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Knoxville News-Sentinel By Sam Venable I’ve been planning this for weeks, ever since I happened upon a copy of “The Quote Verifier” by Ralph Keyes in the reference department of Lawson McGhee Library. (Well, no; that’s not wholly accurate. I didn’t “happen upon” Keyes’ book. I went to the reference department with the express purpose …

Syracuse Post-Standard By Frank Herron Independence Day brings with it a celebration of this country’s Founding Fathers and other giants of American history. The reputation of these famous people is often based on the words they said. But sometimes the famous words were never spoken by the famous mouth. Enter Ralph Keyes – a self-styled …

Seattle Times By Mary Ann Gwinn, book editor Thanks to “The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where and When” by Ralph Keyes (St. Martin’s Press, $15.95), I may be as close as I’ll ever get to finding out who first uttered my all-time favorite quote, which is: “The road to hell is paved with good …

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette By Cristina Rouvalis Say it ain’t so. A crestfallen boy didn’t tell “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” And Mark Twain likely didn’t coin “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” It wasn’t Vince Lombardi who first proclaimed, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” At …

Toronto Globe and Mail By Michael Kesterton Why is it so easy to get quotations wrong? “Our memory wants quotations to be better than they usually were, and said by the person we want to have said them,” writes Ralph Keyes in The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When. A good line — …

Washington Post By Ralph Keyes Political figures routinely get their quotations wrong. No modern politician has stood out quite so much in this regard as John F. Kennedy. JFK loved to pepper his speeches and public statements with quotations. This not only perked up his prose, but improved his press by giving him an air …