Very nice, Alias. I have a sudden craving for tea and cake.

A week ago I relayed our discussion to the http://quoteinvestigator.com/ - a site I happened to come across that day. And today I got a reply:

Quote:


Not so much new, but it seems the quote is most likely not a Woody Allen original. Anyone know of a French Quote Investigator?

MNb wrote on 08/25/11 at 22:16:27:


As they say in the movies, I believe that Markovich believes that Allen said this in a film. 

But human memory is very unreliable, and without a reference to a specific film or even plot content / circumstances to why it was said - and with no mention of such a film reference to be found on the net, I doubt that he said it in a film. Maybe a quick remark by Allen in a tv-show, documentary or similar has been turned into a line in a film by his memory - stranger things have happened.

Woody Allen has a lot of fans and funny quotes so it's not very likely that this specific quote would not be referenced by someone while so many other lesser films have their own web pages of best quotes. 

For example, I watched one yesterday and doubt anyone would have trouble finding what film this is from, even though it's not an exact quote:

"Do you believe me now? The Devil has blown up your church!"
"It wasn't the Devil, it was those God-damned Baptists!"

Markovich wrote on 08/25/11 at 17:12:54:

I agree.

AlanG wrote on 08/25/11 at 16:41:28:

Ah, Allen loses his (0,1) point. His book is from 1980. I quit the Allen camp, even though I am not willing yet to assume it's not in his book.

AlanG wrote on 08/25/11 at 16:41:28:

Now the obvious question is: who was that Czech? Is there any indication that Frot had Kafka in mind? And can the two be linked, directly or indirectly?

TalJechin wrote on 08/25/11 at 16:07:01:

I'm not sure this is enough for a point, or else Woody Allen would be well in the lead. There are lots of attributions to Allen that don't give an original source.

There are similar ones (but fewer) for Kafka. For example, "Le Dictionnaire des citations du XXe siècle" Jérôme Duhamel, Albin-Michel 1999. It gives "Journées intimes" by Francois Bott as its source, and of course he doesn't give any source. 

I think the French version of the quote (at least) probably pre-dates Allen. For example it appears in the novel "Le roi des rats" by Maurice Frot (you can find this on Google books, but only in snippet view). He seems to be attributing it, obliquely, to Kafka ("disait le Tchèque") but the important thing is that the book is from 1965. That seems a bit too early to have been a translation from Allen (not impossible, but unlikely).

I think it's interesting that only in France does there seem to be any doubt that it's by Woody Allen. Maybe people are aware that the phrase is older than that, even if they're not sure about its exact origin. So perhaps it's originally a French expression, author unknown.

According to Marvin, "The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline."

AlanG wrote on 08/23/11 at 20:49:34:


It does contain 23 hits for the word "end" but none of them is a hit either. So, it's 0-0 again.