The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations

Előszó

Foreword
This new edition is very different from its predecessors - when it was first published over twenty years ago, its latest quotation was Richard Nixon's celebration of the first moon landing as 'the greatest week in the history of the world since the creation'. Our book was conceived as a complement to the original Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, a collection of twentieth-century lines that were either remembered, memorable or deserved to be recalled. But where the original dictionary of quotations was (and still is) a reference book containing thousands of classic entries that cannot be left out, from the Bible to Byron, from Shakespeare to Shaw, a modem dictionary is far more subjective, an anthology of the treasurable, drawn from the page and the screen, from songs and advertisements, from graffiti and Graham Greene. Some entries have proved ephemeral and have lost their place, but we have kept the words of First World War songs and Second World War radio catchphrases; though they may stir no memories in our younger readers, they will be recollected by older ones. We have also added large numbers from the last decade. Selection remains personal, however, and the quotation gatherer like the historian finds it easier to be judicious over the significance of his or her material when it is no longer quite contemporary.
This third edition sees a major change in policy. When the book was first published, we avoided any overlap with The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations itself. Since Churchill's unforgettable eulogy to the pilots of the Battle of Britain, 'Never in the field of human
conflict was so much owed by so many to so few', had deserved its place in our first dictionary, we felt it should not reappear in its twentieth-century companion volume. Yet his put-down of Montgomery, 'in defeat unbeatable, in victory unbearable', appeared in Modern Quotations. The output of many other writers was split somewhat arbitrarily between the volumes, and readers were surprised by what seemed like glaring omissions. We have now corrected this confusing division. The greatly expanded New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations reaches far deeper into the twentieth century and contains all the classic lines from Churchill and Chesterton, from Auden and Orwell, while this third edition of its contemporary cousin, The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations, now renamed The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations, contains all these inescapable entries plus many more: a deeper trawl of Stoppard, say, with forty-four entries as opposed to the eight in the senior book. Churchill's contribution of fifty-one in The New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations swells to twice that number in this dictionary, allowing for such delightful descriptions as that of Foster Dulles as the 'only case I know of a bull who carries his own china shop around with him'. So The New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations remains the dictionary of necessary quotations extended into the 1990s, and this volume, we hope, retains its mix of the indispensable and the unfamiliar - a combination of '1 always wondered who said that' with 'I wish I had said that'.
As hunter-gatherers from more than nine decades, we have been immensely helped by
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Fülszöveg

'To cite Conran's Law of Housework - it expands to fit the time available plus half an hour: so obviously it is never finished' - Shirley Conran
'There was no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse' - Quentin Crisp
This much updated and expanded edition of The Penguin Dictionary of Mbdern. Quotations now includes all the twentieth-century material from The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, supplemented by an extensive range of quotations not —^ covered in the parent dictionary.
Some of the quotes are funny and provocative, others offer wisdom and wit. There are sharp and sparkling entries from politicians and philosophers, including Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan and François Mitterrand, Roland Barthes and Bertrand Russell, and scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould; writers ranging from Carlos Fuentes, Martin Amis and Fay Weldon to Fran Lebowitz, Dorothy Parker and James Thurber,- and a galaxy of poets, painters, comedians and movie stars, from Woody Allen, Billy Connolly and Mae West to Henri Matisse, W. B. Yeats and James Fenton.
Entries are listed alphabetically by author, while an index of key words provides a guide to each quotation and its source. The result is a book that is an irresistible combination of the indispensable and the unfamiliar, perfect for browsing and for reference, for work and for pleasure.
The cover shows ABCD, Portrait of the Artist, 1923 by Raoul Hausmann, reproduced by courtesy of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 1997 Vissza