The Yale Book of Quotations (Hardcover)

~ Fred R. Shapiro (Editor), Joseph Epstein (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

To paraphrase Ira Gershwin, "on every [page] that you turn you meet a notable with a statement that is eminently quotable" in this collection. According to editor Shapiro, this is "the first quotation book to be compiled using state-of-the-art research methods to seek out quotations and to trace quotation sources." He compares his approach with that of the Oxford English Dictionary: he, too, traces words back to their earliest possible usages. Using a variety of electronic sources, such as JSTOR, LexisNexis, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, andTimes Digital Archive, scores of quotations were verified, and in many cases reverified. The more than 12,000 quotations collected here span a wide array of subjects, from literature, philosophy, and history to science, business, and politics.

Quotations are presented alphabetically by the name of the author or speaker. Shakespeare and the Bible, the mother lodes of quotations, are amply represented, but emphasis is on "modern and American materials." Children's authors, who are often ignored in other dictionaries, are quoted here. There are a number of special sections devoted to particular types of quotations, among them advertising slogans, ballads, film lines, political slogans, and radio and television catchphrases. Song lyrics are entered by the name of the composer, and film lines appear either under the film title in the special section devoted to movie lines or, if they originated in a book or play upon which the film was based, under the author of that literary source. Proverbs span the centuries and often include evidence of a saying's first print appearance. A keyword index, an essential element of any quotation dictionary, rounds out the text.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (17th ed., Little, Brown, 2002) has around 25,000 quotations, and Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (6th ed., 2004) has more than 20,000. Although the Yale dictionary is smaller, readers may find it a richer source for familiar names, from Dr. Seuss to Donald Rumsfeld, and for special categories such as advertising slogans and film lines. Quotation dictionaries are an essential part of the reference collection, and this one, with its broad scope and meticulous attention to the origins of the material quoted, will enhance any collection, large or small. Carolyn Mulac
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Description

<DIV>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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1104 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; illustrated edition edition (October 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300107986
• ISBN-13: 978-0300107982
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,487 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

88 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Quotations Reference, November 3, 2006

By	John Baker - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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 comprehensive collection in many years, and it has benefited from a rethinking of the quotations selected, the use of modern databases to track quotations back to their origins, and comparison with those original sources to assure accuracy.

The immediately noticeable difference is a selection that is more likely to appeal to a modern American audience. Bartlett's has pages of quotations from Dryden, most of which inspire neither recollection nor pleasant surprise. Yale has 12 quotations from Dryden, which is enough to include all the genuinely familiar Dryden quotations. On the other hand, Yale has 23 quotations from George W. Bush, many uttered after Bartlett's was last updated. Yale includes extensive selections of proverbs and sayings, political slogans, television catchphrases, and other familiar lines. In general, although Yale's use of literary quotations is comprehensive (there are, for example, 455 quotations from Shakespeare), the quotation selection tends to be relatively less literary and more inclined toward quotations of contemporary interest, particularly to Americans. It may be for this reason that, frankly, Yale is just a lot more fun to browse.

Less dramatic, but perhaps ultimately a better indicator of usefulness, is the impressive level of research that went into compiling the Yale Book. Have you ever wondered who said "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch"? Yale cites to several authors who used versions of this line, the earliest of which ("such a thing as a 'free' lunch never existed") was in the Reno Evening Gazette on January 22, 1942. It is unlikely that such an obscure source could have been located without modern databases. It was indeed Horace Greeley who said "Go West, young man"; Yale spends a quarter of a page discussing this quotation, which it notes is one of the great examples of the prevalence of misinformation about famous quotations (both Bartlett's and Oxford get it wrong). The Yale Book of Quotations offers a level of scholarship and reliability that is simply not otherwise available.

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bartlett's vs. YBQ, March 21, 2007

By	Werner Cohn (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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, an eight-ulcer man on a four-ulcer job..." No, nothing like that in good old Bartlett's.

YBQ has the wit, and is obviously more up-to-date, but I must say that Bartlett's is better organized, and has more scholarship, at least scholarship of the kind that I appreciate.

I was happy to see that both books will give you one of my favorite lines of poetry, usually cited in the original French, from Villon: "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan ?" ('But where are the snows of yesteryear ?'). Both books have this line, in both French and English, but only Bartlett's will lead you to it if you look for the French 'neiges' in the index. To find the line in YBQ, you need to look in the index for 'snows,' not actually a word used, even in English, by those who love this line.

Speaking of indexes, well, the YBQ's is awful. It is radically shorter than Bartlett's. It will not lead you to a page number but only to the name of the writer-source of the quotation. And these sources are not always easy to find in the body of the YBQ because the page headings are organized in an eccentric way.

But my biggest problem with the YBQ arises from its quirky way of dealing with disputed attributions. Shapiro, the YBQ's editor, is good about signaling when there is a problem. But he feels called upon to come down on one side or another about whether a given quotation is genuine or spurious.

Here are some examples:

Concerning George Washington and that famous hatchet, Shapiro tells us "apocryphal" (p. 804) without bothering to tell us why he thinks so. Lenin's statement about "useful idiots," Shapiro says, "seems to be a myth" (p. 452). On the other hand, he comes down on the side of authenticity in the case of a statement made by the Nazi-era Pastor Niemöller (p. 551). To his credit, he seems neutral in the case of an alleged statement by Adolf Hitler (p. 361).

These questions of attribution are difficult, and absent a great deal of research, are difficult to make. I think that he is almost certainly wrong about Niemöller, but nobody will expect him to be an expert on everything. It would have been much wiser for him to simply state, in most if not all these cases, that there is doubt about authenticity, to give whatever sources are available, and to let it go at that.

YBQ has a total of 1067 pages. Not bad. But my old Bartlett's has 1750 pages, each one of which seems denser than those of YBQ. Much of the difference comes from the fact that Bartlett's has a magnificent, thorough index of quotations, taking up 593 pages. YBQ's index of 212 pages is no by means puny, but it doesn't compare. Fortunately I do have enough space for both of these works, and they now stand side by side, in uneasy companionship, on my long-suffering shelf.

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now who the heck said that?, October 10, 2006

By	Senator (San Diego, California United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon has it a bit wrong on this page, as Joseph Epstein wrote the foreword and not the book. This excellent work is edited by Fred R. Shapiro, who also wrote, The Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations. Mr. Shapiro is an associate librarian and lecturer in legal research at the Yale Law School library.

Quotes can be elusive buggers with attributions mistakenly attached to numerous celebrity names and quote books have a reputation of not always being accurate or reporting sources (right or wrong). The Yale Book of Quotations seeks to change that by tracing quotes back to their original source. It took a number of years, a lot of digging through databases, paging through old books and newspapers, and contributions from a dedicated bunch of researchers to make this happen.

Fred R. Shapiro's The Yale Book of Quotations is highly accurate and very useful for people trying to find out who was the first to say what, so if you need to spice up that speech with a couple of useful quotes, or just impress your friends with your quote trivia ability, this book is for you.