Four weeks ago I invited readers to submit quotations for which they wanted me to try to trace the origins, using The Yale Book of Quotations and more recent research by me. Dozens responded via comments or e-mails. I am responding as best I can, a couple per week.
Bill asks:
I think that this is from Ambrose Bierce, but I haven’t been able to track it down. “Definition — cigarette: a small roll of paper, filled with tobacco and drugs, having a small flame at one end, and a large fool at the other.”
I’m not sure about the Bierce quote, but The Yale Book of Quotations has the following under Jonathan Swift:
[Of angling:] A stick and a string, with a fly at one end and a fool at the other.
It was quoted in The Indicator, Oct. 27, 1819. A similar remark has also been attributed to Samuel Johnson.
Authors Uncovered
Here are more quote authors Shapiro’s tracked down recently.
H.F.Hunter asks whether the following quote is by Daniel Boone:
“I can’t say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.” … I’ve always felt a special kinship to Daniel. I’ll be real disappointed if I learn that someone else said that.
No need to be disappointed! The Yale Book of Quotations has this under Boone:
[Remark, June 1819:] I can’t say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
It was quoted in Chester Harding, My Egotistigraphy (1866).
Do any readers have any other quotations whose origins they would like me to attempt to trace?
and 
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chateau: big house, no heat.
This may be too vague, but this quote essentially conveys: events that occur, not “issues” or a platform define the term of a prime minister (or other leader)
I think it’s Benjamin Disraeli, but if it rings a bell, I would love to know the real quote.
A quote I’ve heard a couple of times but never been able to track down. At the start of a 10-page letter, “I would have written a postcard, but I didn’t have the time.”
I don’t know the author, and the quote itself is probably not exactly right. Makes it very difficult to search for
Gregot
I think the quote you’re thinking of actually goes “I would’ve written less, but I didn’t have the time.” I just read, like 3 days ago, who this was attributed to on mentalfloss.com or something. Maybe even here somewhere. Now that’s driving me crazy.
Found it Gregot
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter – T.S Eliot
It’s something about larger ladies or fat women or similar but I’m sure there is a quote along the lines:
“Sometimes what is nice to touch is not as nice to look at”
I may be way off but the meaning is that sometimes the sensuality of a larger woman in the bedroom is lovely, and shouldn’t be overlooked cause they may not look like supermodels in the street.
It’s driving me nuts that I can’t remember the quote or who said it..
“Is it a greater crime to rob a bank, or to open one?”
A while ago, the late Molly Ivins said about a Pat Buchanan speech something like “it would have sounded better in the original German”; the quote can be found on the web attributed to her. However, I heard this line verbally in the early 80s as an undergraduate in Ireland – I’m quite sure that it was a quote from some postwar British comic writer, perhaps discussing the rantings of Enoch Powell or Oswald Mosley. But I can’t find the original source. Any clues?