where did the saying "I escape with the skin of my teeth" Come from?
486823
By the skin of your teeth \nMeaning\n\nA very close miss from some disaster. \n\nOrigin\n\nFrom the Bible, Old Testament Job xix. 20
345401
It's slang, actually.\n\n"Go away, dude! I'm with someone else. Go die far.  Now, we go our separate ways."\nIt's not a literal translation, I tried to keep the sense and the meaning. Basically, this person is  ending a relationship with someone who keeps insisting.
624846
I have a reference from 1997 that already says it is old:\nhttp://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/august97/terror01.html\n\nThe fact that numerous sources fail to give the original source of the quote suggests that no-one actually knows when it was first used.
835594
According to Wikipedia, origins of this saying are unknown.......
528003
I think that this is probably a variation on a quote that I have heard attributed to Mark Twain and Abe Lincoln. I found it also credited to Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson died before Abe and Twain were born, so I give him credit. The quote is as follows...."It is better to remain silent and thought a fool, than open one's mouth and remove all doubt."\n\nIn other words....keep em guessing.
47040
The skinny meaning the truth comes from ancient Rome,the word skinnes: where you were skinned if you did not give up the enemy's secrets. They believed peeling the skin off would reveal the truth. usually it did because it hurt pretty bad.
141560
Nobody actually knows where that phrase comes from.  There is an urban legend about where it came from that can be found here: http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.htm
91387
It is from the movie, Shrek, the first one.  The character asking the question was the gingerbread man, when he was being tortured by Lord Farquad.
71658
The phrase comes from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
89653
My dad use to say that sometimes when I was going out on a date.  "Going to watch the submarine races?" It would be nice to know the origin of that.  All I could think of was making out.
521404
It came from the slang phrase "grow a back bone".
1058993
Actually, the reference originally came from a song that was popular in 1956.  It was by the Jayhawks and called Stranded In The Jungle.  It managed to climb the Billboard charts to #18.\n\nThe story is about a guy who gets stranded in a jungle and all he wants to do is get back to his girl in the states.  He gets knocked out, wakes up in a big pot and smells something cooking then realizes he's about to be the main course for a tribe of cannibals.  The next line is "Great googly moogly let me out of here! " \n\nOf course the expression has been used in numerous other songs since but now you know the complete story goes back half a century.
21646
BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE -- From "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" (1996): "Between a rock and a hard place. Forced to choose between two unpleasant options. The expression originated in the early twentieth century in the United States. It usually follows 'to be caught'." \n\nThe "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Fact on File, New York, 1997) says "the expression was probably born in Arizona during a financial panic early in this century."
627130
This expression originated in the United States in about 1900. The phrase may have some Latin connection. When a Roman boy was in trouble, he cried ‘patrue mi Patruissime’ (‘Uncle my best of uncles’).
1072287
One possible origin for the phrase is an incident said to have taken place during the siege of the Alamo in 1836, when William Barret Travis drew a line in the sand with his sword and urged those willing to stay and defend the fort to step across it. Unfortunately, this heroic story seems to have been invented by a 19th century promoter long after the fall of the Alamo. But the myth itself probably greatly popularized the phrase, so it does count as an origin of sorts even if the incident itself was apocryphal. \n\nAnother possible origin dates back to the time of the Roman Empire. It seems that one of the Macedonian kings, a bit short of cash, decided to invade Egypt, then a Roman protectorate. His army was met at the border by a lone Roman senator named Popillius Laenas, who ordered the king to withdraw. The king began to stall for time, so Popillius Laenas drew a circle in the sand around the king and demanded that the king agree to withdraw his army before he stepped out of the circle. The king, apparently impressed by the senator's nerve (or, more likely, by the Roman Empire in general), withdrew. Incidentally, not only is this account verified by contemporary historians, but it also may be the only known instance of a line drawn in the sand actually stopping someone.
73198
I believe it's originally from the movie "A Cry In the Dark" with Meryl Streep, when the dingos in Australia attacked the baby.  This was a very tearful movie.  But I must say, that in the Seinfield episode when "Elaine" said "The dingos ate your baby" to the obnoxious woman, with her Aussy accent...it was hilarious!
6926
It's  From "A Death in the Family" by James Agee.\nThe full quote is\n\n"How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. You can never go home again." \n\nIt's a story about a family dealing with the accidental death of the father.  See my source link to read more.\n\n(One interpretation:  Once you grow up and have your own life, even if you physically return to your childhood house, you can't return to that place of innocence and safety -- it's never "home" as it once was because you are a different person.)