Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1377561 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1056 pages

Synopsis
The newest, most comprehensive collection of quotations to come along in decades, Random House Webster's Quotationary is now available as a trade paperback. This bestselling reference guide is an invaluable tool for speechwriters, students and researchers alike, or a perfect gift for any wordsmith. Over 20,000 quotations from the famous, infamous and legendary. Over 1,500 categories of quotations. Easy to use - arranged by subject, with an extensive keyword index and cross-referencing.

From the Publisher
20,000 quotations, arranged by SUBJECT for easy use!
At last, a thorough and up-to-date quote collection that's organized the way you want to look up quotes: by subject!

Now you can look up any subject (arranged alphabetically) and find an unrivalled collection of quotations. Look up "Books," for example, and find quotes from sources as varied as Emily Dickinson and Malcolm X.

Collected here are quotes from Bill Gates on Computers, Mario Puzo on Lawyers, Dorothy Allison on Fiction, Zsa Zsa Gabor on Sex, the Talmud on Wisdom. Includes many classic sayings, as well as hundreds of more unusual and contemporary quotations.

Clear cross-references at every subject direct you to quotes on related subjects, and an index by author allows you to find a specific quote or speaker easily.

After browsing through Random House Webster's Quotationary, you will never want to go back to your old quotation books -- where quotes are arranged chronologically by author?! -- again.

From the Author
A readable, well-organized, and scholarly quote book
The "Random House Webster's Quotationary" has been a long time in the making. In 1960, six years after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, I took stock of myself and realized that my education had been entirely too narrow. To increase my knowledge and broaden my understanding, I undertook a course of self-education centered around studying and reading, mostly nonfiction works in subjects like history, economics, the arts, philosophy, war, nature, psychology, spirituality, biography, and politics. From the beginning I copied the most quoteworthy thoughts I ran across into notebooks and, since 1986, into a computer, organizing the materials by category and alphabetically by author within each category. It was from the 40,000 quotations gathered in this way during nearly four decades that I selected the 20,000 which make up the "Quotationary."

The "Quotationary" draws from - without being stuck in - the past; its emphasis is on materials from the twentieth century, with an eye to the twenty-first century and beyond. Most of the entries appear in a book of quotations for the first time. In addition to being a scholarly reference work, I wanted the "Quotationary" to be a highly readable collection of the world's most inspiring, provocative, informative and amusing ideas and observations. I also wanted it to be a overview of world culture, a way of introducing readers to the wit, wisdom, knowledge, and ignorance of the ages that could serve as a catalyst for creative personal and social change.

Whether I've succeeded in this is, of course, something readers will decide for themselves. But their response (as of 4 June 1999) has been most gratifying. One of them, William Safire, in his "New York Times Magazine" Sunday column (13 December 1998), described the "Quotationary" as a "tome for the holidays and for all seasons."

Customer Reviews

Move over Bartlett's
If wisdom can be put in words, the words are in this book. Move over Bartlett's, the Quotationary will set the agenda for quotations for the next 100 years.