Literature Stack Exchange
Literature Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [quote-source]

Questions seeking to identify the source of a quote. If possible, include the exact quote whose origin you're seeking, or describe it as closely as you can. (For questions seeking to identify a entire story or work of literature from some remembered details, use the [identification-request] tag instead.)

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Origins of quote: "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

I've grown up loving the quote "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup." and I've been searching around to find out where it came from (with only a small amount of luck). I discovered that it came…
Andrew Bickerton
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Story where professor claims a step in a proof "is obvious" when it is far from obvious

I picked up a funny story about a professor who stated that something was "obvious" after taking a long time to think about it: the story on the Wiktionary user page of 'DCDuring': A mathematics professor is giving a lecture and has made an…
equin0x80
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Source of quote about businessmen conspiring when they meet

I'm trying to find the source of a quotation, which goes something like, "when two businessmen meet, they will naturally conspire to create a consortium against the interests of a third". This is an approximation; I think the quotation might also…
user254694
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Is the opening quote in Michael Crichton’s “Airframe” real or fictional?

Michael Crichton’s 1996 novel “Airframe” opens with two quotations, one of which reads: The irony of the Information Age is that it has given new respectability to uninformed opinion. This is attributed to “Veteran reporter John Lawton, 68,…
user149408
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Source of the quote "The only bad question is an unasked one"?

There are many variations on this phrase, but is there an original source which inspired the others, or is it just a piece of popular wisdom that's emerged naturally from humanity? Wikipedia has a page "No such thing as a stupid question", Goodreads…
Rand al'Thor
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Where is this quote about Man, Hero, Legend and Myth from?

This quote is scattered throughout the Web: Through action, a Man becomes a Hero Through death, a Hero becomes a Legend Through time, a Legend becomes a Myth And by learning from the Myth, a Man takes action I've seen it attributed to Eiichiro…
BlueMoon93
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Origin of "The bells! The bells!" quote

The quote "The bells! The bells!" is often associated with Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo, but I can't find any source to actually corroborate that. It doesn't seem to appear in the Project Gutenburg eBook, nor in any of…
Chris
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Identify Source of Quote on Running Out of Breath and Commas

I've got a quote rattling around in my head that I am trying to identify. Unfortunately, I don't know the exact wording. The scenario is the "narrator" commenting on a character's run-on sentence saying something like this: At this point…
Keverly
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Where does the quote “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right” come from?

The quote "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right" is often attributed to Steve Jobs, but a quote posted on LibQuotes suggests that Steve Jobs was himself quoting someone else: When I was 17, I read a…
Andrey Bienkowski
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Who said this quote? Napoleon Bonaparte or Theodore Roosevelt?

Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength. Who said this quote? Napoleon Bonaparte or Theodore Roosevelt?
Nathan
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Looking for a quote: "It may be true that every man has his price but there is not enough gold in the world to pay mine"

I'm looking for a quote that goes along the lines of "It may be true that every man has his price but there is not enough gold in the world to pay mine" I'm looking for the exact quote and who said it. I think it's from a british government…
user3362964
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What is the background of the epigram "I'm not a nitpicker nor a nitpicker's son, but I'll pick your nits 'til the nitpicker comes"?

I've known of the saying "I'm not a nitpicker nor a nitpicker's son, but I'll pick your nits 'til the nitpicker comes" since I was young, and so have the local county librarians. Where does it originate, or what is its background? My diligent…
Kathleen
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Where did Orwell complain about exaggerated praise in reviews of mediocre books?

I am trying to locate a passage in which the author writes about the difficulty of praising books. He notes that praise has become so inflated that it's almost impossible to convey that a book is exceptionally good: to convey this point, one would…
user697473
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"Rudyard Kiplings" elegi / I chose life

I've had a Spanish friend tell me of a poem that is claimed to be by Rudyard Kipling. However I was tipped off to it probably not being a Kipling poem by several facts: one, the English translation was on a little visited…
Roro
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Tracking down a literary quote about grammar

I once read a quote that goes something like, We should all be grateful to grammarians for saving us in fifty years from a grievous error. I think it's by Proust, but Google doesn't seem to agree. Anyone know this or can find it? I'll take any…
CJ Sheu
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