The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (31 page)

A Taste of Honey (1959) act 1, sc. 2

4.20 Jack Dempsey =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1895-1983

Honey, I just forgot to duck.

Comment to his wife Estelle after losing his World Heavyweight title,

23 Sept. 1926, in J. and B. P. Dempsey Dempsey (1977) p. 202 (after

someone tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981, Reagan told his wife:

"Honey, I forgot to duck")

4.21 Nigel Dennis =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1912-

I am a well-to-do, revered and powerful figure. That Establishment which

we call England has taken me in: I am become her Fortieth Article. I sit

upon her Boards, I dominate her stage, her museums, her dances and her

costumes; I have an honoured voice in her elected House. To her--and her

alone--I bend the knee, and in return for my homage she is gently blind to

my small failings, asking only that I indulge them privately.

Cards of Identity (1955) pt. 2, p. 230

4.22 Buddy De Sylva (George Gard De Sylva) and Lew Brown =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Buddy De Sylva 1895-1950

Lew Brown 1893-1958

The moon belongs to everyone,

The best things in life are free,

The stars belong to everyone,

They gleam there for you and me.

The Best Things in Life are Free (1927 song; music by Ray Henderson)

4.23 Peter De Vries =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1910-

You can make a sordid thing sound like a brilliant drawing-room comedy.

Probably a fear we have of facing up to the real issues. Could you say we

were guilty of Noel Cowardice?

Comfort me with Apples (1956) ch. 15

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order

to save us.

Mackerel Plaza (1958) ch. 1

Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves

arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that

children produce adults.

Tunnel of Love (1954) ch. 8

4.24 Lord Dewar =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1864-1930

Lord Dewar...made the famous epigram about there being only two classes of

pedestrians in these days of reckless motor traffic--the quick, and the

dead.

George Robey Looking Back on Life (1933) ch. 28

4.25 Sergei Diaghilev =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1872-1929

�tonne-moi.

Astonish me.

In Journals of Jean Cocteau (1957) ch. 1

4.26 Paul Dickson =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1939-

Rowe's Rule: the odds are five to six that the light at the end of the

tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.

Washingtonian Nov. 1978. Cf. Robert Lowell 139:21

4.27 Joan Didion =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1934-

That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody

out.

Slouching towards Bethlehem (1968) p. xvi

4.28 Howard Dietz =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Ars gratia artis.

Art for art's sake.

Motto of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studios: see Bosley Crowthier The Lion's

Share (1957) p. 64

4.29 William Dillon =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I want a girl (just like the girl that married dear old dad).

Title of song (1911; music by Harry von Tilzer)

4.30 Ernest Dimnet =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but

the most surely, on the soul.

What We Live By (1932) pt. 2, ch. 12

4.31 Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1885-1962

Out of Africa.

English title of her novel Den Afrikanske Farm (1937). Cf. Pliny the

Elder's Historia Naturalis bk. 8, sec. 6: Semper aliquid novi Africam

adferre. Always bringing something new out of Africa.

What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set,

ingenious machine for turning, with infinite artfulness, the red wine of

Shiraz into urine?

Seven Gothic Tales (1934) p. 275

4.32 Mort Dixon =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1892-1956

Bye bye blackbird.

Title of song (1926; music by Ray Henderson)

I'm looking over a four leaf clover

That I overlooked before.

I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover (1927 song; music by Harry Woods)

4.33 Milovan Djilas =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1911-

The Party line is that there is no Party line.

Comment on reforms of Yugoslavian Communist Party, Nov. 1952, in Fitzroy

Maclean Disputed Barricade (1957) caption facing p. 416

4.34 Austin Dobson (Henry Austin Dobson) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1840-1921

Fame is a food that dead men eat,--

I have no stomach for such meat.

Century Nov. 1906, "Fame is a Food"

I intended an Ode,

And it turned to a Sonnet.

It began la mode,

I intended an Ode;

But Rose crossed the road

In her latest new bonnet;

I intended an Ode;

And it turned to a Sonnet.

Graphic 23 May 1874, "Rose-Leaves"

The ladies of St James's!

They're painted to the eyes;

Their white it stays for ever,

Their red it never dies:

But Phyllida, my Phyllida!

Her colour comes and goes;

It trembles to a lily,--

It wavers to a rose.

Harper's Jan. 1883, "Ladies of St James's"

Time goes, you say? Ah no!

Alas, Time stays, we go.

Proverbs in Porcelain (1877) "Paradox of Time"

4.35 Ken Dodd =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1931-

The trouble with [Sigmund] Freud is that he never played the Glasgow

Empire Saturday night.

In The Times 7 Aug. 1965

4.36 J. P. Donleavy =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1926-

But Jesus, when you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you

have money, it's sex. When you have both it's health, you worry about

getting rupture or something. If everything is simply jake then you're

frightened of death.

Ginger Man (1955) ch. 5

When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in

all the pubs in Dublin. I wonder would they know it was me?

Ginger Man (1955) ch. 31

4.37 Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1899-1977

Half a million more allotments properly worked will provide potatoes and

vegetables that will feed another million adults and 1-1/2 million

children for eight months out of 12. The matter is not one that can wait.

So--let's get going. Let "Dig for Victory" be the motto of every one with

a garden and of every able-bodied man and woman capable of digging an

allotment in their spare time.

Radio broadcast, 3 Oct. 1939, in The Times 4 Oct. 1939

4.38 Keith Douglas =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1920-1944

And all my endeavours are unlucky explorers

come back, abandoning the expedition;

the specimens, the lilies of ambition

still spring in their climate, still unpicked:

but time, time is all I lacked

to find them, as the great collectors before me.

Alamein to Zem Zem (1946) "On Return from Egypt, 1943-4"

Remember me when I am dead

And simplify me when I'm dead.

Collected Poems (1966) "Simplify me when I'm Dead" (1941)

But she would weep to see today

how on his skin the swart flies move;

the dust upon the paper eye

and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled

who had one body and one heart.

And death, who had the soldier singled

has done the lover mortal hurt.

Collected Poems (1966) "Vergissmeinnicht, 1943"

If at times my eyes are lenses

through which the brain explores

constellations of feeling

my ears yielding like swinging doors

admit princes to the corridors

into the mind, do not envy me.

I have a beast on my back.

Collected Poems (1966) "B�te Noire" (1944)

4.39 Norman Douglas =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1868-1952

To find a friend one must close one eye. To keep him--two.

Almanac (1941) p. 77

The bishop was feeling rather sea-sick. Confoundedly sea-sick, in fact.

South Wind (1917) ch. 1

You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.

South Wind (1917) ch. 6

Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened

a tavern for his friends.

South Wind (1917) ch. 20

4.40 Sir Alec Douglas-Home =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

See Lord Home (8.75)

4.41 Caroline Douglas-Home =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1937-

He [Lord Home] is used to dealing with estate workers. I cannot see how

anyone can say he is out of touch.

Comment on her father becoming Prime Minister, in Daily Herald 21 Oct.

1963

4.42 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1859-1930

To Sherlock Holmes she [Irene Adler] is always the woman. I have seldom

heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and

predominates the whole of her sex.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) "Scandal in Bohemia"

You see, but you do not observe.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) "Scandal in Bohemia"

It is quite a three-pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for

fifty minutes.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) "Red-Headed League"

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely

the most important.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) "Case of Identity"

The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) "Case of Identity"

Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and

commonplace a crime is, the more difficult is it to bring it home.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) "Boscombe Valley Mystery"

A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture

that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room

of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) "Five Orange Pips"

It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and

vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than

does the smiling and beautiful countryside.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) "Copper Beeches"

Matilda Briggs...was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of

Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.

Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927) "Sussex Vampire"

But here, unless I am mistaken, is our client.

His Last Bow (1917) "Wisteria Lodge"

All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience.

His Last Bow (1917) "Bruce-Partington Plans"

"I [Sherlock Holmes] followed you." "I saw no one." "That is what you may

expect to see when I follow you."

His Last Bow (1917) "Devil's Foot"

Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.

His Last Bow (1917) title story

They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!

Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) ch. 2

A long shot, Watson; a very long shot!

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) "Silver Blaze"

"Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) "Silver Blaze"

"Excellent," I [Dr Watson] cried. "Elementary," said he [Sherlock

Holmes].

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) "The Crooked Man" ("Elementary" is

often expanded into "Elementary, my dear Watson" but the longer phrase is

not found in any book by Conan Doyle, although a review of the film The

Return of Sherlock Holmes in New York Times 19 Oct. 1929, p. 22, says: In

the final scene Dr Watson is there with his "Amazing Holmes," and Holmes

comes forth with his "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary.")

Ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity...is the Napoleon of

crime, Watson.

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) "The Final Problem"

You mentioned your name as if I should recognise it, but I assure you

that, beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a