Quotations about Friday the Thirteenth
Friday the thirteenth is an unlucky day. At least so 'tis said by the sorcerers and witches, and others who still adhere to the old superstitions of witchcraft. ~M. H. Whitaker, 1925
Friday the 13th — a lucky day! ~Burdette Terry, 1962
Friday, the 13th... My God! how well I know the date. It is seared into my brain as though with a white-hot iron. ~Thomas W. Lawson, Friday, the 13th, 1906
Some there are who believe that the
Friday, the 13th of January, was ushered in the same as any other Friday, but it wasn't long until the time worn fear of bad luck justified itself to the superstitious. ~"Forget Friday the 13th — Determine To Be Safe Always," Accident Prevention Bulletin, 1922
Religion is progressive development and adapts itself to the development of the intellect. Superstition is the immovable orthodoxy, that adapts itself to nothing, reigning forever in its pristine shapes.
They that play at the Stock Exchange and the horse-race and the poker game are too advanced to go to church; but they believe in luck, wear charms, and are afraid of Friday the thirteenth... ~Frank Crane, Adventures in Common Sense, 1916
Wall Street... Tradition says Friday the 13th is bear Saints' day. ~Thomas W. Lawson, Friday, the 13th, 1906
Are you prepared for next Friday? Have you dug a little cave, self-closing, into which you can quietly slip next Thursday evening, there to remain in trembling until Saturday morning?...
Why, you ask? Has some learned doctor made the fearful announcement that the entire world will come down with typhoid next Friday?
Worse, far worse!... Five days from now will be Friday, June 13, 1913!
For the only time in 1913, Friday and the number 13 fall together. Crowded into one brief day comes all that potency which has clung to Friday and the thirteenth through all the ages since man came into existence...
You don't believe a word of it? Speak low, for the imp of the ages is watching. On his throne of shattered beliefs he sits, a grin of grins on his impish face, his hands clasped in gleeful anticipation. He waits.
Laugh now, for Saturday morning may bring another emotion to your mouth. The imp of the ages is waiting alert, eager, for he knows that on next Friday he will have his one day of days. Not for 100 years to come will such another combination be possible. Not for 100 years has there been such a one. Friday, the thirteenth, 1913! The imp of ages is laughing, loud and long! ~"Friday, June 13, 1913," in Enquirer, Cincinnati, Ohio
'Twas Friday and the 13th day
Of that lovely month of June,
When two lovers strolled along the bay
By the light of the risen moon;
It seemed that each was sore afraid
That the other would fade away,
So the boy clung to the pretty maid
And she never once said nay...
~Elon Allan Richards, "Friday, the 13th Day," The Poet Man,
It is always better to show a fact in action... Suppose you have a comedy based on the superstition that Friday the thirteenth is doubly unlucky. Your first impulse may be to have your hero take his pen in hand and indite some such letter as this:
Friday the 13th. Dear Henry: This is double-hoodoo day. I wonder what will happen to me before the day is over. I thought I would drop you a line and ask how you are. Yours, BILL.
This is clumsy as well as stupid. No one is going to become interested in a story that starts off like that, the Editor least of all. Put as much as you can into a leader.
Office — Bill and Tom on — working — Bill upsets ink well — yells — uses blotter — Tom laughs — points to wall.
On screen — Day to a page calendar showing Friday the 13th. Bill looks — looks at desk — no wonder he spilled the ink — knocks book off desk accidentally — Tom laughs — Bill throws the book at him — Tom dodges — it hits the Boss, who is just entering.
That takes the spectator into the spirit of the play. ~Epes Winthrop Sargent, Technique of the Photoplay, 1916