Great One Liners

[storeynicholas]

Maria Costantinno (Men’s Fashion in the Twentieth Century: From Frock Coats to Intelligent Fibres, p. 58), also mentions the following sentence by Cary Grant:

“An impeccable dresser both on and off screen, Grant is reputed to have quipped about his film roles: ‘I play only myself, but I play it to perfection.’”

Brought out by the fact that after some praise for his acting from a speaker at a star-spangled function he muttered "I wish that I were Cary Grant" to which his neighbour added "I wish that I were Laurence Olivier".
NJS

[jb]

I have also read the same quote attributed to Cary Grant ("Old Cary Grant fine, how you"?) as Gar Wood's response after a writer filed a story on his latest win and the editor wanted to know his age. Regardless, it is a fine story.

I like Coco Chanel's saying, "A sinner can repent, but stupid is forever".

Cheers,
Joel

[BirdofSydney]

A few of my favourites. Some which bring to mind style:

"Elegance is refusal." -Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel

"The beautiful will save us" -Fyodor Dostoevskij

"God is in the details." -Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

And a few others I enjoy:

"L'enfer, c'est l'autre!" -Jean-Paul Sartre

"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worse; the last is a real tragedy!" -Oscar Wilde

"In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it." -Field Marshall Erwin Rommel

[storeynicholas]

It's nearly the opposite of the usual meaning of a good one-liner - but I have always liked the anecdote, which George Best told: during some tumultuous period in his football career, with tabloid headlines etc, he was in some resort and called room service. The waiter arrived with the champagne. George was sitting on the bed with the then Miss World, having just returned from the casino with a bag of money which was spilling onto the floor; depositing the champagne and turning to leave, the waiter ventured: Where did it all go wrong, Mr Best?
NJS

[Bishop of Briggs]

Mae West

"Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" and "When women go wrong, men go right after them" in She Done Him Wrong

"When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better." and "It's not the men in your life that matters, it's the life in your men" in "I'm No Angel".

"Between two evils, I generally like to pick the one I never tried before." in "Klondike Annie"

[storeynicholas]

Not a very nice one - but fast-thinking - Margot Asquith to Jean Harlow who mispronounced Margot by sounding the 't':



The 't' is silent - as in Harlow

NJS

[Frog in Suit]

Not a very nice one - but fast-thinking - Margot Asquith to Jean Harlow who mispronounced Margot by sounding the 't':



The 't' is silent - as in Harlow

NJS

LOL (as I believe the young people put it, Harrumph!).

Saki (who reads him nowadays?) is full of glorious one-liners.

Frog in Suit

[storeynicholas]

FiS - do, please, put up some Saki - my copy of the stories is far away and he certainly deserves a mention here!! Of course, the most famous Saki line is, posssibly:

She was a good cook, as cooks go and, as good cooks go, she went

NJS

[Frog in Suit]

FiS - do, please, put up some Saki - my copy of the stories is far away and he certainly deserves a mention here!! Of course, the most famous Saki line is, posssibly:

She was a good cook, as cooks go and, as good cooks go, she went

NJS

It is too late now to find my copy and I have quite a bit of work this week but I shall get to it as soon as I can.

Frog in Suit

[storeynicholas]

FiS - Many thanks. Bonne nuit!
NJS

[Cufflink79]

From Alan Flusser, "Think of your face as a portrait, and the shirt collar as it's frame."

Cufflink79's own, "Treat a lady as you would a bespoke suit."

Best Regards,

Cufflink79

[Frog in Suit]

I have found my copy of The Penguin Complete Saki, with an introduction by Noël Coward, no less, and on the very first page, this sentence jumps at me:

"Reginald has a magnificent scorn for details, other than sartorial."

He could have been a LL member!

Another one-liner, apocryphal no doubt, with a bit of backgound:

Ninon de Lenclos (1616-1705) was a woman of letters who knew several languages, had a "salon" (a few city blocks from where we live, actually), what we nowadays would call an intellectual. She also collected lovers in the highest strata of society even into her old age, which finally caused some scandal (the latter part of Louis XIV's reign became pretty grim, full of religiosity and devotion and intolerance). So a movement was started to send her to a convent for fallen women, i.e., prostitutes, a "Couvent des Filles Repenties" (Convent for Repentant Maidens). When she heard of it, she is said to have exclaimed : "repentant maidens, but I am neither!" (Filles repenties, mais je ne suis ni l'une, ni l'autre!)

Frog in Suit[/list]

[Frog in Suit]

Another apposite quote from Saki on the second page:

Reginald: "Why are women so fond of raking up the past? They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for a suit long after you've ceased to wear it."

Frog in Suit

[Frog in Suit]

At least a one-liner on each page....

"People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die."

"To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is dining nowhere in the evening."

"I hate posterity -- it's so fond of having the last word."

"It's the Early Christian that gets the fattest lion."

Frog in Suit

[Scot]

One of my favourite insults, very appropriate to the setting -

All the time he can spare from the adornement of his person he devotes to the neglect of his duties

Unfortunately I am not sure of its origin