
“I never saw a more dreadful battle in my born days.”
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book IV, Ch. 8.
Source: The Naked Civil Servant (1968), Ch. 13
“I never saw a more dreadful battle in my born days.”
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book IV, Ch. 8.
“I saw an advertisement the other day for the secret of life.”
"Are You Spotty?" (1964)
E. L. Wisty
Context: I saw an advertisement the other day for the secret of life. It said "The secret of life can be yours for twenty-five shillings. Sent to Secret of Life Institute, Willesden." So I wrote away, seemed a good bargain, secret of life, twenty-five shillings. And I got a letter back saying, "If you think you can get the secret of life for twenty-five shillings, you don't deserve to have it. Send fifty shillings for the secret of life."
Letter to George Washington (September 1778)
“It took the Face of Ea — which I shall never be able to describe fully.
I saw it, though. I saw it…”
Source: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 1 : Encounter In Rio
Context: I never understood the ultimate answer. That was beyond me. It took the combined skills of three great civilizations far apart in time to frame that godlike concept in which the tangible universe itself was only a single factor.
And even then it was not enough. It took the Face of Ea — which I shall never be able to describe fully.
I saw it, though. I saw it...
“I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died.”
Song lyrics, American Pie (1971), American Pie
Context: So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
'Cause fire is the Devil's only friend
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in hell
Could break that Satan's spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died.
Theme from The Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol' Boys), from Music Man (1979).
Song lyrics
Posthumous Poems, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part iii, Section 4, Member 1, Subsection 1 .