Introduction for Skeleton Crew

[mal]

In the intro (library paperback version) Mr. King attributes the line "You can never be too rich or too thin" to Peter Straub. It seems I've heard that before so I googled and the google folks say the line comes from Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor. I wonder if Mr. Straub would agree.

 

[GNTLGNT]

In the intro (library paperback version) Mr. King attributes the line "You can never be too rich or too thin" to Peter Straub. It seems I've heard that before so I googled and the google folks say the line comes from Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor. I wonder if Mr. Straub would agree.

The Quote Verifier:
Who Said What, Where, and When
By Ralph Keyes
New York, NY: Macmillan
2006
Pg. 180:
“You can never be too RICH or too thin.”
This popular maxim has been attributed to Dorothy Parker, Joan Rivers, Rose Kennedy, Diana Vreeland, and—most often—either the Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Simpson) or Babe Paley. In the early 1970s the duchess even had these words embroidered on a throw pillow. No matter how rich and thin she may have been, Mrs. Simpson was not particularly clever and is unlikely to have coined this phrase. Babe Paley is a more promising candidate. THe comely wife of CBS founder William Paley was known for her tart tongue. Nonetheless, no credible evidence exists that she coined this remark. THe most likely candidate of all is one to whom the observation is seldom attributed: author Truman Capote. According to quote compiler Alec Lewis, Capote said he observed that you can’t be too rich or thin on The David Susskind Show in the late 1950s (probably 1959). Capote was close to Babe Paley and could have fed her the line.
Verdict: Credit Truman Capote as originator, tentatively, and Babe Paley as primary publicist.

 

[GNTLGNT]

The Yale Book of Quotations
Edited by Fred R. Shaprio
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
2006
Pg. 831:
Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Simpson)
U.S.-born British aristocrat, 1896-1986
“You can’t be too rich or too thin.”
Quoted in L. A. Times, 17 June 1970

24 April 1967, Syracuse (NY) Herald-Journal, Suzy Knickerbocker column (from New York), pg. 15, col. 3:
...and Mrs. J. Gordon Douglas Sr. of Newport. It is Mrs. Douglas who is responsible for one of the most trenchant remarks of recent years. “A woman,” quoth she, “can never be too thin or too rich.” Think about it…

15 October 1967, Chicago (IL) Tribune, section 9, pg. 2:
“A woman can never be too rich or too thin,” said one of the Beautiful People as reported by Suzy Knickerbocker last spring.

2 March 1968, Lebanon (PA) Daily News, Walter Winchell column, pg. 7, col. 4:
At Goldie’s: “There are two things a woman never is—Too Rich or Too Thin.”

 

[GNTLGNT]

Google News Archive
13 May 1968, Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, “Squirrel Cage” by Douglas Welch, pg. 41, col. 1:
And she said: “Why don’t you beguile me with something Mrs. William S. Paley has said lately? Every time I pick up a women’s magazine Mrs. Paley is saying something that makes me terribly proud I am a woman.”

And I said: “Well, of course, you know her most profound saying? She said that a woman can’t be too rich or too thin.”

And she said: “Oh, everyone knows she said THAT! For a while there, they were going to put it on our silver dolars instead of In God We Trust because it more nearly reflects our modern faith.”

22 July 1969, Long Branch (CA) Press-Telegram, “Wonderful Washington” by Virginia Weldon Kelly, pg. B9, col. 3:
Usually the rich are very thin. There is a cliche currently in ultra society that no woman can be too rich or too thin.

6 June 1971, Elyria (OH) Chronicle-Telegram, “After a fashion...Duchess of Windsor is forever young at heart” by Marian Christy, pg. C2:
Irreverently, two yelping, growling black pugs precede the Duchess’s entrance, challenging the stranger. Pandemonium is halted when the queenly Duchess slides back into a couch and issues soothing words.

One pug squats on a pillow on which has been needlepointed, “You can’t be too thin or too rich.”

17 September 1972, San Antonio (TX) Light, “Cassini Carousel” by Igor and Oleg Cassini, pg. 10H, col. 1:
There’s an old saying that you can’t be too rich or too thin, but heiress Gloria Vanderbilt’s magazine editor husband, Wyatt Cooper, doesn’t agree. With Gloria down to 98 pounds, word is out that Wyatt doesn’t like it and there is some tension at home. He wants her to fatten up.

11 February 1973, San Antonio (TX) Light, “Those Thin but Frantic Woman” by Judy Kelemesrid (Harper’s Bazaar), part IV, pg. 1, cols 1-2:
“You can never be too rich or too thin.”

Nobody is really sure who first uttered these immortal words. Some say it was Babe Paley; others, the Duchess of Windsor or Gloria Guinness. At any rate, for at least two decades now, that quote has been the watchword of those skinny frantic ladies who flit around town from fashion show to fancy lunch to fittings with their favorite designers.

 

[GNTLGNT]

...soooo, it would appear that King can pretty much attribute it to anydamnone he wants....he may well have heard it for the first time from Straub, hence the attribution....

 

[mal]

Well researched in a short amount of time. While I agree the attribution could be made to anydamnone, I was just curious what the anydamnone (in this case Mr. Straub) would say. My limited fumbling attempt at research brought me to Simpson and I went no further...

 

[Pucker]

I've always heard it attributed to Dorothy Parker (who I've always felt was the poster child for unreasoning snottiness), but who really cares?

Things become ubiquitous because they are obvious or because they are conveniently trite (as in this case).

Mr. King never attributes Robert Frost, although he uses that hokey line about "Home being that place . . . " over and over again (as do others).

It's a line we all know and might have come up with ourselves, given world enough . . . and time (which is another one).

And on a totally unrelated subject:

Did we really need the internet to exacerbate excruciating minutiae (Elaine Benes) in a world already chock full of it?

 

[mal]

I agree with you that it's minutiae, so, as you say, why care. My only interest is revisionist history and how things become true over time. To pipe in on your unrelated subject, the devil is in the details and you don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Yes, we need the internet to do that. Maybe I'm just being contrary...

 

[blunthead]

I've always heard it attributed to Dorothy Parker (who I've always felt was the poster child for unreasoning snottiness), but who really cares?

Things become ubiquitous because they are obvious or because they are conveniently trite (as in this case).

Mr. King never attributes Robert Frost, although he uses that hokey line about "Home being that place . . . " over and over again (as do others).

It's a line we all know and might have come up with ourselves, given world enough . . . and time (which is another one).

And on a totally unrelated subject:

Did we really need the internet to exacerbate excruciating minutiae (Elaine Benes) in a world already chock full of it?

Yes.

 

[Aloysius Nell]

Seems to me that Mr. King's saying "it was Peter Straub's line, not mine" is not the same thing as saying Straub made it up; he's simply the one who put it in the novel.