[Ads-l] Unsourced quotation

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Flannery O'Connor did employ a version of the saying in a letter she
wrote in 1948, but she disclaimed credit and pointed to an "old lady".
O'Connor was probably referring to the anonymous "old lady" whom E. M.
Forster ascribed the saying to in 1927.

[ref] 1979, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor, Edited
by Sally Fitzgerald, Part I: Up North and Getting Home 1948-1952,
Letter date: July 21, 1948, Start Page 5, Quote Page 5, Farrar,
Straus, Giroux, New York. (Verified with scans) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
What you say about the novel, Rinehart, advances, etc. sounds very
good to me, but I must tell you how I work. I don't have my novel
outlined and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old
lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I
have to say it over again.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 3:39 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Here is an excerpt from a pertinent article about this family of
> sayings on the Quote Investigator website.
>
> How Can I Know What I Think Till I See What I Say?
> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/12/11/know-say/
>
> [Begin excerpt from QI article - mention of boldface type has been deleted]
> The earliest match known to QI appeared in the 1926 book “The Art of
> Thought” by Graham Wallas who was Professor Emeritus of Political
> Science at the University of London. Wallas suggested that the
> processes of thinking and expressing were entangled for the poet
> because the precise selection of words was crucial to success. Wallas
> attributed the saying under examination to an anonymous young girl:[1]
>
> [Begin nested quotation]
> The little girl had the making of a poet in her who, being told to be
> sure of her meaning before she spoke, said, “How can I know what I
> think till I see what I say?” A modern professed thinker must,
> however, sooner or later in the process of thought, make the conscious
> effort of expression, with all its risks.
> [End nested quotation]
>
> The next match known to QI appeared in the 1927 book “Aspects Of The
> Novel” by the prominent literary figure E. M. Forster who discussed
> the recent novel “Les Faux Monnayeurs” (“The Counterfeiters”) by André
> Gide. Gide’s complex work employed a novel-within-a-novel framework,
> and its plot was presented via fragments. Forster stated that the
> novel was “all to pieces logically”.
>
> In the following passage, Forster attributed the saying under
> examination to an old lady in an anecdote. The phrase “distinguished
> critic” was a humorous reference to the old lady:[2]
>
> [Begin nested quotation]
> Another distinguished critic has agreed with Gide—that old lady in the
> anecdote who was accused by her nieces of being illogical. For some
> time she could not be brought to understand what logic was, and when
> she grasped its true nature she was not so much angry as contemptuous.
> “Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish!” she exclaimed. “How can I tell
> what I think till I see what I say?” Her nieces, educated young women,
> thought that she was passée; she was really more up to date than they
> were.
> [End nested quotation]
> [End excerpt from QI article]
>
> Thus, the saying was popularized by both Graham Wallas and E. M.
> Forster although both disclaimed credit for authorship. Instead, the
> words were ascribed to two anonymous figures: a little girl and an old
> lady. The saying has also been attributed to Gide. The passage above
> is not easy to parse. But QI believes that the attribution to Gide is
> based on a misreading of Forster.
>
> [1] 1926 Copyright, The Art of Thought by Graham Wallas (Professor
> Emeritus of Political Science at the University of London), Chapter 4:
> Stages of Control, Quote Page 106, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New
> York. (Verified with scans)
>
> [2] 1927 Copyright, Aspects Of The Novel by E. M. Forster, Chapter 5:
> The Plot, Quote Page 152, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York.
> (Verified with scans)
>
> Citation number [1] is listed in “The Yale Book of Quotations”.
>
> Garson O'Toole
> QuoteInvestigator.com
>
> On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 12:45 PM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Arnold Zwicky writes in his blog
> > https://arnoldzwicky.org/2023/01/17/the-bearded-cartoonist-post-simectomy/#more-125699
> > (last two paragraphs):
> >
> > >>>>>
> > Famously, Flannery O’Connor is quoted as explaining: “I write because I
> > don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”
> >
> > So she is quoted, again and again, but never with an actual source that I
> > can find. However, the leading idea in her quote has been expressed in
> > various ways by a considerable number of writers in citable places, among
> > them George Bernard Shaw, Stephen King, William Faulkner, and Joan Didion.
> > Didion’s pithy version: “I don’t know what I think until I write it down”.
> > <<<<<
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org