Quote Friday

Reposting this from the archives for Quote Friday. Enjoy!

From Groucho

Groucho Marx:

"Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped."

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend to read it."

"Go, and never darken my towels again."

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception."

"I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER."

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

Margaret Dumont: "Why, that reminds me of my youth!!"
Groucho: "He must be a pretty big boy by now."

A Day at the Races:

Man: "Are you a man or a mouse?"
Groucho: "Put a piece of cheese on the floor and you'll find out."

"And stop pointing that beard at me, it might go off!"

A Night at the Opera:

Lassparri: "They threw an apple at me!"
Groucho: "Well, watermelons are out of season."

A Night in Casablanca:

"We've got to speed things up in this hotel. Chef, if a guest orders a three-minute egg, give it to him in two minutes. If he orders a two-minute egg, give it to him in one minute. If he orders a one-minute egg, give him a chicken and let him work it out for himself."

Groucho: "You know I think you're the most beautiful woman in the world?"
Woman: "Really?"
Groucho: "No, but I don't mind lying if it gets me somewhere."

Animal Crackers:

"We must remember that art is art. Well, on the other hand water is water isn't it? And east is east and west is west. And if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rubarb does."

"Do you mind if I don't smoke?"

"I'm Captain Scotland of the Spalding Yard...Captain Yard of the Scotland Spalding"

Horse Feathers:

"Members of the faculty, faculty members. Students of Huxley and Huxley's students. Well I guess that covers everything"

"Why don't you bore a hole in yourself and let the sap run out?"

"Have we got a college? Have we got a football team?....Well we can't afford both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college."

Quote Friday

from Right Ho, Jeeves chapter 3:

The first of the telegrams arrived shortly after noon, and Jeeves brought it in with the before-luncheon snifter. It was from my Aunt Dahlia, operating from Market Snodsbury, a small town of sorts a mile or two along the main road as you leave her country seat.

It ran as follows:

Come at once. Travers.

And when I say it puzzled me like the dickens, I am understating it; if anything. As mysterious a communication, I considered, as was ever flashed over the wires. I studied it in a profound reverie for the best part of two dry Martinis and a dividend. I read it backwards. I read it forwards. As a matter of fact, I have a sort of recollection of even smelling it. But it still baffled me.

Consider the facts, I mean. It was only a few hours since this aunt and I had parted, after being in constant association for nearly two months. And yet here she was--with my farewell kiss still lingering on her cheek, so to speak--pleading for another reunion. Bertram Wooster is not accustomed to this gluttonous appetite for his society. Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you that after two months of my company, what the normal person feels is that that will about do for the present. Indeed, I have known people who couldn't stick it out for more than a few days.

Before sitting down to the well-cooked, therefore, I sent this reply:

Perplexed. Explain. Bertie.

To this I received an answer during the after-luncheon sleep:

What on earth is there to be perplexed about, ass? Come at once. Travers.

Three cigarettes and a couple of turns about the room, and I had my response ready:

How do you mean come at once? Regards. Bertie.

I append the comeback:

I mean come at once, you maddening half-wit. What did you think I meant? Come at once or expect an aunt's curse first post tomorrow. Love. Travers.

I then dispatched the following message, wishing to get everything quite clear:

When you say "Come" do you mean "Come to Brinkley Court"? And when you say "At once" do you mean "At once"? Fogged. At a loss. All the best. Bertie.

I sent this one off on my way to the Drones, where I spent a restful afternoon throwing cards into a top-hat with some of the better element. Returning in the evening hush, I found the answer waiting for me:

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It doesn't matter whether you understand or not. You just come at once, as I tell you, and for heaven's sake stop this back-chat. Do you think I am made of money that I can afford to send you telegrams every ten minutes. Stop being a fathead and come immediately. Love. Travers.

It was at this point that I felt the need of getting a second opinion. I pressed the bell.
"Jeeves," I said, "a V-shaped rumminess has manifested itself from the direction of Worcestershire. Read these," I said, handing him the papers in the case.

He scanned them.

"What do you make of it, Jeeves?"

"I think Mrs. Travers wishes you to come at once, sir."

"You gather that too, do you?"

"Yes, sir."

"I put the same construction on the thing. But why, Jeeves? Dash it all, she's just had nearly two months of me."

"Yes, sir."

"And many people consider the medium dose for an adult two days."

"Yes, sir. I appreciate the point you raise. Nevertheless, Mrs. Travers appears very insistent. I think it would be well to acquiesce in her wishes."

Quote Friday - Brideshead Revisited

This is a scene from Evelyn Waugh's book, Brideshead Revisited. Charles Ryder visits his friend, Sebastian Flyte, at Sebastian's home, Brideshead, during their summer break at the end of their first year at Oxford.

"One day we went down to the cellars with Wilcox and saw the empty bays which had once held a vast store of wine; one transept only was used now; there the bins were well stocked some of them with vintages fifty years old.

'There's been nothing added since his Lordship went abroad,' said Wilcox. 'A lot of the old wine wants drinking up. We ought to have laid down the eighteens and twenties. I've had several letters about it from the wine merchants, but her Ladyship says to ask Lord Brideshead, and he says to ask the lawyers. That's how we get low. There's enough here for ten years at the rate it's going, but how shall we be then?'

Wilcox welcomed our interest; we had bottles brought up from every bin, and it was during those tranquil evenings with Sebastian that I first made a serious acquaintance with wine and sowed the seed of a rich harvest which was to be my stay in many barren years. We would sit, he and I, in the Painted Parlour with three bottles open on the table and three glasses before each of us; Sebastian had found a book on wine-tasting, and we followed its instructions in detail. We warmed the glass slightly at a candle, filled it a third high, swirled the wine round, nursed it in our hands, held it to the light, breathed it, sipped it, filled our mouths with it, and rolled it over the tongue, ringing it on the palate like a coin on a counter, tilted our heads back and let it trickle down the throat. Then we talked of it and nibbled Bath Oliver biscuits, and passed on to another wine; then back to the first then on to another, until all three were in circulation and the order of the glasses got confused, and we fell out over which was which, and passed the glasses to and fro between us until there were six glasses, some of them with mixed wines in them which we had filled from the wrong bottle, till we were obliged to start again with three clean glasses each, and the bottles were empty and our praise of them wilder and more exotic.
'...It is a little, shy wine like a gazelle.'
'Like a leprechaun.'
'Dappled, in a tapestry meadow.'
'Like a flute by still water.'
'...And this is a wise old wine.'
'A prophet in a cave.'
'...And this is a necklace of pearls on a white neck.'
'Like a swan.'
'Like the last unicorn.'

And we would leave the golden candlelight of the dining-room for the starlight outside and sit on the edge of the fountain, cooling our hands in the water and listening drunkenly to its splash and gurgle over the rocks.
'Ought we to be drunk every night?' Sebastian asked one morning.
'Yes, I think so.'
'I think so too.'"

Quote Friday

"But you, Kristin, you should have seen so much now, methinks, that you might trust in God Almighty with a surer trust. Have you not yet understood that He bears up every soul so long as the soul lets not go its hold on Him? Think you, woman, child that you still are in your old age, that 'tis God punishing the sin, when you reap sorrow and humiliation because you followed your lusts and your own overweening pride over paths that God has forbidden His children to tread? Would you say that you had punished your children if they scalded their hands when they took up the boiling kettle you had forbidden them to touch, or if the slippery ice broke under them that you had warned them not to go upon? Have you not understood, when the brittle ice broke beneath you - that you were drawn under each time you let go God's hand, that you were saved from out of the deep each time you called upon Him?...Have you not understood yet, sister, that God has helped you each time you prayed, though you prayed half-heartedly and with feigning, and helped you much beyond what you prayed for? You loved God as you loved your father, not so hotly as you loved your own will, yet none the less so that you ever sorrowed much when you forsook Him - and therefore His mercy toward you suffered good to grow, admidst the evil harvest you must needs reap from the seed of your stubborn will."

Kristin Lavransdatter (The Cross) by Sigrid Undset