (Viscount Norwich) 3.94 Tommy Cooper 3.95 Wendy Cope 3.96 Aaron Copland 3.97 Bernard Cornfeld 3.98 Frances Cornford 3.99 Francis Macdonald Cornford 3.100 Baron Pierre de Coubertin 3.101 mile Cou‚ 3.102 No‰l Coward 3.103 Hart Crane 3.104 James Creelman and Ruth Rose 3.105 Bishop Mandell Creighton 3.106 Quentin Crisp 3.107 Julian Critchley 3.108 Richmal Crompton (Richmal Crompton Lamburn) 3.109 Bing Crosby (Harry Lillis Crosby) 3.110 Bing Crosby, Roy Turk, and Fred Ahlert 3.111 Richard Crossman 3.112 Aleister Crowley 3.113 Leslie Crowther 3.114 Robert Crumb 3.115 Bruce Frederick Cummings 3.116 e. e. cummings 3.117