I have been asked over the phone to translate a German quote.
Unfortunately the caller's German prenounciation was so poor that two
words were quite  incomprehencable. Here is what I did understand
"Drei Tage war" ? "krank jetzt ist" ? "Gott sei Dank". Can anyone
comlete the quote and maybe identify the origin?

Dear nosin,

If the person who used the quote really said "Drei Tage" (= "three
days"), he has made a minor alteration to the original citation,
obviously to make it fit with an actual situation.

The original quotation is: "Drei Wochen war der Frosch so krank, jetzt
raucht er wieder, Gott sei Dank." (= "For three weeks, the frog has
been so ill; now he smokes again, thank God.")
It derives from the illustrated fable "Die beiden Enten und der
Frosch" (= "The two Ducks and the Frog"), created by the famous German
cartoonist, painter, and author Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908), who is best
known for "Max and Moritz".

You can see and read the full fable, complete with Busch's
illustrations, here; the quote belongs to the final picture, on page
4:
http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/wbusch/enten/enten.htm
(Projekt Gutenberg: Wilhelm Busch- Die beiden Enten und der Frosch)

In case you are interested in Wilhelm Busch's life and works, you
might find this website interesting (in German):
http://www.wilhelm-busch-seiten.de/
(Wilhelm-Busch-Seiten, by Jochen Schöpflin)

Search terms used:
"wilhelm busch" frosch krank
://www.google.de/search?q=%22wilhelm+busch%22+frosch+krank&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=de&meta=
"Enten und der Frosch" 
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=ISO-8859-1&newwindow=1&q=%22Enten+und+der+Frosch%22+&meta=
"wilhelm busch"
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=ISO-8859-1&newwindow=1&q=%22wilhelm+busch%22&meta=
"wilhelm busch" biography
://www.google.de/search?q=%22wilhelm+busch%22+biography&hl=de&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&start=10&sa=N

Hope this answers your question!
Best regards,
Scriptor

My thanks to Scriptor who once again showed me how to set about
getting answers where the direct aproach fails. Wilhelm Busch was of
cours the first thought that came to mind on hearing these fragments
but I never made use of this possibility. My thanks to Denco too,
could he perhaps go further by actally stating which some of the "some
German sites" are?

Howdy nosin!

I believe it might be the saying (or a variant of):

http://www.spitzenwitz.de/witze/sprueche.html

Drei Tage war der Opa krank, jetzt trinkt er wieder! Gott sei Dank!

Three days was Grandpa ill, now drinks he again!  Thank God!


Some variants:

http://ingo.netomania.at/pub/von_einem_der_auszog_scanner.html
Drei Tage war der Frosch so krank, jetzt raucht er wider - Gott sei Dank!

http://www.sms-handy-guide.de/sms_krank.html
Drei Tage war dein Liebling krank, jetzt mailt er wieder- Gott sei dank!


Search strategy (on some German sites...):

"Gott sei Dank" "drei tage war" krank

Hope this Comment helps!  denco

Howdy nosin,

I started with the German Google site:

://www.google.de/search?q=%22Gott+sei+Dank%22+%22drei+tage+war%22+krank&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=de&meta=

I got the last two links directly from that search, and from there,
followed various links (one was a list of sites that had lists on
them, for instance) to find the first link.  Apologies on not being
specific on the search methodology.

Great job by scriptor in finding the source and originator of the
true saying!

Looking Forward, denco

Of course, on reviewing my search history, it appears that
all three refercnes came from the original search on the
German Google site.

I think I saw too many sites last night!

denco