“I would go to heaven, but I would take my hell; I would not go alone.”
Iría al paraíso, pero con mi infierno; solo, no.
Voces (1943)
As quoted in Vietnam Past and Present: The North, ed. Andrew Forbes and David Henley (Cognoscenti Books, 2012)
“I would go to heaven, but I would take my hell; I would not go alone.”
Iría al paraíso, pero con mi infierno; solo, no.
Voces (1943)
Edie describing a low point in her relationship with Bob Neuwirth
Edie : American Girl (1982)
Context: It was really sad - Bobby's and my affair. The only true, passionate, and lasting love scene, and I practically ended up in the psychopathic ward. I had really learned about sex from him, making love, loving, giving. It just completely blew my mind - it drove me a little insane. I was like a sex slave to this man. I could make love for forty-eight hours, forty-eight hours, without getting tired. But the minute he left me alone, I felt so empty and lost that I would start popping pills. He had more or less quit using drugs... When I first knew him, a friend of his used to come up with him to my apartment and they'd do a number in the bathroom. This guy eventually died of a heroin overdose, and Bobby left drugs alone after that. But if I wasn't practically in the act of lovemaking, I would be thinking of how to get hold of drugs. I really loved this man.... What happened was that Bobby said, "Let's go to a party. They're making an underground movie," and he said that I, the Warhol heiress, queen, star, socialite, blah, should be there. Bobby really wanted to go. I had a bad scene with him. I pulled out a knife and I wasn't going to let him out the door until he made love to me. I always get really dreadful. But we finally went. I went through it all. I was furious - this after about two years of our continuing relationship. Finally I said, "Now I'm going to leave this party. I'm fed up." He said that was all right: he'd met all the people he wanted to meet, and he'd watched the film begin shot. So we got into my limousine and he said, "Where would you like to eat?" I thought I was going to explode. Where would I like to eat? I screeched at him, "Why the hell can't you make up your own mind where we're going to eat? Why do I have to make all the decisions?" I was just livid, out of hand. I got madder and madder as we drove along, and just as we drove by the Chelsea Hotel I did something. I've never done anything to hurt anyone, and yet I was so furious that I pressed the button and rolled down the window screen - the glass plate between the front and back seats - and I told the chauffeur that the man in the back was molesting me; he was a junkie! I was so horrified by what I'd said, so flipped out by that, that I jumped out of the car into the path of the oncoming traffic, certain that my head would be crushed. All that happened was the I got bruised, badly bruised, but no broken bones. I mean, I was conscious, not destroyed at all. But I'd done such a terrible thing! I couldn't reconcile that. I had been about to explode. The hotel people came out, and they and Bobby carried me in. I had to pretend I was unconscious because I couldn't comprehend the fact that I had tried to get him busted, to hurt him seriously. He was the only person I had ever gotten violent about. I take out whatever violence comes into my system much more heavily on myself than on anyone else. But that was a pretty tight squeeze. I really craved making love to him.
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?
She & Him : Volume One (2008)
“If I had known they were going to do this, I would have become a shoemaker.”
According to The Quote Verifier (2006) by Ralph Keyes, Einstein never said any such thing. (According to p. 285 of the book's "source notes" Keyes checked New Statesman 16 April 1965, which is commonly cited as the source of this quote. Some other books claim it is from New Statesman 16 April 1955 and at least one has it as 1945, but a Google Books search http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search?num=10&q=einstein+watchmaker+%22new+statesman%22 with the date range restricted to 1900-1995 shows that all the earliest sources give it as 1965. This includes the earliest source located, The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations from 1971, as can be verified by this search http://www.google.com/search?q=%22of+his+making+the+atom+bomb+possible.+quoted+in+new+statesman%2C+16+april+1965%22&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1.) Keyes notes that Einstein "did use similar words to make a very different point" when he wrote, in a 1954 letter to the editor at The Reporter magazine, "If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances."
Similarly, in Einstein and the Poet by William Hermanns, p. 86 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA86#v=onepage&q&f=false, Einstein is quoted saying the following in a 1948 interview: "If I should be born again, I will become a cobbler and do my thinking in peace."
Misattributed
Variant: If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.
Discussing her charity work with iVillage, 11 February 2010 http://www.ivillage.com/heidi-klum-red-dress-interview/1-a-111044.
“If I had succeeded, I would have been the greatest man known to history.”
As quoted in The Tyrants : 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption (2006) by Clive Foss ISBN 1905204965
Attributed
Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 20 April 1987
1980s