How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?
Not Satchel Paige’s line — it was in print by 1927Rev. Clarence H. WilsonCongregational minister, Brooklyn · earliest documented use, 1927
?Attribution status: Disputed: an earlier documented source exists, and no Paige primary source does.?Reuse status: Rights unconfirmed
The earliest known appearance is a sermon by Rev. Clarence H. Wilson at the Flatbush Congregational Church in Brooklyn, reported in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on 24 October 1927 — roughly two decades before Satchel Paige reached the major leagues. The earliest located attribution to Paige is 1977, and no primary source in which Paige himself says it has been located. Quote Investigator calls Wilson the originator only tentatively ↗, so treat the credit as earliest-documented, not settled.
“How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?” popularly credited to Satchel Paige, but the saying appeared in a Brooklyn sermon by Rev. Clarence H. Wilson, reported in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on 24 October 1927, about fifty years before Paige's name was attached to it. No primary source shows Paige saying it. Chronology: Quote Investigator. Via quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Satchel Paige. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
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Provenance
The earliest documented appearance
Earliest documented use
Sermon by Rev. Clarence H. Wilson, Flatbush Congregational Church, Brooklyn
Reported in
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 24 October 1927
Paige credit first appears
Ruth Gordon, U.S. House testimony, 1977; Garson Kanin, It Takes a Long Time To Become Young, 1978
Paige primary source
None located
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
as reported
This is the 1927 wording as reported from Wilson’s sermon. The familiar dialect form — “how old you was” — is not documented until 1978, in Garson Kanin’s It Takes a Long Time To Become Young, where it already carries Paige’s name.
1927 — Brooklyn. Rev. Clarence H. Wilson asks the question in a sermon at the Flatbush Congregational Church; The Brooklyn Daily Eagle prints it on 24 October. This is the earliest match Quote Investigator has located ↗.
1931–1962 — the saying travels ownerless. Wallace R. Farrington uses it at a University of Maine commencement in 1931; Howard Thornton poses it at an Oklahoma Kiwanis Club in 1960; G. Herbert True reorders it in 1962 — none of them crediting Paige ↗.
1977–78 — the name lands. Ruth Gordon credits Paige in House testimony; Garson Kanin prints the “how old you was” wording under Paige’s name in 1978. Both are secondhand recollections ↗.
Today — still unsourced to Paige. The line appears in Wikiquote’s “Unsourced” list for Paige ↗, while his genuinely cited age material — the 1953 Collier’s rules — sits in the sourced section.
Rights here are genuinely unclear, so we assert nothing. The 1927 Brooklyn Daily Eagle report of Wilson’s sermon predates 1931 and that specific published text would be out of copyright — but the wording quoted today, with “how old you was,” is first documented in a 1978 book that remains in copyright. Since we cannot tie the popular wording to any pre-1931 printing, we decline to call it public domain.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
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Fact-check
How the credit drifted
This is a textbook orphan aphorism: it circulated for half a century with no fixed owner, then attached itself to the most famous man in America with a disputed birthday.
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The popular creditSatchel Paige unsourced
Paige’s name enters the record in 1977, when actress Ruth Gordon credited him during U.S. House testimony, and again in 1978 when her husband Garson Kanin printed it in It Takes a Long Time To Become Young. Both are secondhand. Wikiquote keeps the line in its “Unsourced” section ↗.
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The wording“how old you was” later variant
The dialect form that dominates today is not the older wording. No documented instance before 1977 uses the “was” form — the earlier citations read “how old you are” or “how old you were” — and “was” is first documented in Kanin’s 1978 book ↗, already under Paige’s name.
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Also creditedWayne W. Dyer passed along
Dyer printed the expression in The Sky’s the Limit in 1980 without attribution ↗, which helped it spread through self-help writing as an unowned maxim.
✓The oldest known instance belongs to a Brooklyn preacher, not a pitcher: Rev. Clarence H. Wilson, in a sermon reported by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on 24 October 1927 — though Quote Investigator holds even that attribution open ↗ pending an earlier citation.
Context
Why the line stuck to Satchel Paige
Of all the famous names this aphorism could have landed on, Paige was the most magnetic. His age was the great open question of American baseball: reported birth years ranged across roughly a decade, and his actual date — 7 July 1906 — was only pinned down in 1948, when Cleveland owner Bill Veeck went to Mobile, Alabama and had the birth certificate pulled. Paige then debuted in the majors at 42 and was still pitching three shutout innings at 59.
So a floating question about not knowing your own age fit him like a glove — and the dialect wording that circulates today, with “how old you was,” is part of the fit. That phrasing first shows up in print in 1978, in Garson Kanin’s It Takes a Long Time To Become Young, where it is set under Paige’s name. It reads like Paige. That is not the same as being documented from Paige.
A question with no owner found a man with no birthday.
What Paige is actually on the record for
Paige has plenty of genuinely sourced material on aging — most famously the “How to Stay Young” rules published in Collier’s on 13 June 1953, which Wikiquote lists with a full citation ↗. The “how old would you be” question is not among them; it sits in the unsourced pile instead.
The saying travelled widely on its own before Paige’s name arrived. Quote Investigator records Wallace R. Farrington using it at a University of Maine commencement in 1931, Howard Thornton posing it at an Oklahoma Kiwanis Club in 1960, a reordered version from G. Herbert True in 1962, and Wayne W. Dyer printing it with no attribution at all in 1980.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Almost nothing is publicly recorded about Rev. Clarence H. Wilson beyond the pulpit he occupied: the Flatbush Congregational Church in Brooklyn, where he preached a sermon reported by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on 24 October 1927. One line from it — “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” — is the oldest known instance of a question that would circulate, unattributed, for the next fifty years. Quote Investigator names him the originator only provisionally; he is best understood as the earliest voice we can currently document, not a proven author.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented source
Earliest documented in “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” — sermon of Rev. Clarence H. Wilson, Flatbush Congregational Church, reported in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, NY), 24 October 1927. Chronology per Garson O’Toole, “Quote Origin: How Old Would You Be If You Didn’t Know How Old You Are?” Quote Investigator, 24 August 2021.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?’?” Last verified 22 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/how-old-would-you-be-if-you-didnt-know-how-old-you-was/