Can anyone tell me where this insipid quote comes from?
And I don’t want opinions, I want citations. Something I can look up and verify.
“Work like you don’t need the money; Love like you’ve never been hurt; Dance like no one is watching.”
I’ve seen it attributed to Satchel Paige of all people. How possible is that?
While we’re at it, can anyone verify that John Cage wrote this?
“Writing about Music is like Dancing about Architecture.”
I’m really really sure he did, as I distinctly remember him talking about how gthe only way to properly critique music is to write your own in response, but it’s been a long time since I read Silence. In the meantime, I’ve seen it attributed to David Byrne, Frank Zappa, Lauria Anderson and others.
Other sites seem to agree that it’s anonymous. I have noticed that a few versions I’ve read don’t contain the lines you quote (they are at the end) so I can’t really say whether someone has decided they look good there, or whether others have decided that they don’t.
As for the John Cage quote, the answer seems to be that nobody knows the source for sure:
Last line of this article and this board post seem to support this theory. Google searches cite Frank Zappa heavily, but also Elvis Costello, John Cage and Laurie Anderson.
I’m sorry, but doing a Google search isn’t really citations. I’m looking for something solid in a book. If we’re counting on the teeming millions to know what they’re talking about or to get all the facts right, we wouldn’t need Cecil, would we?
Does anyone really believe Mark Twain would say something so sappy?
As I said: it seems to be Mark Twain. If several hundred or thousand people believe it was, doesn’t that at least encourage you to check yourself (in a library, as Coldie says)?
I really don’t care either way. I was trying to answer the question.
I would like to nominate happylittlevegemite for Greatest User Name Ever
and then I would like to nominate Risser for Fly Off The Handle OP Of The Year.
If you don’t trust our legwork, do your own. sheesh. You do know that when you click on something in Google, it leads you to a website which may have ‘solid facts’, right?
Sheesh. Sorry. It’s not that I don’t trust your legwork, but I know how to check Google. I was really hoping for something a little more complete.
And, yeah, I should re-read Silence and find the damned Cage quote myself, but I hoped that I’d be able to find someone who already knew, or had a reference.
That’s all.
And sure, you said it “might be” Mark Twain, but it might also have been Henry Rollins or Son of Sam. I’m really interested in who it was.
If I come off nasty, I apologize. I don’t mean to be snide. I simply am looking for some hard evidence, not just a Google search.
And aren’t you guys a little tender for supposed readers of Cecil’s tirades?
Risser…I don’t get it. What do you want? For us to mail you a book? For one of us to say that WE wrote the quote? For me to tell you that Bartlett is my dad? the internet is the greatest resource we’ve got, as it leads us to experts on the widest variety of subjects.
I don’t think you come off as snide, so much as ‘quick to anger’, a trait that the great holy bible says we should avoid.
Your OP states that you think the quotes are insipid…so what the holy living crap do you care? It’s like you’re all fired up and it just doesn’t…matter!
I offer you the same note that I offer Russell Crowe every time I see him on the screen:
Well, I’m glad I’m not snide, but I didn’t think I was angry. Sorry again.
I guess what I want is for someone to say they know where the quotes came from and to back it up with some sort of bibliographical cross reference.
Maybe that was too much to ask. I just sorta assumed that all y’all was so much smarter than I and you’d have all sorts of quotation books lying around and stuff.
I can see I’m gonna have to look up the Cage quote myself. Too bad I don’t have a John Cage Concordance.
But doesn’t anyone agree with me that it seems beyond possibility that Mark Twain would have penned such an uncynical remark (or set of remarks, as it were)?
And is it too much to call people to the floor for asserting stuff based on a single web search in a forum that routinely corrects people on smallish matters of grammar and sports rules?
Doesn’t anyone want to take my side? Wanh! Wanh! Wanh!
Sorry. Self-pity frenzy over. Get on with your lives, citizens.
Work like you don’t need the money.
Love like you’ve never been hurt.
Dance like nobody’s watching.
Sing like nobody’s listening.
Live like it’s heaven on earth.
When you read these all in a row, I suddenly feel like Rowdy Roddy Piper in “They Live”. Fnord!
