(Ooops, did I say that out loud?) I'm working on a new manuscript, and of course I can tell at a glance that the author has just googled "quotes on virtue" and chosen something without verifying, well, anything.
(sigh)
No, really. I am so over this. For one thing, author friends, there's lots of things you can do with that space under the chapter title (it's called an epigraph); it doesn't have to be a quote about virtue. Or a quote at all. It could be a clever subtitle. It could be a teaser sentence or question. It could be, you know, blank space.
But people have seen the clever quote thing and are determined to have it, and google "quotes on virtue" and here we are, with Your Editor ranting.
Has life in the twenty-first century taught us nothing, friends? You can't necessarily trust everything you see on the Google. You have to develop "trusted sources." Which I have done over the previous decades.
And I've gotten pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. For one thing, I've developed a sixth sense about the veracity of some pithy little saying an author wants to use. I can just about tell by looking whether it's true or not—especially if it's attributed to any of these:
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Winston Churchill
Mother Teresa (ugh, don't use her, just don't)
Mark Twain
John Wooden
Martin Luther King Jr.
I've also gotten pretty good at tracking stuff down—and some of you have been asking for this information, so here goes. First, this is what you need to establish:
1) Quote is worded and punctuated correctly, as it was in the original source.
2) Quote is attributed to the correct person.
3) Original source of the quote—a book? article? speech? interview?—and pertinent information (date, for example).
Quote sites—Brainyquotes, for example—are not reliable for any of this information. No, Goodreads isn't either. Worse, they all copy themselves and perpetuate the errors, and lazy writers—"10 Great Quotes from Benjamin Franklin" in Parade magazine (I'm making this up, but seriously, all sorts of magazines you've heard of have done this sort of thing)—do too. And there are tons of published books out there with bad attribution or sources because the publisher's editor was too damned lazy to check. Yes, I'm getting cranky in my old age but seriously, shame on the lazy editors.
If you need some actual researched help, look at my article "Researching Quotes."
Now, if you want to read more, here's a list of my articles with links, and the articles follow this one:
No, You May Not Use Brainyquote.com as Your Source (And Other Thoughts About Quotations)
The Internet Can Be Unreliable
Watch Those Quotes!
Someone Is Wrong on the Internet (An Update)
Falser Words Were Never Spoken
An Update on the Hallmark Card Company (Sort Of)
Let Us Now Quote Famous Men
Telling the Truth
Now, go out there and check your quotes!
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