What happ'd to the Quotation Debate??

[Smartypants]

To arms! To arms! We need more quotation debaters! A bazillion belligerent people throughout history have said a gazillion contradictory things. Why has the Quotation Debate fizzled? It is SO swell! It’s one of my favorite ZF threads. C’mon folks!

Don’t be intimidated. I gather from some private conversations that some zemonkeys may have the mistaken impression that everyone posting to that thread has all that stuff in his/her head. Well, wouldn’t THAT be inhuman?

For those of you haven’t contributed because you’re not sure where to begin, here’s are some tips to get started:

Bartleby.com has three searchable quotation databases in its "Reference" section -- Bartlett’s, Simpson’s, and the Columbia Book of Quotations. The latter is by far the best. Search for words or themes from the last post.

EXAMPLES:

Sky blue posts the following:

“No matter how smart you are, you spend much of your day being an idiot.”
- Scott Adams

You can search for all sorts of things to find a sharp retort to this. Smart and idiot, of course, but also anything on that theme: Intelligence, stupidity, foolishness, “passing time,” etc. Perky Pat came up with this rejoinder:

“Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.”
--albert schweitze

Keywords for a response could be Behave, clever, sharp, imbecile, fool, man… (the possibilities are endless.) MasterofNone quoted the Bard:

“I had rather have a fool make me merry, than experience make me sad.”
--William Shakespeare

You might look up Merriment, experience, preferences, sadness, the blues. Hyakujo's Fox, who is quite the existentialist, came up with a surreal rejoinder from Camus. None of us have any idea what he meant by it:

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.”
--Albert Camus

Not knowing what the fark HF is talking about, I ponder what kind of metaphor this is, and searching Columbia’s Quotations for “metaphor,” I find this:

“A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.”
--G.C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg

Now the argument heats up: Hyakujo's Fox takes umbrage at my snipe and searches for quotations regarding metaphors and posts this snappy comeback:

“People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch.”
--Jack Nicholson

There’s fertile subject matter here for the debate to continue: crotch, genitalia, shampoo, soap, cleanliness. A quick search uncovers what seems like a sensible response:

“Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet’s job.”
--Jean Cocteau

See? A perfectly sensible and somewhat entertaining conversation, not always civil, is well underway, and anyone can join in.

There are lots of other resources, too. If a quotation reminds you of a song, and you don’t know all the words, just Google the parts you know. (A search for <“put up a parking lot” “Joni Mitchell” lyrics> will bring up the whole song; A Google search for brain scarecrow “Wizard of Oz” screenplay> will bring up the exact dialogue from the movie and tell you what the L. in the author’s name stands for.)

Anyone wanna take a stab?

[catbelly]

everyone is too intimidated to respond

[Smartypants]

Originally posted by catbelly
everyone is too intimidated to respond

nononono! That's just the point. There's no reason to be intimidated. It's fun. Dive in! pleeeeeze?

[catbelly]

Hee!! I'm just kidding. I think of the quotation debate and the image association thread as being very similar ... both are wonderful! I love seeing what people come up with... man I laugh really hard sometimes.

OK you've convinced me, will see you over there

[Smartypants]

Yay!!

[catbelly]

I busted my quotation cherry! I don't know who Bovee is, but dammit I quoted him/her!

[Hermione]

okay.. well.. I just tried it.. it was kinda fun..

Well, Mr. SP, you’ve convinced this monkey. I even have a cool url for you: http://www.quoteland.com/

(gleaned from refdesk.com)

cheerio.

okay… your link is infinitely better.

[Smartypants]

Originally posted by rapscalious rob
Well, Mr. SP, you’ve convinced this monkey. I even have a cool url for you: http://www.quoteland.com/

(gleaned from refdesk.com)

cheerio.

Totally cool. That's going in my bookmarks.

[JesusTitties]

[JesusTitties]

theres your cock ass quotation debate

[weissenflatz]

are these the latest queer newlyweds in the USA?

[Smartypants]

Originally posted by JesusTitties
theres your cock ass quotation debate

Who said dat? Francis Bacon? Winston Churchill? Lena Horne?

[Willow Sylph]

We are the keepers of the sacred words: Ni, Ping, and Neeee-wommmm! - Monty Python's Holy Grail