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Who really said it

I'm so fast last night I cut the light switch and was in bed before the room was dark

Said by Ali — but not his line Muhammad Ali 1942–2016 · Heavyweight boxing champion
Ali used the boast, but it was a stock joke long before him — and this exact wording appears in no documented source. Rights unconfirmed

Ali really did use this boast — the Village Voice of 25 July 1974 printed it as “I’m so fast last night I cut the light and hit the switch and was in bed before the room was dark,” and The New York Times printed another version in 1975. But he did not invent it: the same gag was in print in The Marines Magazine in April 1917, and the sentence circulating under his name matches neither wording any reporter actually transcribed.

Last verified 7 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“I'm so fast last night I cut the light switch and was in bed before the room was dark” Not originally Muhammad Ali's. The boast — turning off the light and being in bed before the room goes dark — was in print by April 1917 in The Marines Magazine, was used by the vaudeville team Moran and Mack in 1919 and by Abbott and Costello in a 1945 radio script, and was applied by Satchel Paige to Cool Papa Bell in 1969. Ali's own documented version, recorded by the Village Voice on 25 July 1974: "I'm so fast last night I cut the light and hit the switch and was in bed before the room was dark." Source: Quote Investigator, "Quote Origin: When He Turned Out the Light He Was in Bed Before the Room Was Dark," 12 June 2013.

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We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.

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In context

Evoking the world of Muhammad Ali — Heavyweight boxing champion. Theme: "I'm so fast last night I cut the light switch and was in bed before the room was dark". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

Where the joke actually starts

Earliest in print
The Marines Magazine, April 1917, p. 32
Correspondent
“Hablarias” (pseudonym), Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania
Ali's documented version
Village Voice, 25 July 1974, p. 9 — also The New York Times, 29 June 1975
Researched by
Quote Investigator, 12 June 2013

Corporal Smith is still in training and, believe me, he is some speed merchant. Here is one record he holds: It is 20 feet from the switchboard to his pile of alfalfa and he can switch off the lights and be back in bed before the room gets dark! The Marines Magazine · April 1917

The oldest known form of the boast, printed a quarter-century before Ali was born. For comparison, Ali’s own documented wording, recorded by the Village Voice on 25 July 1974: “I’m so fast last night I cut the light and hit the switch and was in bed before the room was dark.”

Quote Investigator: When He Turned Out the Light He Was in Bed Before the Room Was Dark

How we verified this

  • April 1917 — the joke reaches print. A correspondent writing as “Hablarias” in The Marines Magazine credits a Corporal Smith at Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania, who “can switch off the lights and be back in bed before the room gets dark!” That is a quarter-century before Ali was born — Quote Investigator ↗.
  • 1919–1945 — a stage gag. The Chicago Tribune found the vaudeville team Moran and Mack using it in 1919, a Kansas paper gave it to an Atchison husband and a gas lamp in 1920, and a published Abbott and Costello radio script was still working it in 1945 — Quote Investigator ↗.
  • 1969 — it becomes a baseball legend. Satchel Paige attached it to James “Cool Papa” Bell, and Bell later explained at a 1981 Negro Baseball Reunion that a room light with a roughly three-second delay let him make the tall tale look true — Society for American Baseball Research ↗.
  • 1974 — Ali’s turn. Nick Browne recorded him for the Village Voice of 25 July 1974: “I’m so fast last night I cut the light and hit the switch and was in bed before the room was dark.” Robert Lipsyte printed another version in The New York Times on 29 June 1975 — Quote Investigator ↗.

No rights status can honestly be asserted for the wording on this page, because that wording cannot be tied to any published source. The joke’s earliest documented appearance — The Marines Magazine, April 1917 — is old enough to be public domain in the United States, but Ali’s own documented versions were printed in the Village Voice in 1974 and The New York Times in 1975, and those articles remain in copyright.

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.

Fact-check

Who the joke really belongs to

The line is genuinely Ali-adjacent — he told versions of it to reporters in 1974 and 1975. What is not genuine is the idea that he invented it, or that the sentence circulating under his name is something he was ever recorded saying.

An anonymous Marine Corps correspondent, April 1917 Earliest in print

Writing as “Hablarias” from Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania, he reported that Corporal Smith “can switch off the lights and be back in bed before the room gets dark!” This is the oldest instance located by Quote Investigator ↗.

Moran and Mack (1919); Abbott and Costello (1945) Vaudeville

The Chicago Tribune caught the comedy team Moran and Mack running it as a two-hander: “Am I quick? Why, man, when I go to bed at night and turn out the light I’m in bed before the room is dark.” A published Abbott and Costello radio script was still using it in 1945 — Quote Investigator ↗.

Satchel Paige, about James “Cool Papa” Bell 1969

Paige’s tribute to the Negro Leagues outfielder is where most people first met the joke. The National Baseball Hall of Fame still prints it — “Cool Papa was so fast he could flip the light switch and be in bed before the room got dark” — and notes it may have had literal truth, because a room they shared had a faulty switch connection: Baseball Hall of Fame ↗.

No transcript on record Paraphrase

The circulating sentence — and the even smoother “turned off the light switch in my hotel room” variant found on quote-aggregator sites — matches neither version a reporter took down. Wikiquote’s Ali page carries no form of the line at all: Wikiquote ↗.

Ali took a boast that had been in print since 1917 and made it his own. The words he was actually recorded using, in the Village Voice of 25 July 1974, were “I’m so fast last night I cut the light and hit the switch and was in bed before the room was dark” — Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

Why the joke keeps finding a new owner

This is a folk joke that attaches itself to whoever is currently the fastest person alive. In 1917 it belonged to a Corporal Smith at Fort Mifflin; by 1919 it was a two-hander on the vaudeville stage; in 1920 a Kansas paper gave it to an Atchison woman’s husband and a gas lamp; in 1937 it went to the child Paul Bunyan and a candle; in 1945 Lou Costello was doing it on the radio. Then Satchel Paige pinned it on Cool Papa Bell, and it became a baseball legend rather than a gag.

By the time Ali reached for it in the mid-1970s he was doing what he always did with inherited material — taking a line the audience half-recognised and making it sound like it had been invented on the spot. That is a real skill, and it is not the same thing as authorship. The reason the quote sits under his name today is simply that he was the last and loudest person to tell it.

In print since 1917 — a quarter-century before Ali was born.

The joke’s owners, in order

1917 — Corporal Smith, Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania, in The Marines Magazine.

1919 — the comedy team Moran and Mack, on the vaudeville circuit, reported in the Chicago Tribune.

1920 — an Atchison, Kansas husband, with a gas light instead of a switch.

1937 — Paul Bunyan as a boy, blowing out a candle.

1943 — a Washington Post brainteaser, whose answer was “simply go to bed in the daytime.”

1945 — Abbott and Costello, in a published radio script.

1969 and 1971 — Satchel Paige, about James “Cool Papa” Bell.

1973 — the San Diego Padres shortstop Enzo Hernández, in the Washington Post.

1974 and 1975 — Muhammad Ali, in the Village Voice and The New York Times.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Success Courage

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: When He Turned Out the Light He Was in Bed Before the Room Was Darkquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation. Traces the boast from The Marines Magazine (April 1917) through Moran and Mack, Abbott and Costello and Satchel Paige to Ali’s 1974 and 1975 versions, with full citations.
How Fast Was Cool Papa Bell?sabr.org

Society for American Baseball Research on Paige’s version of the boast — including Bell’s own account, at a 1981 reunion, of a light switch with a three-second delay.
Cool Papa Bellbaseballhall.org

The National Baseball Hall of Fame’s page for Bell (1903–1991, inducted 1974), which still carries Paige’s light-switch line and the faulty-switch explanation.
Muhammad Ali — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s sourced collection of Ali quotations. Useful as a negative check: no version of the light-switch boast appears anywhere on the page.
Muhammad Alien.wikipedia.org

Biography confirming his birth as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on 17 January 1942, his death on 3 June 2016, his heavyweight title reigns and his spoken-word recordings.

The man who borrowed it

About Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali

1942–2016 · Heavyweight boxing champion

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky on 17 January 1942, Ali held the heavyweight title across three separate reigns and became one of the most quoted athletes who ever lived. His public voice was as much a performance as his boxing: he released two Grammy-nominated spoken-word albums and is often named as a forerunner of hip-hop for his freestyle rhyming and braggadocio. That gift was partly collection — Ali picked up stock boasts, sharpened them and delivered them better than anyone else, which is exactly what happened with the light-switch line. He died on 3 June 2016.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented appearance

Earliest instance located by Quote Investigator: Hablarias [pseud.], report from Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania, The Marines Magazine (Marine Corps Headquarters, Washington, DC), April 1917, 32. Muhammad Ali's earliest documented version: Nick Browne, "The Rumble in the Jungle: Ali's Camp: You Can't Get Zaire From Here," Village Voice (New York), July 25, 1974, 9. Both cited from Quote Investigator, "Quote Origin: When He Turned Out the Light He Was in Bed Before the Room Was Dark," June 12, 2013.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I'm so fast last night I cut the light switch and was in bed before the room was dark’?” Last verified 7 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/im-so-fast-last-night-i-cut-the-light-switch-and-was-in-bed/

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