Quotes About Quotations

I believe it was Gayelord Hauser, the nutritionist, who said that "you are what you eat," but if you happen to be an intellectual, you are what you quote.

Many moons ago dictionaries of quotations may have been less needed than they are today. In those good/bad old days, people walked around with entire poems and all the Shakespearean soliloquies in their heads....

Tracy I swore 37 times in the last month. I said the 'f-word' a couple of times, but it was mostly 'shit's and 'bastard's. Is 'douche bag' a curse Graham I suppose it would depend on the context. Tracy How about John you're a douche bag for kissing Barbara Graham It's a curse. Tracy Oh, well then it's not 37 times it's 71 times.

It's certainly hard to find fault with a work that quotes Shakespeare, Homer, and a dirty limerick about "the young man from Oswego.

Mao badges are pinned on West German student lapels, Little Red Book quotations are daubed on walls of Italian lecture halls.

Not all new books carry endorsements, and I wouldn't say that blurbs are indispensable for marketing.

It has a constant tendency to the aphorism—the ripe fruit hanging on the tree of knowledge—noticeable in the writings of the higher order of men of genius; the great dramatists, the poets generally, Bacon, Burke, Franklin, Landor, and indeed most of the classic authors who pass current in the world in quotation.

Footnoting references, signalling quotations, and so on were no part of a 13th-century scholar's duty. He could recycle his own and his predecessor's work without a qualm. He knew nothing of copyright and plagiarism, which are 17th-century inventions.

Don't you love quotations? I am immensely fond of them; a certain proof of erudition.... [I]f you should happen to write an insipid poem... send it to me, and my fiat shall crown you with immortality.

If we take the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations as our guide, then Shakespeare produced roughly one-tenth of all the most quotable utterances written or spoken in English since its inception—a clearly remarkable proportion.

In the dime stores and bus stations People talk of situations Read books, repeat quotations Draw conclusions on the wall Some speak of the future My love she speaks softly She knows there's no success like failure And that failure's no success at all -Bob Dylan, "Love Minus Zero / No Limit" (1965)

Ah". Tzimisces smiled. "Let me guess. Flowery periphrases, back-to-back literary allusions and quotations from thousand-year-old authors. A marked reluctance to use one word when twelve can be jammed in if you sit on the lid.

Scientists and theologians can't offer better than circular arguments, because there are no other kinds of arguments. Bible believers quote the Bible, and scientists quote other scientists. How do either scientists or theologians answer this question about the accuracy of their conclusions: "In reference to what?

Father sighed. "Please spare me these arguments of yours." "Whose arguments should I use?

Quotations are the backbone of much of literature, and of the transmission of art and thought more generally. . . . The delight is our natural response to the monuments of creativity and wisdom, kept alive by quotations, a communal bond uniting us with past culture and with other lovers of words and ideas in our own time.

The man who writes a single line, And hears it often quoted, Will in his life time surely shine, And be hereafter noted.

It's embarrassing to admit how many times I've reread the following: 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,' '1984,' 'Lord of the Flies,' 'The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,' 'Germinal,' 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle,' and 'A Moveable Feast.'

It is a rich storehouse for those who love quotations. It is as full of fine bon mots as a Christmas pudding is full of plums.

Behind her, Preston grunted and said, I know it's not the right thing to say to a lady, miss, but you are sweating like a pig! Tiffany, trying to get her shattered thoughts together, muttered, My mother always said that horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies merely glow... Is that so? said Preston cheerfully. Well, miss, you are glowing like a pig!

This little book is not put forth to supply an imperative demand, but rather with the hope of creating one. So far as is known to the writer, no such compilation is in existence, but the custom of using appropriate quotations on dinner menus, cards, invitations, etc., is growing, and of the many who desire to use such citations, not all know just where to find them.

She loves quotation marks and peanut butter and words.

Some lines are born quotations, some are made quotations, and some have "quotation" thrust upon them.

Not everything that can be extracted appears in anthologies of quotations, in commonplace books, or on the back of Celestial Seasonings boxes. Only certain sorts of extracts become quotations.

We sometimes think of quotations as extracts from larger texts, but some quotations originated complete unto themselves.