<p>Does anyone know the source of this quote? I had no luck Googling it.</p>
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<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Sorry I can’t help: my knowledge ends with Google. :)</p>
<p>Through Google, I find it on a blog by Dewey1025 on Xanga. Perhaps Dewey made up the quote.</p>
<p>Adad~</p>
<p>I don’t know who wrote that, but it conjures up a beautiful mental image! :)</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>It sounds like Ellen Gilchrist, but I’m not sure that’s (or she’s) distinctive enough to exclude 30 or 40 other authors who might have written it.</p>
<p>Now that we are guessing :), I’m going to guess that it is from the movies, not print. It is “familiar” sounding to me. Not saying I’ve read it, more like I’ve “heard” it. As I’m out on limb here, I might as well guess 1930-1949.</p>
<p>p.s. I also was stumped on google, ask.com, and dogpile.</p>
<p>It reminds me of Virginia Wolf (specifically Mrs. Dalloway) - but surely that would have come up in a google search.</p>
<p>It isn’t Mrs. Dalloway, I recently re-read that book in-depth for a literature course.
Definitely not Woolf.
Looks like it’s not a book, either, because Google Book Search doesn’t have any matches. Short story? Somehow, the word “She’d” makes me think it isn’t literature.</p>
<p>I don’t think Mrs. Dalloway put flowers in jelly jars and old china pots. That’s 100% American, probably within the last 30 years. Also, it is a little trite. I can’t judge by this fragment, but if it were Woolf it would have to be ironic, poking fun at her character. My suggestion of Gilchrist is based on the idea that there is mild mockery of residual belle-ism going on. But for some other authors, it might be straight. </p>
<p>I also don’t think it’s from a movie. It’s far too wordy for movie dialogue, even Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.</p>
<p>And I don’t think Google Book Search is comprehensive for anything, yet, but certainly not relatively current stuff.</p>
<p>okay, who is going to send Dewey1025 a message asking her where that quote came from? :)</p>
<p>I do think it’s from a movie or play. Of course, IMDB doesn’t have it in its “quotes” library, so I could be wrong. The first thing I thought of was “Stage Door”, since it sounds like one of Hepburn’s speeches, but those were calla lilies. Oh well.</p>
<p>If someone has a copy of “The Glass Menagerie,” he or she could check the opening narration. I could see this as part of the Williams-stand-in’s description of his mother. Or maybe some other Williams play. I’m pretty sure there are gardenia-lovers in there somewhere.</p>
<p>I was speaking of a voice over or narration. I, too, was thinking American , and most probably southern. I did not find it trite, with all of “trite’s” negatives. I prefer “sentimental”, and I don’t believe the author is mocking sentimentality. And while it may very well be from a piece that juxtaposes this sentimentality against a brutish or modern backdrop IMO it is handled delicately , and with a deft and caring touch.</p>
<p>It is still familiar to me. I can “hear” the words being delivered. Somebody needs to ask the xanga person, and there is a shorter quote on myspace.</p>
<p>Yeah note the “said she” instead of “she said.” Definitely not written.</p>
<p>M-cookie, please message the xanga and myspace folks. This is now o-fficially killing me. I won’t do it for fear of the FBI swooping down on my 50 year old self. :eek: I don’t think I know all the rules anymore.;)</p>
<p>I find it poorly written and pretentious. For example, “She’d take daily cuttings and place their creamy velvet-like blooms …” Presumably she “placed” the cuttings themselves, not only the blooms, in the jars and pots. And “daily cuttings” seems odd to me - it’s the action of taking, not the cuttings, that are “daily.” And it seems to me that there is something off about the “Like …, they …” construction, that is used twice, although I can’t put my finger on it. </p>
<p>But I’m not at all an expert on language.</p>
<p>NYMom: aw, come on…clearly it’s not a formal written work</p>
<p>ADad: if you don’t know the source of that quotation…where did you get it from? It’s pretty long so you obviously didn’t get it from memory. Where did you see it/copy it down from?</p>
<p>I know; I can’t help picking apart other people’s (or my own) writing. It’s a bad habit.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, it was said by the New York Times in their obituary of Billie Holiday. Whether that is original, I can’t tell.</p>
<p>Was it in the movie “The Notebook” or “Big Fish”.</p>