Quirky Quotations: More Than 500 Fascinating, Quotable Comments and the Stories Behind Them

Most reference questions dealing with quotations are either of the who-said-what or of the what-can-I-use-in-my-speech genre. Although this volume might be used in these ways, the lack of an index makes it more of a browsing volume. The author ( The Cat's Pajamas: A Fabulous Fictionary of Familiar Phrases , Fawcett: Ballantine, 1988; Curious Customs: The Stories Behind 296 Popular American Rituals , Harmony: Crown, 1988) deliberately omits the most quoted (Shakespeare, Wilde, Shaw, Mencken, Ecclesiastes) to concentrate on the less well known or off the wall.