The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations - Hardcover

Knowles, Elizabeth

3.64

47 ratings by Goodreads

9780198662754: The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198662750 ISBN 13: 9780198662754

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2002

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From Scott's Antarctic expedition in 1912 to the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, charting watersheds such as two World Wars as well as the ebbs and flows of popular culture, the quotations in this collection provide a picture of the social, political, cultural and scientific concerns of modern times. Containing over 5000 quotations from authors as diverse as Elizabeth Arden, Billy Connolly, Bertolt Brecht, Linda Evangelista, Eddie Izzard, Alison Lurie, Carl Sagan, William Shatner and Desmond Tutu, the dictionary is author-organized with cross-referencing and keyword and thematic indexes. Special categories for film taglines and cartoon captions have been added to accompany misquotations, official advice and newspaper headlines.

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Review:

From the deeply serious to the frivolous, key quotations of today underpinned by landmark voices of the past in over 5,000 quotations.

From the Publisher:

The perfect answer

The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations 2/e is an author-organized text with over 5,000 quotations, covering 1900--2001. There are 15 special category sections, with the new Cartoon captions ("On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog") and Taglines for films ("In space no one can hear you scream") being added to existing favourites like Advertising slogans ("The future's bright, the future's Orange"), Film lines ("I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant" -- Tora! Tora! Tora!), and Official advice ("Duck and cover", "Just say no"). With generous cross-referencing and keyword and thematic indexes, Modern Quotations is perfectly designed to answer the questions, "Who said that...and when...and why?"

Yesterday and today

All quotations are from the 20th or 21st centuries, and the book concentrates on those who were alive in or after 1914 (taking the First World War as the cultural watershed of the modern period). The book records resonant moments of the past ("It's bursting into flames...Oh, the humanity" -- eyewitness report of the Hindenburg disaster, 1937, and "the world stood like a playing card on edge" -- Norman Mailer on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962), as well as the interests and concerns of today. Past and present, in fact, often seem to intermingle. We may think of "asylum-seekers" as a phenomenon of today, but Bertolt Brecht writes in the 1930s of those who "went, as often changing countries as changing shoes." Rebecca West, speaking of Yugoslavia in the same decade, concludes that if she were to ask one of the peasants there "in your lifetime, have you known peace?" and were magically able to pursue her question back through the generations, "I would never hear the word "Yes", if I carried my questioning of the dead back for a thousand years." At a memorial service in New York after the terrorist attacks of September 2001, Tony Blair quoted from Thornton Wilder's novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), "Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love."

Wit and Frivolity

Modern Quotations is both informative and entertaining: the tone ranges from the deeply serious to the witty and even surreal. Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition, appearing when nobody expects it, can now be paired with Eddie Izzard's vision of how an Anglican Inquisition might have interrogated its victims: "Cake or death?" "Cake, please." Gore Vidal explains his decision to vote for Ralph Nader instead of his own cousin Al Gore in the presidential election of 2000 by saying, "in the long run, Gore is thicker than Nader." John Cleese comments on the popularity of his Ministry of Silly Walks sketch: "It's probably why I had to have a hip replacement." And John McEnroe, watching a characteristically nail-biting Tim Henman match comments wryly to Henman's fans, "He doesn't make it easy for you guys."

Inspiration

It is often said that this is the age of the cynical soundbite, but inspirational quotations are here too, from Michael J. Fox on Parkinson's disease ("It's about losing your brain without losing your mind") to the Canadian wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen's comment, "You have to be the best with what you have." The famously acid-tongued American TV host David Letterman, when The Late Show came back on air in the aftermath of 11 September, eschewed sarcasm to say simply of Rudolph Giuliani's leadership, "If you didn't know how to behave, all you had to do at any moment was watch the mayor."

Rich and diverse

The coverage is comprehensive, with key comments of today underpinned by landmark voices of the past, as the history of modern times is reflected through this rich and diverse assembly of quotations.

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