The title is a quotation from a poem by e. e. cummings: "Who knows if the moon's a balloon, coming out of a keen city in the sky – filled with pretty people?"
David Niven published a second volume of autobiography in 1975, entitled Bring On the Empty Horses. This title originates in a story about the Hungarian–born film director Michael Curtiz, who lived in the United States for over thirty years but never quite managed to master the English language. On the set of The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Curtiz wanted to see riderless horses wandering through the battlefield. He directed the wranglers to "Bring on the empty horses". Niven and Errol Flynn burst out laughing, and Curtiz responded: "You people, you think I know f*** nothing; I tell you: I know f*** all!"
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