A Quote by Nigel Rees

My toils in the quotation field have led me to formulate two or three laws about the way people use and abuse quotations. My first law is: When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to Bernard Shaw - which I don't mean to be taken literally, but as a general observation of the habit people have of attaching remarks to the nearest obvious speaker. Churchill, Wilde, Orson Welles and Alexander Woollcott are other useful figures upon whom to father remarks when you don't know who really said them.

Nigel Rees

Quote Topics

About Abuse Alexander Ascribe Bernard Bernard Shaw Churchill Doubt Father Field Figures First General Habit Know Law Laws Led Literally Me Mean Nearest Observation Obvious Other People Quotation Quotations Really Remarks Said Speaker Taken Them Three Two Use Use And Abuse Useful Way When In Doubt Which Whom Wilde

Quote Author

Nigel Rees
British - Author
Born: June 5, 1944

Rees's First Law of Quotations: When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to George Bernard Shaw.

Nigel Rees

Well named, Quotology contains everything you always wanted to know about quotations, quoters, quotees, quotation books, 'quoox' (quotations out of context), and their fascinating history.

Marjorie Garber

Some lines are born quotations, some are made quotations, and some have "quotation" thrust upon them.

Gary Saul Morson

Quotations are powerful tools. Michel de Montaigne, the father of all essayists, observed, 'I quote others only to better express myself.' Intrepid quotations detective Ralph Keyes helps us to discover the clear truth about exactly what was said and who exactly said it.

Richard Lederer

A wide range of quotations are necessary for the repertoire of a well-rounded speaker. Quotations are able to illustrate in a few words what is difficult to explain in many.

Carolyn Warner

Most remarks that are worth making are commonplace remarks. The things that makes them worth saying is that we really mean them.

Robert Staughton Lynd

Like so many people, I only remembered Orson Welles as this huge, fat, bearded figure selling wine in TV commercials. So whenever anyone said I looked like Orson Welles I said that I wasn't that fat, and I would get on a diet, quickly.

Christian McKay

I let people make remarks about me, but it doesn't touch me, all those remarks.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

You evidently do not suffer from "quotation-hunger" as I do! I get all the dictionaries of quotations I can meet with, as I always want to know where a quotation comes from.

Lewis Carroll

With all deference to Chairman Mao and other authors whose quotations derive from longer works, it seemed that I was becoming the world's first writer of self-contained ready-made quotations.

Ashleigh Brilliant

I was fascinated by quotations and lists. And then I noticed that other people were fascinated by quotations and lists: people as different as Borges and Walter Benjamin, Novalis and Godard.

Susan Sontag

Churchill was one of the few men I have met who even in the flesh give me the impression of genius. George Bernard Shaw is another. It is amusing to know that each thinks the other is overrated.

David Low

I've had my fair share of incidents with law enforcement, whether they're saying smart remarks, condescending remarks to downplay who I am and what I can afford... It's something that made me stronger on the back end of it, and learned from those instances.

Bubba Wallace

Oh yes, I dated Orson Welles. We had many encounters on both coasts. I remember the first time he saw me in a boudoir, in a negligee, he said in that wondrous voice of his, ‘Magnificent Carcass.’ ‘MAGNIFICENT CARCASS?’ I thought to myself. Whatever, I didn't see that one coming. But that's really all I want to say about Orson. I don't want to go into how he gave me the Clap.

Maila Nurmi

Rugby football is a game I can't claim absolutely to understand in all its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general principles, of course. I mean to say, I know that the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line at the other end and that, in order to squalch this programme, each side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow man which, if done elsewhere, would result in 14 days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench.

P. G. Wodehouse

A Quote by Nigel Rees

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors