The Invented Quotations [and Ascriptions] : A Compendium (in chronological order)

The Invented Quotations [and Ascriptions] : A Compendium (in chronological order)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

20 September

The Invented Quotations [and Ascriptions] : A Compendium (in chronological order)

Invent the riposte, and attribute it to Jean Harlow, Joan Rivers, Tony Curtis, Walter Matthau, etc.*, as you see fit ! ;)#YouAreMakingUpYourOwnJokesNow - literally

* Though unlikely, perhaps, that *all of them* worked on the gag ? Unless... : https://t.co/OL1fPtbVBe

2 / 2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 15, 2021

A plain deal table - and, maybe, a plate of tepid tapioca - is all that any of us needs ~ Mark Twain pic.twitter.com/v56rbohGn8

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 19, 2020

If one is but kind to London, see how it does, indeed, reciprocate ~ Samuel Johnson

If you are called Jonson, it shouldn't be spelt Johnson ~ Ben Jonson

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 14, 2020

Poor people are just rich people who don't have any money ~ Mark Twain

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 3, 2021

More than the question whether the sex act itself is ridiculous or demeaning is the matter of all the things that the sexes do to achieve, adulterate or avoid it ~ Joan Rivers

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 1, 2021

When a man is tired of London, he may use his One-Day Travelcard to go home again ~ Ben Jonson

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 2, 2021

Parties are, generally, to be endured, forgotten, or recalled unbidden, and with the accompanying cold sweat ~ Walter Matthau

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 5, 2021

The only thing that astounds me more than your lack of sincerity is your sincere and deep indifference to its easily being found out ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 20, 2021

If ever the claimed good intentions behind the objects of a charitable institution come under sorry scrutiny, 'tis oddly most likely in the particulars of how it gainfully offers employment to those who are - or are entitled to be - its stated beneficiaries ~ Benjamin Franklin

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 22, 2021

If a person kisses a fish, the person may be happy, but the fish will not be ~ Voltaire

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 9, 2021

As LBJ privately told JFK, it's these kids who are low-achievers - objectively considering the advantages that they've already had in life - but think that they can sort out everyone else's lives who are the problem ~ Henry Miller

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 9, 2021

Brinkmanship simply has no meaning when everyone has now seen your hand (which they anyway knew had nothing in it) ~ Montaigne https://t.co/D3uAZUn8bF

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 9, 2021

Although, despite the frost,
The Night Sky was not
Crisply - not so sharply -
Defin'd, 'twas to me
Comfort to look - and see.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson#OneLovelyThingToDay

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 5, 2022

Through the words of Bond, his soulless creature, Fleming tried to persuade us that he had known, but rejected, the pleasures of longer immersion in hot water :

One can barely credit that the man had ever been run, let alone taken, a bath worth the having. ~ Flann O'Brien

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 12, 2022

As Rimsky once remarked, it may be that the best of Pyotr Ilyich's symphonic writing is not to be found in his Symphonies ~ Leonard Bernstein https://t.co/EAof8ySLSK

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 1, 2022

'Even with the sound off, the stench both of the finger-wagging and from the hideous assurance that comes from having so much capital that one can spout fantasies* makes me hasten to beckon the servant with the bucket and refreshing lemon-infused towel !' ~ Evelyn Waugh

1 / 2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 14, 2022

Deceit is an unnecessary, but frequently present, part of political and public life ~ Thomas Hardy

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 30, 2022

Whatever set-backs there may have been, some will turn out to be blessings in disguise - and blessings are always worth being grateful for ! ~ Novalis

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 12, 2023

Oh, but I procure *all* mes parfums, my dear, through the caring offices of Boddle & Shrike - don't you ? ~ Oscar Wilde

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 11, 2023

Love-apples, Hodge ? They are but an riotous fruit ! ~ Samuel Johnson

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 13, 2023

When 'being sporty', it is essential to wear sporty clothes : if not, people may not think that you're serious about it, or, even worse, realize that that's what you're doing ~ Stephen Potter [a paraphrase]

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 17, 2023

Cromer Delicacies [according to Mark Twain*] :

Jellied adder's tail or marinaded Jersey-herd udder

* Allegedly.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 9, 2023

The decline of standards in public life or politics is epitomized by this analogy : a fresh turd on a packed coach whose windows won't open, but with passengers who all seem to have lost their sense of smell ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 9, 2023

The first demotic record, in English, of what appears to have been a lunar eclipse suggests that witnessing it may have given rise to some strange - not to say wildly transgressive - behaviour ! ~ G. K. Chestertonhttps://t.co/S3N84U2KMp

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 29, 2023

A cheery face, even if it's but a chimæra of one's own construing, can still be a comfort ~ Peter Lorre#OneLovelyThingToDay pic.twitter.com/CbnuZDxial

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 23, 2023

An examined life may still not be a life will led, but it has more chance of being so than one left unexamined ~ Henrik Ibsen

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 2, 2023

I prefer arm-rests to arm-wrestling, but I don't like either very much ~ John Wayne

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 6, 2023

Very probably, there *is* a special place reserved in Hell for those who assert that such a place is reserved for those who trivially annoy their sensibilities with, say, how they eat their food in company ~ Dante Alighieri

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 1, 2023

Might being attentive and seeking not to be inauthentic be - or seem to be - all that one needs do in life ? ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 1, 2024

Toasted Bagels and a Bath at Noon would make an excellent title for one's memoirs ~ Serge Koussevitzky

Discuss.

How would you answer differ, if you had :

1) Read Oblomov (1859), by Ivan Goncharov ? and / or

2) Been an author who had been compared to its titular head ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 21, 2024

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

The Invented Quotations [and Ascriptions] : A Compendium (in 'author' order)

The Invented Quotations [and Ascriptions] : A Compendium

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

20 September

The Invented Quotations [and Ascriptions] : A Compendium (in 'author' order)

Invent the riposte, and attribute it to Jean Harlow, Joan Rivers, Tony Curtis, Walter Matthau, etc.*, as you see fit ! ;)#YouAreMakingUpYourOwnJokesNow - literally

* Though unlikely, perhaps, that *all of them* worked on the gag ? Unless... : https://t.co/OL1fPtbVBe

2 / 2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 15, 2021

Very probably, there *is* a special place reserved in Hell for those who assert that such a place is reserved for those who trivially annoy their sensibilities with, say, how they eat their food in company ~ Dante Alighieri

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 1, 2023

The only thing that astounds me more than your lack of sincerity is your sincere and deep indifference to its easily being found out ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 20, 2021

As Rimsky once remarked, it may be that the best of Pyotr Ilyich's symphonic writing is not to be found in his Symphonies ~ Leonard Bernstein https://t.co/EAof8ySLSK

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 1, 2022

The first demotic record, in English, of what appears to have been a lunar eclipse suggests that witnessing it may have given rise to some strange - not to say wildly transgressive - behaviour ! ~ G. K. Chestertonhttps://t.co/S3N84U2KMp

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 29, 2023

If ever the claimed good intentions behind the objects of a charitable institution come under sorry scrutiny, 'tis oddly most likely in the particulars of how it gainfully offers employment to those who are - or are entitled to be - its stated beneficiaries ~ Benjamin Franklin

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 22, 2021

A plain penguin is no match for a fancy penguin, but a pretty penguin surpasses all ~ John Gielgud

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 12, 2022

Deceit is an unnecessary, but frequently present, part of political and public life ~ Thomas Hardy

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 30, 2022

An examined life may still not be a life will led, but it has more chance of being so than one left unexamined ~ Henrik Ibsen

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 2, 2023

If one is but kind to London, see how it does, indeed, reciprocate ~ Samuel Johnson

If you are called Jonson, it shouldn't be spelt Johnson ~ Ben Jonson

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 14, 2020

Love-apples, Hodge ? They are but an riotous fruit ! ~ Samuel Johnson

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 13, 2023

When a man is tired of London, he may use his One-Day Travelcard to go home again ~ Ben Jonson

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 2, 2021

Toasted Bagels and a Bath at Noon would make an excellent title for one's memoirs ~ Serge Koussevitzky

Discuss.

How would you answer differ, if you had :

1) Read Oblomov (1859), by Ivan Goncharov ? and / or

2) Been an author who had been compared to its titular head ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 21, 2024

Might being attentive and seeking not to be inauthentic be - or seem to be - all that one needs do in life ? ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 1, 2024

A cheery face, even if it's but a chimæra of one's own construing, can still be a comfort ~ Peter Lorre#OneLovelyThingToDay pic.twitter.com/CbnuZDxial

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 23, 2023

Parties are, generally, to be endured, forgotten, or recalled unbidden, and with the accompanying cold sweat ~ Walter Matthau

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 5, 2021

As LBJ privately told JFK, it's these kids who are low-achievers - objectively considering the advantages that they've already had in life - but think that they can sort out everyone else's lives who are the problem ~ Henry Miller

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 9, 2021

Brinkmanship simply has no meaning when everyone has now seen your hand (which they anyway knew had nothing in it) ~ Montaigne https://t.co/D3uAZUn8bF

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 9, 2021

The decline of standards in public life or politics is epitomized by this analogy : a fresh turd on a packed coach whose windows won't open, but with passengers who all seem to have lost their sense of smell ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 9, 2023

Whatever set-backs there may have been, some will turn out to be blessings in disguise - and blessings are always worth being grateful for ! ~ Novalis

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 12, 2023

Through the words of Bond, his soulless creature, Fleming tried to persuade us that he had known, but rejected, the pleasures of longer immersion in hot water :

One can barely credit that the man had ever been run, let alone taken, a bath worth the having. ~ Flann O'Brien

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 12, 2022

I 'love' about the writing of Henry James that beyond the middle of The Golden Bowl, for example, one can be sure that the pair of leading characters *must have* had sexual relations, but, even by re-reading the likely chapter, one can never work out where ~ S. J. Perelman

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 17, 2021

When 'being sporty', it is essential to wear sporty clothes : if not, people may not think that you're serious about it, or, even worse, realize that that's what you're doing ~ Stephen Potter [a paraphrase]

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 17, 2023

More than the question whether the sex act itself is ridiculous or demeaning is the matter of all the things that the sexes do to achieve, adulterate or avoid it ~ Joan Rivers

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 1, 2021

Although, despite the frost,
The Night Sky was not
Crisply - not so sharply -
Defin'd, 'twas to me
Comfort to look - and see.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson#OneLovelyThingToDay

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 5, 2022

A plain deal table - and, maybe, a plate of tepid tapioca - is all that any of us needs ~ Mark Twain pic.twitter.com/v56rbohGn8

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 19, 2020

Poor people are just rich people who don't have any money ~ Mark Twain

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 3, 2021

Cromer Delicacies [according to Mark Twain*] :

Jellied adder's tail or marinaded Jersey-herd udder

* Allegedly.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 9, 2023

If a person kisses a fish, the person may be happy, but the fish will not be ~ Voltaire

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 9, 2021

'Even with the sound off, the stench both of the finger-wagging and from the hideous assurance that comes from having so much capital that one can spout fantasies* makes me hasten to beckon the servant with the bucket and refreshing lemon-infused towel !' ~ Evelyn Waugh

1 / 2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 14, 2022

I prefer arm-rests to arm-wrestling, but I don't like either very much ~ John Wayne

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 6, 2023

Oh, but I procure *all* mes parfums, my dear, through the caring offices of Boddle & Shrike - don't you ? ~ Oscar Wilde

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 11, 2023

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Trust me, I'm a doctor [or dentist, solicitor, landscape gardener...] ~ Charging what the market will bear ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

20 September

In fact will anyone, asked to cost a job, or when drawing up an invoice, not have an eye to whether the figures will cause a splutter - or, more desirably, be accepted without batting an eye-lid ?

NHS plans to make senior doctors reveal outside earnings https://t.co/6ozzKc2jN0

— The Guardian (@guardian) September 20, 2016

A conflict of interest is that consultants, seen privately for an examination, might then have reason not to report true NHS waiting-times ? https://t.co/Eeif4Fg3Wx

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 20, 2016

Or, equally, a consultation could take place on the #NHS, but, on gauging the patient's liquidity, exaggerate the need for prompt surgery ? https://t.co/imfZMq3klV

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 20, 2016

In Lady Windemere’s Fan [sic], Oscar Wilde had Lord Darlington quip that a cynic was ‘a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing'.

From Paul Bernal's blog [paulbernal.wordpress.com]

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Bucking fizzy

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

7 February

That's what it feels like sometimes, especially when you receive a grand e-mail, called Tankard Oil Delivery Confirmation (304503), and you truly wanted to know about delivery no. 304506, which Amanda Holden had placed. (All that when trying to place a reverse-charge call to the phallus below which Kafka's remains are allegedly interred.)

In Stretham, such matters are viewed more casually, and with an element of abandon, and many have a Gaol Scar from their encounters with liquefied fuel (a matter that they lightly brush off if anyone is foolish enough to remark on it).

'The brain,' Oscar Wilde used to quip, 'is a remarkable organ: some day, I must acquire one of my own!'. A strict Freudian, before his day, but then he came from Coward Isle, he mixed with 'the aisle crowd'*, and he rode low in his sidecar (get my meaning?!).

On another note, it can be said that his social drew from all manner of artists, and that anyone, if they chose, could have a cordial sew, or seek where Carol Dew is to be found. All too often, though, he laid an escrow upon jollity, and a drunken soldier would caw vainly in the night in search - ahead of his time - of Kafka.

So, from Elephant and Castle, head pretty much in any direction - you're bound to have a good time, and might even find The Cinema Museum!



End-notes

* Indeed, it is said that he would never enjoy cheese unless he could eat it with oat-cakes.


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