When you ’re one of themost quoted authorsof all time , you ’re also bound to become one of the mostmisquotedauthors of all time . Such is the case withMark Twain , whose famous quip about his owndeathis oft butchered by well - meaning supporter , asThis Day In Quotesexplains .
You ’ve plausibly discover that Twain once said , “ The written report of my death are greatly magnified , ” or another common version curb the musical phrase “ grossly overstated . ” The gist of the quote is accurate , but neither wording is quite correct .
couplet is one of the few people in history who was lucky ( or ill-fated ) enough to comment onnewspaper reports of his own decease . In 1897 , an English journalist from theNew York Journalcontacted Twain to inquire whether the hearsay that he was gravely ill or already all in were indeed true . couple wrote a reply , part of which made it intothe articlethat ran in theJournalon June 2 , 1897 :
“ Mark Twain was undecided whether to be more amuse or annoyed when aJournalrepresentative inform him today of the report in New York that he was break in impoverishment in London … The great humourist , while not perhaps very robust , is in the best of health . He said : ‘ I can understand perfectly how the composition of my illness got about , I have even heard on good authority that I was dead . James Ross Clemens , a cousin of mine , was badly ill two or three weeks ago in London , but is well now . The report of my illness originate out of his illness . The theme of my dying was an exaggeration . ’ ”
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ostensibly , many of the misquoted versions stem from aMark Twain biographyby Albert Bigelow Paine publish in 1912 , two years after Twain ’s actual death . accord to Paine ’s dramatize version , Twain had tell the newsperson , “ Just say the report of my death has been grossly enlarged . ”
That ’s not the only Twain quote that ’s been a little blow up over the years . Many other witty maxims often attributed to the author have even more in question origins . You may also remember the quote , “ I have never killed a man , but I have translate many obituary with great pleasure . ” Or perhaps this one : “ It is better to keep your back talk keep out and come along stupid than to open it and remove all doubt . ” While they ’re often attribute to Twain , henever saideither of them .
fortuitously , there are still plenty of good — and accurate — Twain quotesto go around .
[ h / tThis Day in Quotes ]
A interlingual rendition of this news report was published in 2018 ; it has been updated for 2023 .
