
How did the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations first come to be? Answers Who are the most prolific authors of quotations? How do you make sure a new quotation is genuine? How do you decide whether a new quotation should be included in an Oxford dictionary?

Then again, Dorothy Parker has something to say on this.Īre there tips on searching for quotations in Oxford Reference? It would be wonderful to set one's eyes on the face that launched a thousand ships. Wouldn't that work wonders for sales? (If Shakespeare is otherwise engaged, I'd be very happy to entertain Helen of Troy to dinner. How come we know so little about him when he knows so much about us? I want to find out more-and think of it: after dinner with Shakespeare I'd be able to include some Shakespeare quotations in the Dictionary's next edition.


I have never committed murder-largely, I think, because Wilde's sound advice was passed on to me when I was young: ‘One should never do anything one cannot talk about after dinner.’ Which figure in history would you most like to invite to a dinner party? What would you ask him/her? Oscar Wilde is the guy with the greatest number of entries in the Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations and he deserves to be. Their best lines are wise as well as witty and, often, unexpected. One or other of them appears in nearly every entry – even, on occasion, talking about each other. Wodehouse and Oscar Wilde from the British Isles. If you are compiling a dictionary of humorous quotations there are four giants you can't avoid: Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker, from the other side of the pond, and P. Which historical events or figures featured in the Dictionary have most influenced your study of quotations? It is a great line to bear in mind when you are facing Life and its Challenges and everything seems to be getting on top of you. 'Nothing matters very much and very few things matter at all.’ This wonderful line is the work of Arthur Balfour, who trained as a philosopher and ended up as prime minister in 1902. Author Q&A What is the one quotation that everyone-from students to everyday web users-should be familiar with? Why? A former Oxford scholar and President of the Oxford Union, a journalist and award-winning interviewer, a theatre producer, an actor and after-dinner speaker, he has been collecting quotations for more than fifty years. He has also featured on Have I Got News For You, QI, Countdown, This Is Your Life, and Desert Island Discs. Gyles Brandreth is a writer, broadcaster, former MP and government whip, now best known as a reporter for The One Show on BBC1, a regular on Just A Minute, and the host of Wordaholics on BBC Radio 4. See all the books about Quotations available on Oxford Reference >
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‘Who said that?’ is the most frequently asked question relating to quotations it is closely followed by the more general ‘What's been said about this?’ Oxford Reference provides the tools for answering both kinds of query, in a series of dictionaries compiled from our Quotation resources.įeatured author | FAQs | Featured blogs | Additional resources | How to subscribe | Contact us In doing so, it has created the rich language resource from which the Oxford University Press ‘family’ of quotations dictionaries derives. New subjects include Media and Spelling.įor over 70 years, Oxford University Press has been collecting, sourcing, researching, and authenticating quotations on an international scale. Now in this fifth edition, over 180 subjects have been updated with new quotations added from over 190 authors, including over 60 new authors ranging from Dan Brown to Tracey Emin, from Hokusai to Emil Zatopek.

NEW: Oxford Essential Quotations, 5th edition
