This reader-friendly volume contains more than 12,000 famous quotations, arranged alphabetically by author. It is unique in its focus on American quotations and its inclusion of items not only from literary and historical sources but also from popular culture, sports, computers, science, politics, law, and the social sciences. Anonymously authored items appear in sections devoted to folk songs, advertising slogans, television catchphrases, proverbs, and others.
For each quotation, a source and first date of use is cited. In many cases, new research for this book has uncovered an earlier date or a different author than had previously been understood. (It was Beatrice Kaufman, not Sophie Tucker, who exclaimed, I ve been poor and I ve been rich. Rich is better! William Tecumseh Sherman wasn t the originator of War is hell! It was Napoleon.) Numerous entries are enhanced with annotations to clarify meaning or context for the reader. These interesting annotations, along with extensive cross-references that identify related quotations and a large keyword index, will satisfy both the reader who seeks specific information and the curious browser who appreciates an amble through entertaining pages.
Bartlett’s vs. YBQ A copy of this handsome new volume was given to me for my eighty-first birthday, so, at that age having so little time to waste, I immediately set about to test this YBQ against my much older Bartlett’s (1968 edition).YBQ is certainly more fun. Harry S. Truman appears, of course, in both books, but it is the YBQ that quotes Harry’s letter to Paul Hume: “I have just read your lousy review [of my daughter’s concert] …. You sound like a frustrated old man who never made a success,…
The Best Quotations Reference A good quotations collection will give the definitive wording of quotations, provide information as to the quotations’ sources and eliminate spurious sources, and be interesting enough to read or browse in its own right, even when no particular quotation is sought. The Yale Book of Quotations does all of these things, and it does them better than its nearest competitors (Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations). The Yale Book of Quotations is the first new…