You can quote it

You can quote it

Posted on January 20th, 2009 by Frank Wilson

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man,” Winston Churchill declared, “to read a book of quotations.” It is certainly a good way to grow familiar with much that Churchill had to say. If the book is the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (Oxford University Press, $18.95), you will even learn what he didn’t say.

One of the more famous things attributed to him is a remark about De Gaulle: “Of all the crosses I have had to bear in this war, the heaviest has been the Cross of Lorraine.” That, however, was originally said not by Churchill, but by Edward Spears, a British soldier and diplomat. But Churchill knew a good line when he heard one and accordingly appropriated Spears’s quip later on. (What has the Cross of Lorraine got to do with De Gaulle? Originally associated with Joan of Arc, the heraldic Cross of Lorraine — which has two crossbars, one shorter than the other — was adopted as a symbol by the Free French forces, which De Gaulle led.)

Churchill’s remark about books of quotations comes from a 1930 volume of his titled My Early Life. He goes on to say that “the quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.”

Of course, all of us, whether educated or not, miss plenty of things, or don’t pay proper attention to them, or forget them. So we can all use a volume of quotations from time to time. But apart from their utility, such books are just fun to have around. If I were still commuting on public transit, the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations would routinely make its way into my briefcase.

According to Sturgeon’s Law — which didn’t make the cut for this book — “90 percent of everything is crud.” Certainly 90 percent of everything that is said is. This has always been true, but in times past commonplace utterances were unlikely to be recorded. Why bother? There would be plenty more on the way.

But this is a dictionary of modern quotations. As explained in the introduction: “All quotations are from the 20th or 21st centuries, and the book concentrates on authors who were alive in or after 1914 (taking the First World War as the cultural watershed of the modern period).” This means that not only are such quotable all-stars as Shakespeare and Plato nowhere to be seen, but also that a good many things perhaps best left unsaid in the first place have achieved a longer life than one would have expected.

Right across from the page where a selection of 52 of Churchill’s well-turned quotes begins, you can find this, from former French president Jacques Chirac, speaking to the British parliament about the European Union: “For its part, France wants you to take part in this great undertaking.” That must have stirred his listeners.

Right below Chirac’s choice vacuity is this, from former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien: “Leadership means making people feel good.” Churchill evidently forgot this the day he told the English people that “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

One nice feature of this little volume is the special categories, among them Film Lines (Hannibal Lecter’s “I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner”), Catchphrases (“I’m Bart Simpson: who the hell are you?”), and Last Words (Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life”).

One section is devoted to Misquotations, which is how I knew Churchill didn’t originate that line about the Cross of Lorraine. Some others may be more surprising. Sherlock Holmes, for example, never said, “Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary.” Nor did Jimmy Cagney in any move say “You dirty rat!” And no, Bogey never said, “Play it again, Sam.”

There is even a selection of telegram messages. My favorite is Robert Benchley’s from Venice: “Streets flooded. Please advise.”

If there’s a problem with a book like this, it’s how one thing can lead to another. And another. A blurb on the back cover asks, “Who wished he had invented blue jeans.” I didn’t know, so I looked it up (under blue in the index). I’m not going give away who it was, but he also said something much more mysterious: “I don’t really like knees.”

Anyway, no sooner had I read what he had to say about jeans than I noticed something written by Saki: “Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.” And on the page across from that I see that it was Henry “Red” Saunders, not Vince Lombardi, who said, “Sure, winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”

I could go on like this all day. If I were still commuting, I’d probably miss my stop.