Popularization and Usage
- The saying was used by Robert F. Kennedy in his Day of Affirmation Address in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1966.
- It is also a saying from the counterweight continent in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, and a later novel in the series is named Interesting Times. The same title is used for the autobiography of the historian Eric Hobsbawm, and for writer George Packer's New Yorker blog (which focuses on the Iraq war and other political issues).
- May You Live in Interesting Times is the title of a short story collection published in 1995 by the writer Tereze Gluck.
- "May You Live in Interesting Times" is the title of a section in the book Kingdom of Fear by journalist and writer Hunter S. Thompson. The phrase was "told to by an elderly dope fiend on a rainy night in Hong Kong near the end of the War in Vietnam". The chapter containing the section refers to Thompson's work as a war correspondent.
- Harry Kim uses the phrase in Episode 6 "The Cloud" of Star Trek: Voyager Season 1.
- The "curse" was also quoted at several instances in the USA Network Police Procedural series White Collar.
- Wendy Cope's poem "Being Boring" quotes the Chinese curse beneath her poem title to emphasise her point- that being boring is much more satisfying than living in interesting times.
- Another use of the phrase occurred in 1950, when the April issue of Astounding Science Fiction included the saying in one of the magazine's stories entitled "U-Turn". The story was penned by Eric Frank Russell under the name Duncan H. Munro.
- It was also quoted at the end of the 1994 movie Disclosure with Demi Moore, Michael Douglas and Donald Sutherland. Sutherland quoted in the beginning of the company meeting when talking about the strange sexual harassment lawsuit along with the corporate espionage that had been the intertwined subject of the movie.
- It is used as a chorus in Chester French's single, "Interesting Times"
- It is used in Magnum P.I. in the episode "The Eight Part of the Village", Season 3 Episode 4.
Read more about this topic: May You Live In Interesting Times
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)