Quotes About Misquotation

Misquotation is quotology's swamp. Amateur quoters mix and mangle Shakespeare and Scripture. Professors gaffe and printers bungle. It's a mess we must wade into.

You don't have to explain something you didn't say.

four-fifths of the words attributed to me are things I never said, and would not agree with. If your words cannot stand on their own, adding my name won't make them less flimsy

Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely.

To mis-quote is the very foundation of original style. The success of most writers is almost entirely due to continuous and courageous abuse of familiar misquotation.

A garbled quotation is equivalent to a betrayal, an insult, a prejudice.

I know I haven't said a lot of things I'm quoted as saying in the papers. It makes me wonder why I brought up the recovery story in the first place.

I]t contains a great deal that Sun Tzu did not write, and very little indeed of what he did.

No? Then listen to this. It is my belief that throughout the history of the positronic robot, the First Law of Robotics has been deliberately misquoted." Leebig moved spasmodically. "Misquoted? Fool! Madman! Why?" "To hide the fact," said Baley with complete composure, "that robots can commit murder.

Misquoted, distorted, diluted, and deified. In that order. At the hands of his worshipers, Jesus suffered a far worse fate than crucifixion. You have a lovely ass.

I just got on Twitter because there was some MTV film blog that quoted me on something really innocuous that I supposedly said on Twitter before I was even on Twitter. So then I had to get on Twitter to say: 'This is me. I'm on Twitter. If there's somebody else saying that they're me on Twitter, they're not.'

In the world of speeches and orations, especially historical ones, the persistent misquotation is understandable. You hear a speech. You misremember or mishear a line as something more colorful than it was.

I really didn't say everything I said. [...] Then again, I might have said 'em, but you never know.

If we were talking about Europe in 1000, or most of the third world today, the standard misquotation would be spot on.

Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely.

We are not a fortress Church. We are a Church of witness. What we do and say must be done in the light. ...We are therefore vulnerable to misquotation and misinterpretation... It is in this spirit of openness and charity and with prudent care, that I propose to examine all the functions of the decasteries.