Read The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations Online

Authors: Tony Augarde

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The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations

BOOK: The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations
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The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations

PREFACE Preface =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

This is a completely new dictionary, containing about 5,000 quotations.

What is a "quotation"? It is a saying or piece of writing that strikes

people as so true or memorable that they quote it (or allude to it) in

speech or writing. Often they will quote it directly, introducing it with

a phrase like "As ---- says" but equally often they will assume that the

reader or listener already knows the quotation, and they will simply

allude to it without mentioning its source (as in the headline "A ros� is

a ros� is a ros�," referring obliquely to a line by Gertrude Stein).

This dictionary has been compiled from extensive evidence of the

quotations that are actually used in this way. The dictionary includes

the commonest quotations which were found in a collection of more than

200,000 citations assembled by combing books, magazines, and newspapers.

For example, our collections contained more than thirty examples each for

Edward Heath's "unacceptable face of capitalism" and Marshal McLuhan's

"The medium is the message," so both these quotations had to be included.

As a result, this book is not--like many quotations dictionaries--a

subjective anthology of the editor's favourite quotations, but an

objective selection of the quotations which are most widely known and

used. Popularity and familiarity are the main criteria for inclusion,

although no reader is likely to be familiar with all the quotations in

this dictionary.

The book can be used for reference or for browsing: to trace the source of

a particular quotation or to find an appropriate saying for a special

need.

The quotations are drawn from novels, plays, poems, essays, speeches,

films radio and television broadcasts, songs, advertisements, and even

book titles. It is difficult to draw the line between quotations and

similar sayings like proverbs, catch-phrases, and idioms. For example,

some quotations (like "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings")

become proverbial. These are usually included if they can be traced to a

particular originator. However, we have generally omitted phrases like

"agonizing reappraisal" which are covered adequately in the Oxford English

Dictionary. Catch-phrases are included if there is evidence that they are

widely remembered or used.

We have taken care to verify all the quotations in original or

authoritative sources--something which few other quotations dictionaries

have tried to do. We have corrected many errors found in other

dictionaries, and we have traced the true origins of such phrases as

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" and "Shaken and not stirred."

The quotations are arranged in alphabetical order of authors, with

anonymous quotations in the middle of "A." Under each author, the

quotations are arranged in alphabetical order of their first words.

Foreign quotations are, wherever possible, given in the original language

as well as in translation.

Authors are cited under the names by which they are best known: for

example, Graham Greene (not Henry Graham Greene); F. Scott Fitzgerald (not

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald); George Orwell (not Eric Blair); W. C.

Fields (not William Claude Dukenfield). Authors' dates of birth and death

are given when ascertainable. The actual writers of the words are

credited for quotations from songs, film-scripts, etc.

The references after each quotation are designed to be as helpful as

possible, enabling the reader to trace quotations in their original

sources if desired.

The index (1) has been carefully prepared--with ingenious computer

assistance--to help the reader to trace quotations from their most

important keywords. Each reference includes not only the page and the

number of the quotation on the page but also the first few letters of the

author's name. The index includes references to book-titles which have

become well known as quotations in their own right.

One difficulty in a dictionary of modern quotations is to decide what the

word "modern" means. In this dictionary it means "twentieth-century."

Quotations are eligible if they originated from someone who was still

alive after 1900. Where an author (like George Bernard Shaw, who died in

1950) said memorable things before and after 1900, these are all included.

This dictionary could not have been compiled without the work of many

people, most notably Paula Clifford, Angela Partington, Fiona Mullan,

Penelope Newsome, Julia Cresswell, Michael McKinley, Charles McCreery,

Heidi Abbey, Jean Harder, Elizabeth Knowles, George Chowdharay-Best,

Tracey Ward, and Ernest Trehern. I am also very grateful to the OUP

Dictionary Department's team of checkers, who verified the quotations at

libraries in Oxford, London, Washington, New York, and elsewhere. James

Howes deserves credit for his work in computerizing the index.

The Editor is responsible for any errors, which he will be grateful to

have drawn to his attention. As the quotation from Simeon Strunsky reminds

us, "Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly," but we have

endeavoured to make this book more accurate, authoritative, and helpful

than any other dictionary of modern quotations.

TONY AUGARDE

(1) Discussions of the index features in this preface and in the

"How to Use this Dictionary" section of this book refer to

the hard-copy edition printed in 1991. No index has been

included in this soft-copy edition. See "Notices" in

topic NOTICES for additional information about this soft-copy

edition.

HOWTO How to Use this Dictionary =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

HOWTO.1 General Principles =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The arrangement is alphabetical by the names of authors: usually the

names by which each person is best known. So look under Maya Angelou, not

Maya Johnson; Princess Anne, not HRH The Princess Royal; Lord Beaverbrook,

not William Maxwell Aitken; Irving Berlin, not Israel Balin; Greta Garbo,

not Greta Lovisa Gustafsson,

Anonymous quotations are all together, starting in "Anonymous" in

topic 1.43 They are arranged in alphabetical order of their first

significant word.

Under each author, quotations are arranged by the alphabetical order of

the titles of the works from which they come, even if those works were not

written by the person who is being quoted. Poems are usually cited from

the first book in which they appeared.

Quotations by foreign authors are, where possible, given in the original

language and also in an English translation.

A reference is given after each quotation to its original source or to an

authoritative record of its use. The reference usually consists of either

(a) a book-title with its date of publication and a reference to where the

quotation occurs in the book; or (b) the title of a newspaper or magazine

with its date of publication. The reference is preceded by "In" if the

quotation comes from a secondary source: for example if a writer is quoted

by another author in a newspaper article, or if a book refers to a saying

but does not indicate where or when it was made.

HOWTO.2 Examples =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Here are some typical entries, with notes to clarify the meaning of each

part.

Charlie Chaplin (Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin)

1889-1977

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and

a pretty girl.

My Autobiography (1964) ch. 10

Charlie Chaplin is the name by which this person is best known but Sir

Charles Spencer Chaplin is the name which would appear in reference books

such as Who's Who.

Charlie Chaplin was born in 1889 and died in 1977. The quotation comes

from the tenth chapter of Chaplin's autobiography, which was published in

1964.

Martin Luther King

1929-1968

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Letter from Birmingham Jail, Alabama, 16 Apr. 1963, in

Atlantic Monthly Aug. 1963, p. 78

Martin Luther King wrote these words in a letter that he sent from

Birmingham Jail on 16 April 1963. The letter was published later that year

on page 78 of the August issue of the Atlanta Monthly.

Dorothy Parker

1893-1967

One more drink and I'd have been under the host.

In Howard Teichmann George S. Kaufman (1972) p. 68

Dorothy Parker must have said this before she died in 1967 but the

earliest reliable source we can find is a 1972 book by Howard Teichmann.

"In" signals the fact that the quotation is cited from a secondary source.

HOWTO.3 Index =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

If you remember part of a quotation and want to know the rest of it, or

who said it, you can trace it by means of the index (1).

The index lists the most significant words from each quotation. These

keywords are listed alphabetically in the index, each with a section of

the text to show the context of every keyword. These sections are listed

in strict alphabetical order under each keyword. Foreign keywords are

included in their alphabetical place.

The references show the first few letters of the author's name, followed

by the page and item numbers (e.g. 163:15 refers to the fifteenth

quotation on page 163).

As an example, suppose that you want to verify a quotation which you

remember contains the line "to purify the dialect of the tribe." If you

decide that tribe is a significant word and refer to it in the index, you

will find this entry:

tribe: To purify the dialect of the t. ELIOT 74:19

This will lead you to the poem by T. S. Eliot which is the nineteenth

quotation on page 74.

CONTENTS Table of Contents =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title Page TITLE

Edition Notice EDITION

Notices NOTICES

Preface PREFACE

How to Use this Dictionary HOWTO

General Principles HOWTO.1

Examples HOWTO.2

Index HOWTO.3

Table of Contents CONTENTS

A 1.0

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello (Louis Francis Cristillo) 1.1

Dannie Abse 1.2

Goodman Ace 1.3

Dean Acheson 1.4

J. R. Ackerley 1.5

Douglas Adams 1.6

Frank Adams and Will M. Hough 1.7

Franklin P. Adams 1.8

Henry Brooks Adams 1.9

Harold Adamson 1.10

George Ade 1.11

Konrad Adenauer 1.12

Alfred Adler 1.13

Polly Adler 1.14

AE (A.E., �) (George William Russell) 1.15

Herbert Agar 1.16

James Agate 1.17

Spiro T. Agnew 1.18

Max Aitken 1.19

Zo� Akins 1.20

Alain (�mile-Auguste Chartier) 1.21

Edward Albee 1.22

Richard Aldington 1.23

Brian Aldiss 1.24

Nelson Algren 1.25

Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) 1.26

Fred Allen (John Florence Sullivan) 1.27

Woody Allen (Allen Stewart Konigsberg) 1.28

Woody Allen (Allen Stewart Konigsberg) and Marshall Brickman 1.29

Margery Allingham 1.30

Joseph Alsop 1.31

Robert Altman 1.32

Leo Amery 1.33

Kingsley Amis 1.34

Maxwell Anderson 1.35

Maxwell Anderson and Lawrence Stallings 1.36

Robert Anderson 1.37

James Anderton 1.38

Sir Norman Angell 1.39

Maya Angelou (Maya Johnson) 1.40

Paul Anka 1.41

Princess Anne (HRH the Princess Royal) 1.42

Anonymous 1.43

Jean Anouilh 1.44

Guillaume Apollinaire 1.45

Sir Edward Appleton 1.46

Louis Aragon 1.47

Hannah Arendt 1.48

G. D. Armour 1.49

Harry Armstrong 1.50

Louis Armstrong 1.51

Neil Armstrong 1.52

Sir Robert Armstrong 1.53

Raymond Aron 1.54

George Asaf 1.55

Dame Peggy Ashcroft 1.56

Daisy Ashford 1.57

Isaac Asimov 1.58

Elizabeth Asquith (Princess Antoine Bibesco) 1.59

Herbert Henry Asquith (Earl of Oxford and Asquith) 1.60

Margot Asquith (Countess of Oxford and Asquith) 1.61

Raymond Asquith 1.62

Nancy Astor (Viscountess Astor) 1.63

Brooks Atkinson 1.64

E. L. Atkinson and Apsley Cherry-Garrard 1.65

Clement Attlee 1.66

W. H. Auden 1.67

W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood 1.68

Tex Avery (Fred Avery) 1.69

Earl of Avon 1.70

Revd W. Awdry 1.71

Alan Ayckbourn 1.72

A. J. Ayer 1.73

Pam Ayres 1.74

B 2.0

Robert Baden-Powell (Baron Baden-Powell) 2.1

Joan Baez 2.2

Sydney D. Bailey 2.3

Bruce Bairnsfather 2.4

Hylda Baker 2.5

James Baldwin 2.6

Stanley Baldwin (Earl Baldwin of Bewdley) 2.7

Arthur James Balfour (Earl of Balfour) 2.8

Whitney Balliett 2.9

Pierre Balmain 2.10

Tallulah Bankhead 2.11

Nancy Banks-Smith 2.12

Imamu Amiri Baraka (Everett LeRoi Jones) 2.13

W. N. P. Barbellion (Bruce Frederick Cummings) 2.14

BOOK: The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations
3.32Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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