“The chickens have come home to roost” – and, the chicks, cows and geese

INFAMOUS QUOTE BY MALCOLM X: “President Kennedy never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon...Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they always made me glad.”        Black Muslim leader Malcolm X (1925-1965)        His answer when asked how he felt about John F. Kennedy’s assassination        Press conference, December 1, 1963

MALCOLM’S EXPLANATION: “It was, as I saw it, a case of ‘the chickens coming home to roost.’ I said that the hate in white men had not stopped with the killing of defenseless black people, but that hate, allowed to spread unchecked, had finally struck down this country’s Chief Magistrate.”         Malcolm X, trying to explain his infamous “chickens” quote        In The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley (1964)

JACK NICHOLSON VARIATION: “I heard somewhere that there are three times as many single women over forty as single men. That’s what we got from the women’s movement.  The chickens have come home to roost.”        Actor Jack Nicholson         In Esquire magazine’s regular quotation feature “What I’ve Learned,” Jan. 2004

CASH COW VERSION: “People also have used their homes as ATMs, borrowing against the value. That cash cow has dried up with the slumping housing market and, as the saying goes, the chickens have come home to roost. Except now there's no roost.”        Denver Post editor, Dan Haley        Editorial, March 23, 2008

MOTHER GOOSE ‘TOON VERSION: “Bad news, Mr. Putin...The Chechens have come home to roost.”        Mother Goose and Grimm cartoon strip, by Mike Peters        November 2009

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