Quotes Uncovered
Here are more quote authors and origins Shapiro’s tracked down recently.
A while back, 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. Hundreds of people have responded via comments or e-mails. I am responding as best I can, a few per week.
Pointerelle asked:
Who said “A bride is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her?”
The Yale Book of Quotations has the following:
“Bride, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.” Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic’s Word Book (1906).
Jen asked:
How about “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” It was not Samuel Clemens, as commonly attributed.
The YBQ says:
“Anywhere is better than Paris. Paris the cold, Paris the drizzly, Paris the rainy, Paris the damnable. More than a hundred years ago, somebody asked Quin, ‘Did you ever see such a winter in all your life before?’ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘Last summer.’ I judge he spent his summer in Paris.” Mark Twain, Letter to Lucius Fairchild, April 28, 1880. This letter is the closest source that has been found for the saying, frequently credited to Twain, that “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” The Quin referred to was an 18th-century actor and wit.
Tim Suliman asked:
“Time flies like the wind, fruit flies like the banana.” I’ve always thought it was Groucho, but I’m not sure. Thanks!
The Yale Book of Quotations, which attempts to trace all famous quotations to their accurate sources, has this:
“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” Attributed to Groucho Marx in The Essential Groucho, ed. Stefan Kanfer (2000). There is no reason to believe that Groucho actually said this. It appeared in the Usenet news group net.jokes, July 9, 1982.
Do any readers have any other quotations whose origins they would like me to attempt to trace?
and 
. You can also watch it on 
On the computerized language analysis and translation of ‘time flies like an arrow’. As I recall, there were five possible meanings:
1 Time proceeds quickly in the same manner an arrow does.
2 A particular sort of fly, time flies, are partial to an arrow.
3 When timing flies, use the same method you would use to time an arrow.
4 When timing flies, use the same method an arrow would use.
5 When timing flies, the correct flies to time are the ones which resemble an arrow.
1 is the intended meaning, 2 is the ‘fruit flies like a banana’ reading.
I have no idea which came first, the joke or the computer analysis.
I would imagine the sentence about apples swimming represents vanity because that would be a vain thing for an apple to say. Obviously apples can’t swim; they just float and bob along so if an apple thought itself a good swimmer it would be a vain thought to have.
Of course this scenario involves an apple having thoughts and/or speaking so I can see where the confusion might arise!
“If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll get what you got.”
When I originally heard it, it was attributed to Joe DiMaggio. However, I believe it may actually originate with Ambrose Bierce. Which is correct?
#11
sounds more like Joe’s teammate, Yogi
“If we had ham, we’d have ham and eggs, if we had eggs.”
I’ve seen it attributed to Frank Herbert, but I can’t find it.
“How we apples swim” seems to be properly used when something more akin to dung is pretending to be an apple, just because it’s in the company of apples. There’s no way to understand the phrase on its own, without knowing the fable from which it arises:
Aesop’s Fables: Sir Roger L’Estrange (1692)
135. APPLES AND HORSE-TURDS (Perry)
Upon a very great Fall of Rain, the Current carried away a huge Heap of Apples, together with a Dunghill that lay in the Watercourse. They floated a good while together like Brethren and Companions; and as they went thus dancing down in the Stream, the Horse-Turds would be every foot crying out still, Alack-a-day! How we Apples swim!
THE MORAL OF THE TWO FABLES ABOVE. Every thing would be thought greater in the World than it is; and the Root of it is this, that it first thinks itself so.
The phrase seems to be used in this manner in an interesting NYT editorial from Dec. 1863, entitled “How We Apples Swim,” about the hubris of some Southerners in how they speak of their role in US history and government:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=950DEEDE1E3DE53BBC4152DFB4678388679FDE
“Those who can,do. Those who can’t, teach.”
This one is ancient and over-worn, but who said it first?
I always thought it was W.C. Fields who said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”
Sounds like something he would have said.