Did Mark Twain say “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco”?

The exact words

“More than a hundred years ago somebody asked Quin, “Did you ever see such a winter in all your life before?” “Yes,” said he, “Last summer.” I judge he spent his summer in Paris.”Mark Twain, letter to Lucius Fairchild, April 28, 1880 (Mark Twain Project)

✕ MisattributedSomeone else said or wrote it first; the famous name was attached later.

The joke before Twain

San Francisco’s summers really are cold. Fog pours in from the Pacific through the Golden Gate, and visitors who arrive in July in shorts quickly understand the line. That is why it has become a local saying, printed on T-shirts and quoted in guidebooks, almost always with Mark Twain’s name attached.

The joke itself is much older than Twain. In a 1789 letter, the writer Horace Walpole recalled a quip by the English actor James Quin, who was asked whether he had ever seen so bad a winter and replied, “Yes, just such an one last summer!” The shape of the joke, a summer so cold it beats any winter, travelled freely after that. Around 1900 American newspapers were telling it about Duluth, Minnesota, usually credited to an unnamed Irishman, and other cities such as Milwaukee took a turn.

How Twain’s name got attached

Twain did know the old joke. In an 1880 letter written while he was miserable in a wet Paris spring, he retold the Quin story and added, “I judge he spent his summer in Paris.” That letter was private and was not published for decades, so it cannot explain how the line became his. The attribution seems to have grown instead from his reputation: Twain was the default name for any clever American remark. By 1929 a speaker in Minnesota was calling it “Mark Twain’s story” about Duluth, and by the 1960s books were printing the San Francisco version as his.

Researchers who have searched his papers, speeches and books, including the Mark Twain Project, have found no version about San Francisco. Twain lived and worked in the city in the 1860s and wrote a lot about it, so the absence is telling.

How to use it

The line is still a good joke and a fair description of a San Francisco July. If you quote it, the honest form is “as the old saying goes” or “a line often credited to Mark Twain.” If you want a real Twain sentence about the weather, the 1880 Paris letter is genuine and funnier for being so grumpy.

What people get wrong

Common reading
Mark Twain's verdict on San Francisco's foggy summers.

Closer to the original
An old joke, first recorded about the actor James Quin in the 1700s, then told about Duluth and other cities. San Francisco and Twain's name came later.

Timeline

1789Horace Walpole, in a letter, retells a quip by the actor James Quin, who was asked if he had ever seen so bad a winter and replied, “Yes, just such an one last summer!”
1880Twain retells the Quin joke in a private letter, complaining about the weather in Paris. This is the closest thing to the line in his writings.
1900–1903Newspapers print the joke about Duluth and Milwaukee, credited to “an Irishman” or a friend, not to Twain.
1929A Minnesota fruit grower calls it “Mark Twain's story” about a summer in Duluth.
1963A textbook credits Twain with the San Francisco version, by now the most famous form.
2005The San Francisco Chronicle calls it “the coolest thing Mark Twain never said.”

Use it in a speech

“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco” is usually credited to Mark Twain, but the joke is far older, and researchers have found no sign that Twain ever said it about San Francisco.

~12 secondsto say aloud

Pausenone needed in writing

Best spotopening line of a piece about the city or about misquotations

Questions people ask

Did Mark Twain say the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco?

There is no evidence that he did. Searches of his letters, books and speeches have found nothing like it about San Francisco.

Where does the joke come from?

The earliest known version is a quip by the 18th-century English actor James Quin, recorded in a 1789 letter by Horace Walpole. Around 1900 American newspapers were telling it about Duluth.

Did Twain ever tell a version of the joke?

Yes, once, in an 1880 letter, he retold the Quin story and joked that Quin must have spent his summer in Paris. He never applied it to San Francisco.

Is San Francisco really cold in summer?

Its summers are cool and foggy because cold ocean water and fog roll in through the Golden Gate, which is why the joke stuck to the city.

Cite this quote

Don't cite this line as Mark Twain's words. There is no reliable source showing they said it. The real source is Anonymous weather joke, attached to Twain in the 20th century, so cite that instead. If you need to mention it, say it is “often attributed to Mark Twain” and, if you want a reference, cite this page:

MLA“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco: Meaning and Origin.” QuoteDecoded, 2026, quotedecoded.com/quotes/the-coldest-winter-i-ever-spent-was-a-summer-in-san-francisco/.

Sources

Quote Investigator, “The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent Was a Summer in San Francisco,” 2011.
Mark Twain to Lucius Fairchild, April 28, 1880 (UCCL 01794), Mark Twain Project Online.
The Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. John Wright, vol. 6 (1840), letter to Mary Berry, July 1789.

“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”