Did Satchel Paige say "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits"?

Q: Did Satchel Paige say "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits"?

No. The famous wording is the caption of a cartoon by Gunning King in the British humour magazine Punch, 24 October 1906: an old man tells the vicar's wife, "sometimes I sits and thinks and then again I just sits." The joke was already in American newspapers by February 1905, credited to an anonymous Maine fisherman — so nobody can claim it outright, and Satchel Paige was a four-month-old baby when the Punch cartoon ran.

Who really said it

Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits

Not Satchel Paige — a Punch cartoon caption from 1906 William Gunning King 1859–1940 · English painter & Punch illustrator

Documented in print decades before Paige was quoted on it; no evidence he originated the line. Free to reuse

The famous wording is the caption of a cartoon by Gunning King in the British humour magazine Punch, 24 October 1906: an old man tells the vicar’s wife, “sometimes I sits and thinks and then again I just sits.” The joke was already in American newspapers by February 1905, credited to an anonymous Maine fisherman — so nobody can claim it outright, and Satchel Paige was a four-month-old baby when the Punch cartoon ran.

Last verified 22 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits” not Satchel Paige. The wording comes from a Gunning King cartoon caption in Punch, 24 October 1906; the joke was already in US newspapers in February 1905, credited to an anonymous Maine fisherman. Via Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Satchel Paige. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

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In context

Evoking the world of William Gunning King — English painter, etcher & Punch illustrator. Theme: "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits". 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.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The documented source

Publication: Punch
Date: 24 October 1906 — Volume 131, page 297
Artist: William Gunning King (1859–1940)
Earlier trace: February 1905 US newspapers, crediting an anonymous Maine fisherman

Vicar’s wife: Now that you can’t get about and are not able to read, how do you manage to occupy the time?
Rustic man: Well, mum, sometimes I sits and thinks and then again I just sits. Punch, 24 Oct 1906

The caption of a Gunning King cartoon showing the vicar’s wife visiting a rustic old man laid up with an injured foot. The familiar modern wording — “and sometimes I just sits” — is a smoothed-down descendant of this.

Wikiquote: the Punch cartoon, with volume and page

Paper trail

February 1905 — the earliest match Quote Investigator located: The Pittsburg Press and The Buffalo Sunday News, crediting The Boston Record, report a Maine fisherman’s reply, “Oh, sometimes I sit and think, and then again I just sit.” QI, 29 Aug 2018 ↗
24 October 1906 — the Punch cartoon by Gunning-King fixes the dialect form “sometimes I sits and thinks,” and reprints carry it worldwide. Wikiquote, Punch, Vol. 131, p. 297 ↗
1915 — L. M. Montgomery puts a variant in Mrs. Skinner’s mouth in Chapter XXX of Anne of the Island: “Part of the time I sits and thinks and the rest I jest sits.” Project Gutenberg full text ↗
2006 and 2009 — the line is reassigned, first to Winnie-the-Pooh in the Chicago Tribune, then to Satchel Paige in a Wisconsin newspaper, with no evidence offered either time. QI ↗

Public domain

Every documented appearance of this saying is comfortably pre-1931 and in the public domain in the United States: the February 1905 newspaper items, the Punch cartoon caption of 24 October 1906, and L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of the Island (1915). The exact modern wording — “and sometimes I just sits” — is an anonymous folk variant with no identified owner, so there is no rights holder to name.

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

Who else gets the credit

A line this quotable and this ownerless gets reassigned to whoever fits the mood. The two standing claimants are a baseball legend and a stuffed bear.

Satchel Paige No evidence

Quote Investigator found the Paige credit in a 2009 Wisconsin newspaper with no historical basis presented ↗. Paige was born on 7 July 1906 — barely three months before the Punch cartoon, and a year after the saying first appeared in US newspapers. Wikiquote’s Satchel Paige page ↗ does not carry the line at all.

A. A. Milne / Winnie-the-Pooh Anachronistic

A 2006 Chicago Tribune piece handed the line to Pooh, but as QI notes ↗, Milne’s first Pooh book did not appear until 1926 — twenty years after the saying was already in print.

L. M. Montgomery Genuine variant

Montgomery gave the mail-cart driver Mrs. Skinner the line “Part of the time I sits and thinks and the rest I jest sits” in Chapter XXX of Anne of the Island, 1915 ↗. That is her borrowing a circulating joke, not coining it.

Best evidence: an anonymous saying, first documented in February 1905 newspapers and given its famous wording by a Gunning King cartoon in Punch, 24 October 1906 ↗.

Context

A rustic joke that outlived everyone who told it

The line works because it refuses to apologise. Asked what he does with his time, an old man laid up with a bad foot answers that half of it goes on thinking and the other half on nothing at all — and he says it without a trace of shame. That is a very early-1900s English comic type, and it is exactly the sort of country character Gunning King drew for Punch for a decade.

Once a line is that good and that anonymous, it drifts. It shows up in L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of the Island in 1915 in the mouth of a chatty mail-cart driver, then attaches itself over the century to whoever the reader most enjoys imagining saying it — Winnie-the-Pooh, or a legendarily laconic pitcher.

Satchel Paige was four months old when the Punch cartoon ran.

Explore

Filed under

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

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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 Investigator: “Sometimes I Sits and Thinks”quoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: 1905 newspaper earliest match, the 1906 Punch cartoon, and how the line reached A. A. Milne and Satchel Paige.

Wikiquote: Punch (magazine)en.wikiquote.org

Cites the cartoon with its full caption exchange, artist Gunning-King, 24 October 1906, Volume 131, page 297.

Anne of the Island (1915), full textgutenberg.org

L. M. Montgomery’s novel, whose Chapter XXX contains the variant “Part of the time I sits and thinks and the rest I jest sits.”

Wikiquote: Satchel Paigeen.wikiquote.org

Paige’s sourced quotations — notably, this saying does not appear on the page in any section.

Satchel Paige (biography)en.wikipedia.org

Life dates (born 7 July 1906) that put the Punch cartoon four months after his birth.

William Gunning King, 1859–1940whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk

University of Glasgow biography confirming King’s dates and his illustration work for Punch.

The author

About William Gunning King

William Gunning King

1859–1940 · English painter, etcher & Punch illustrator

William Gunning King was a British painter and illustrator, trained at South Kensington and the Royal Academy Schools, who exhibited widely in London and drew regularly for Punch, The Graphic and the Windsor Magazine. He specialised in rural and animal subjects, and his gently observed country characters are exactly the register of the 1906 cartoon whose caption became this saying. He is best described as the man who gave the line its famous form, not its inventor — the same joke was circulating anonymously in newspapers a year earlier.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Punch, 24 October 1906

Gunning King, cartoon caption, Punch, vol. 131 (24 October 1906): 297. Earlier documented as an anonymous Maine fisherman’s reply in The Pittsburg Press and The Buffalo Sunday News, February 1905 (crediting The Boston Record); see Quote Investigator, “Sometimes I Sits and Thinks, and Sometimes I Just Sits,” 29 August 2018.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits’?” Last verified 22 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/sometimes-i-sits-and-thinks-and-sometimes-i-just-sits/