Everyone is writing a book

Ancient wisdom?

“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, and writer (106-43 B.C.)

Except … not actually Cicero. Or an ancient Assyrian tablet. Or an Egyptian priest. The true origin is actually an unresolved mystery, according to QuoteInvestigator.com, but it seems likely that it was a bit of droll observational humour from the early 1900s.

Unlike most misattributions — which mostly just hijack the prestige of a famous source — this one's allegedly classical origin is actually part of the joke. The quote is more droll if you think it came from the ancients. But at least a century later, the idea is old enough that exaggeration is no longer required! Today, it seems quaintly amusing even if it’s only been a century since someone thought of it, rather than two millenia.

P.S. I’m not actually writing a book right now. Or I’m writing fourteen of them. Depends how you look at it.