What motivated you to put together a book on quotations?
In 1993, I published the Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations, which used innovative techniques to collect and research famous quotations. I then decided to use similar techniques to compile a general quotation dictionary.
How did you first get associated with quotations?
I enjoyed looking at quotation dictionaries when I was young, and in college I edited a popular quotation feature in an alternative school newspaper.
What is unique about the Yale Book of Quotations?
The Yale Book of Quotations is the first major quotation book to emphasize on American sources, including popular culture, sports, technology, and politics. It is the first quotation book of any sort to use state-of-the-art computer-assisted research methods to comprehensively collect famous quotations and to trace quotations to their accurate origins.
How did you go about conducting your research? How big was the research team? How long did they work?
I looked at thousands of print sources and searched sophisticated online collections of historical text. I also submitted many queries to the Stumpers network of over a thousand reference librarians around the world. Some of these Stumpers participants became research editors who worked for several years verifying and researching quotations.
When one thinks quotations, one thinks of Bartlett. Will your book change that?
That's up to readers. Bartlett's is very entrenched in the American reference book marketplace, but I believe that my book is significantly more thorough and well-researched than Bartlett's.
Often, quotations are misattributed or misquoted. How did you overcome this problem?
Using advanced methods of print and online research, I verified the wording and sources of the quotations in my book. I then indicated in the book precise sources of the earliest appearance I could find for each quotation, together with discussions of origins that were uncertain or controversial.
Can you give us some examples of misattributed quotations?
The opera ain't over until the fat lady sings ~originated by Ralph Carpenter, not Dan Cook
When someone walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, he's a duck ~James Carey, not Walter Reuther
Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket ~Andrew Carnegie, not Mark Twain
Go West, young man ~Horace Greeley, not John Soule
War is hell ~Napoleon, not William Tecumseh Sherman
Murphy's Law ~George Orwell, not Edward A. Murphy
I cried all the way to the bank ~Walter Winchell, not Liberace
