Reviews

 

Lively, informed...Reading this is great fun.

Seattle Times

 

Keyes's research unearths interesting, often surprising facts about who said what when -- as well as enough errors in standard references to suggest his volume deserves a place in most quotation collections.

Booklist

 

A book my friend Gene Shalit sent me the other day [is] called appropriately enough "Nice Guys Finish Seventh." ... If you want to know more of who didn't say what -- including a whole list of things that Mark Twain never said -- get the book.

Louisville Courier-Journal

 

Keyes has condensed 20 years of research into a newly released myth-buster called "Nice Guys Finish Seventh".

Tampa Tribune

 

You can tell what Keyes is up to from the title: He takes quotations we're all familiar with and shows how and why they are really misquotes, and searches out the origin of phrases that have become almost part of the language without our thinking about it.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

 

Keyes points out that the prevalence of misquotes has not abated, notwithstanding the greater ability of technology to help record things accurately. Misquotes occur because we hear what and by whom we want to hear something said.

Montreal Gazette

 

An interesting compendium.

Parade

Quotation collector and corrector Keyes traces the origins and restores the originals of several hundred familiar sayings from the worlds of sports, politics, entertainment, and literature. ... [Source] notes document every case, and the keyword and personal name indexes lend it reference value to set the record straight, a record, as he notes in many instances, that other quotations books sometimes get it wrong.

Wilson Library Bulletin

 

Keyes's book, which I would recommend to reference departments, is a fascinating compilation of well-known sayings, phrases and quotations that are inaccurate, misattributed, or both.

RQ

 

Reference value aside, it's the bumper harvest of good quotes that make the book so pleasurable.

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