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MOVIE DIALOGUE
MOVIE REVIEWS --- MOVIES
MOVING --- MOVING ON --- MOZART
MULTICULTURALISM --- MURDER ---MUSHROOMS

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MOVIE DIALOGUE

see "ACTORS" for related links


(Alphabetical by title of film)

That's, uh, quite a dress you almost have on.
--Alan Jay Lerner (1918—1986)
American playwright and lyricist.
"An American in Paris" [1951]
(Gene Kelly to Nina Foch)

"Surely you're joking"
"No, I'm dead serious, and don't call me Shirley"
--Jim Abrahams, David & Jerry Zucker,
screenplay, "Airplane!" [1980]

Nora Charles: "It says you were shot four times in the tabloids."
Nick Charles: "That's ridiculous. They never came near my tabloids."
_Another Thin Man_ [1939]

You'd think I would have learned by now when
you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't
wear mascara.
--Billy Wilder and I. Diamond, screenplay,
"The Apartment" [1960]

She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.
--Philip Marlowe (Bogart) in "The Big Sleep" [1946],
novel by Raymond Chandler, script by William Faulkner.

-

ILSA: A franc for your thoughts.
RICK: In America they bring only a penny. (laughs)
I guess that's about all they're worth.
ILSA: I'm willing to be overcharged.
--Julius J. Epstein (1909—2000), Philip G. Epstein (1909—1952),
and Howard Koch (1902—1995)
"Casablanca" [1942].
(Dialogue between Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman.)


ILSA: Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake.
SAM: I don't know what you mean, Miss Ilsa.
ILSA: Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'
--ibid. Spoken by Ingrid Bergman and Dooley Wilson.


Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
--ibid. Rick speaking


Captain Renault: Major Strasser has been shot!
. . . Round up the usual suspects.
--ibid.


Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all
the world, she walks into mine!
--ibid. Rick speaking

-

Either he's dead, or my watch has stopped.
--George Seaton (1911—1979)
American screenwriter, director, and producer.
Screenplay for _A Day at the Races_ [1937],
spoken by Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx (feeling for a pulse.)

Come up and see me sometime.
--Mae West (1893—1980)
American stage and film actress.
"Diamond Lil" [1932 play.]

Flash! Flash! I love you but we only have fourteen
hours to save the Earth!
--Michael Allin and Lorenzo Semple
Jr, screenplay, "Flash Gordon" [1980]

You've got to go on, and you've got to give and give
and give...And Sawyer, you're going out a youngster
but you've *got* to come back a star!
--James Seymour, screenplay, "Forty-Second Street" [1933]
[Warner Baxter to Ruby Keeler]

Can I offer you anything? Frosted chocolate?
Cointreau? Benedictine? Marriage?
--Guy Holden (Fred Astaire),
_The Gay Divorcee_ [1934 film]

I wish I could care what you do or where you go
but I can't . . . My dear, I don't give a damn.
--Margaret Mitchell (1900—1949)
American novelist,
"Gone with the Wind" [1936] (Spoken by Rhett Butler in ch. 57.)

-

Professor Wagstaff (Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx) [to the
audience] as Chico began the play the piano:
"I've got to stay here, but there's no reason
why you folks can't go out into the lobby until
this thing blows over."
--Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S.J. Perelman, & Will B. Johnstone
"Horse Feathers" [1932]


Wagstaff (Groucho Marx): I'm fine, thanks, who are
you?
Baravelli (Chico Marx ): I'm fine too, but you can't
come in unless you give the password.
Wagstaff: Well, what is the password?...
Wagstaff: I got it! Haddock!
Baravelli: That's-a funny. I gotta haddock, too.
Wagstaff: What do you take for a haddock?
Baravelli: Well-a, sometimes I take-a aspirin,
sometimes I take-a Calamel.
Wagstaff: Say, I'd walk a mile for a Calamel.
Baravelli : You mean chocolate calamel. I like that
too, but you no guess it.
Hey, what's-a matter, you no understand English?
You can't come in here unless you say "swordfish."
Now I'll give you one more guess.
--dialogue, ibid.

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Elsa: [kissing Indiana Jones] Zat's how Austrians say goodbye.

Colonel Vogel: Und zis is how ve zay goodbye in Germany, Dr.
Jones. [punches Indy with the head of his cane.]

Indiana Jones: I liked the Austrian way better.

--Dialogue,
"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" [1989]

-

Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.
--Mae West (1893—1980)
American stage and film actress.
To a hatcheck girl who said "Goodness, what
beautiful diamonds," in the film "Night After Night" [1932].

You're willing to pay him a thousand dollars
a night just to sing? Why, you could get a
phonograph record of Minnie the Moocher
for seventy-five cents! For a buck and a
half you can get Minnie!
--Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx (1895—1977)
American film comedian.
"A Night at the Opera"

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In the world of advertising, there's no such thing as
a lie. There's only expedient exaggeration.
--Roger Thornhill, a character played by Cary Grant in
"North By Northwest", [1959] Written by Ernest Lehman &
directed by Alfred Hitchcock


Eve Kendall: It's going to be a long night.
Roger Thornhill: True.
EK: And I don't particularly like the book I've started.
RT: Ah.
EK: You know what I mean?
RT: Ah, let me think. Yes, I know exactly what you mean.
--Eve Kendall and Roger Thornhill, characters
played by Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant in
"North By Northwest."

-

I could've been a contender. I could've had class and
been somebody. Real class. Instead of a bum, let's
face it, which is what I am.
--Budd Schulberg (1914— )
American writer.
Screenplay for "On the Waterfront" [1954],
spoken by Marlon Brando.

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
--Tennessee Williams [Thomas Lanier Williams] (1911—1983)
American dramatist.
(Blanche DuBois' final words, in "A Streetcar Named Desire.")

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Dorothy & Group: We want to see the Wizard.
DOORMAN: Ooooh! The Wizard? But nobody can see
the Great Oz! Nobody's ever seen the Great Oz! Even I've never seen him!
DOROTHY: Well, then — how do you know there is one?
DOORMAN: Because he — I — Oh, you're wasting my time!
DOROTHY: Oh, please! Please.......sir. I've got to see the
Wizard! The Good Witch of the North sent me!
DOORMAN Prove it.
SCARECROW She's wearing the ruby slippers she gave her.
DOORMAN Oh....so she is! Well, bust my buttons! Why didn't
you say that in the first place? That's a horse of a different
color! Come on in!
--"The Wizard Of Oz" [1939]


As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart.
You don't know how lucky you are not to have one.
Hearts will never be practical until they can be
made unbreakable.
--"The Wizard" (Frank Morgan)
(In the film _The Wizard of Oz_ [1939], screenplay by Noel Langley.)

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MOVIE REVIEWS

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see "ACTORS" for related links


....a travel-poster panorama of fresh young faces,
firm young bodies and good old Florida sunshine.
--Time film review , "Where the Boys Are"
Trivia: A couple of years after the release
of this, the original beach party picture,
leading lady Dolores Hart joined a convent
and became a nun.

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REVIEWS AT:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup




MOVIES

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see "ACTORS" for related links
see "ENTERTAINMENT, HOBBIES, & LEISURE ACTIVITIES" for related links


What is the toughest thing about making film? Putting in the little
holes. The sprocket holes are the worst. Everything else is easy,
but all night you have to sit with that little puncher and make the
holes on the side of the film. You could faint from that work. The
rest is easy. The script is easy, the acting is easy, the directing
is a breeze... but the sprockets will tear your heart out.
--Mel Brooks (1926— )
American actor, writer, and director.

If my books had been any worse, I should not
have been invited to Hollywood, and if they
had been any better, I should not have come.
--Raymond Chandler (1888—1959)
American writer of detective fiction.
Letter to Charles W. Morton [12 December 1945].

"Gone With the Wind" is going to be the biggest flop
in Hollywood history. I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable
who's falling flat on his face and not Gary Cooper.
--Gary Cooper (1901—1961)
American film actor.
After Gable's acceptance of the Rhett Butler role Cooper had turned down.
In Larry Swindell _The Last Hero: A Biography of Gary Cooper_ [1980].

What do you want me to do? Stop shooting now and
release it as The Five Commandments?
--Cecil B. DeMille (1881—1959)
American filmmaker.
(After Paramount Pictures' Adolph Zukor had protested at the
escalating costs of the production of the 1923 version of "The
Ten Commandments.")

^

--John Ford (1895—1973)
American film director, notable for his westerns.

While Ford was directing a film for Sam
Goldwyn, the shooting schedule fell
one day behind. Goldwyn visited the
set, pointed out this fact, and inquired
what the director was going to do about
it. 'Sam, about how many script pages
do you think I should shoot a day?' asked
Ford. 'About five,' was the rather uncertain
response. Ford picked up the script and
ripped out five pages. 'Okay,' he said,
'now we're on schedule.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

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Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be
delivered by Western Union.
--Samuel Goldwyn [Schmuel Gelbfisz] (1882—1974)
American film producer.
On preachy films,
in Arthur Marx, _Goldwyn: The Man behind the Myth_, Ch. 15 [1976].


On a film set of a tenement...
Goldwyn: Why is everything so dirty here?
Director: Because it's supposed to be a slum area.
Goldwyn: Well, this slum cost a lot of money. It
should look better than an ordinary slum.
--Samuel Goldwyn [Schmuel Gelbfisz] (1882—1974)
American film producer.

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The Donald Spoto biography of Hitchcock was absolute nonsense.
Hitchcock couldn't have been a nicer fellow. I whistled coming
to work on his films.
--Cary Grant [Alexander Archibald Leach]
(1904—1986) English actor.
In "Variety" [6 December 1983].

^

Nigel Hawthorne (1929—2001)
British actor.

Hawthorne had played many roles before rocketing
to fame in the United States in the movie "The
Madness of King George III," in which he played
the title role. Hawthorne's opinion of his American
audience can be guessed by his comment to
Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., to whom he said, 'That
title is no good for America. They'll stay away
thinking they've missed parts one and two.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

Movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our
century. They have slapped into the American mind
more misinformation in one evening than the Dark
Ages could muster in a decade.
--Ben Hecht (1893—1964)
American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter.
_A Child of the Century_ [1954]

They are doing things on the screen now
that I wouldn't do in bed, if I could.
--Bob [Leslie Townes] Hope (1903—2003)
British-born American entertainer and actor.
1965 attributed remark.

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The words 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' which I saw
on an Italian movie poster, are perhaps the
briefest statement imaginable of the basic
appeal of movies.
--Pauline Kael (1919—2001)
American film critic.
_Kiss Kiss Bang Bang_ [1968]


The late Pauline Kael, many years ago, was asked how movies affected
political opinions. They had no influence on politics, she said, but
in private life they were crucial. She could remember when the first
great performances of Cary Grant in the 1930s transformed the
behavior of boys. By his example, Grant taught boys the essence of
suave behavior on a date. No one ever did anything nicer for girls.
"Every boy became a better date," as Kael recalled.
--Robert Fulford, "Always settle scores at noon: And other lessons
learned at the movies", _National Post_, [9 September 2008]

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The immense popularity of American movies
abroad demonstrates that Europe is the
unfinished negative of which America is
the proof.
--Mary McCarthy (1912—1989)
American novelist.
_On the Contrary_ [1961]

If we'd had as many soldiers as that,
we'd have won the war!
--Margaret Mitchell (1900—1949)
American novelist.
After seeing "Gone With the Wind."
In W.G. Harris _Gable and Lombard_ [1976].

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Janet Leigh, Hollywood's perfect "nice girl" ingenue
who memorably changed her acting image and earned an
Academy Award nomination with her bloodcurdling
screams as she was stabbed to death in Alfred
Hitchcock's classic "Psycho," has died. She was 77.

[...]

"Psycho," with its fatal shower scene that
tantalized viewers' imaginations, was unquestionably
the zenith of Leigh's prolific motion pictures.

Leigh, offered the script by Hitchcock, was so
convinced the role as embezzling office worker
Marion Crane would establish her as a major dramatic
actress that she agreed to work for one-quarter of
her usual $100,000 fee. The gamble paid off.

[. . . ]

To shoot the scene, Leigh spent seven days in the
shower on camera while Hitchcock amassed more than
70 takes of two and three seconds each. The work
was easy, she said in her book, until the last 20
seconds, when her face had to reflect her
realization that her bloody death was imminent.

Once she saw the finished picture, Leigh often said,
she abandoned showers for life.

--By Myrna Oliver
_Los Angeles Times_ [October 5, 2004]
"Janet Leigh, 77; Memorable Shower Scene in
'Psycho' Established Her as a Major Star"

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kap goes to the movies in
this 2000 post to USENET:

One Friday in 1960 my mother took me to the movie
'Psycho' — we both loved Hitchcock movies and I'm
sure she didn't realize the macabre nature of that film.
Anyway, after the movie we had plans to drive to
Vermont. We stopped at a small motel which was eerily
similar to the 'Bates Motel'. If you ever saw 'Psycho',
you will believe that neither mother nor son slept a
wink that night.

kap

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To be completely candid, I think most movies
nowadays are trash, and many strike me as
unhealthy. The explicit sex, pointless violence,
and crude language appeal only to our lowest
instincts. They have taken away our idealism,
our sense of fun and joy. It's chic to be
cynical and tear our heroes down. What has
happened to us? And what are we doing to
our young people?
--Nancy Reagan nθe Davis (1923— )
Wife of President Ronald Reagan.
_Nancy_ [1980]

The Communist plan for Hollywood was remarkably
simple. It was merely to take over the motion picture
business. Not only for its profit, as the hoodlums had
tried — but also for a grand worldwide propaganda
base.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
_Where's the Rest of Me?_ [1965]

Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses.
--Elizabeth Taylor (1932— )
American motion-picture actress.

I wouldn't pay $50,000 for any damn
book, any time.
--Jack Warner [John Leonard Eichelbaum] (1892—1978)
Canadian-born co-founder of Warner Brothers.
Turning down the chance to film "Gone With the Wind,"
quoted in Max Wilk _The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood_ [1971].

When celluloid and fags first embarked on their epic journey
together, cigarettes signified all kinds of things. Sometimes they
signified that you were cool (Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia
Story); other times they implied that you were a red-hot she-cat
(Rita Hayworth in Gilda). They were called upon to denote age,
wisdom, rough and toughness, weary nonchalance (Humphrey Bogart),
and simultaneously — though not usually in the same film — to bestow
youthful, almost adolescent, innocence, naivety and elfin charm
(Audrey Hepburn). In old movies, in other words, everyone with a
personality smokes. Not smoking in a 1940s film is like being black
in a 1990s film: it means you're evil, or you're not very important
and you'll probably die halfway through.
--Zoe Williams, "Fag End of Fashion",
_The New Statesman_ [19 April 2004]

They shoot too many pictures and not enough actors.
--Walter Winchell (1897—1972)
American journalist.

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SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

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Russian censors permitted John Ford's classic
1940 film "The Grapes of Wrath" to be shown
because of its grim depiction of America's
Great depression.

It was soon banned, however, because Russian
audiences were impressed by the fact that, in
America, even a poverty-stricken family in the
Dust Bowl could afford to own an automobile.

--anecdotage.com


We thought a gun was too violent an image.
--Colombia Pictures spokesman explaining
why promotions for "The Last Action Hero"
showed Schwarzenegger holding a fistful
of dynamite.

---

Everything about movies




MOVING

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In a 2001 post kap writes to USENET about annoying people:

Last Friday was our first day in our new home. It was an interesting day.

As you may recall I had purchased an entertainment center and desk *already
assembled* so that I wouldn't have to do it myself. Because I *couldn't* do it
myself, no way, no how. So when the Lowe's truck pulled up to the door I was
rife with anticipation as they unloaded my appliances and two big boxes
of.....what's this? *unassembled* furniture. For the moment Lowe's wasn't my
new favorite store, nor was I the new favorite person of the manager of the
furniture department who fielded my irate telephone calls.

At any rate, while they were unloading the truck I spotted the wife of a
neighbor I had met previously and as protocol demanded I say hello, I wandered
over and introduced myself and had a brief but pleasant conversation about her
niece and my grandkids (schoolmates), and as I made two steps backward while
bidding farewell my second step smashed her outdoor patio lights. "Crunch!" A
most terrible sound. Smashed the poor thing to smithereens I did. Clutz, you
say? Yes, but a prepared clutz because we had bought the same set and as I
didn't think just one light could be replaced I gave her the entire set.

Next to the home of the irate, thoughtful, prepared clutz came the cable man.
First, you must understand that there is very little that can prevent the cable
man from completing his installation. One pratfall would be if all the TV's
weren't present. They weren't, they were all at the old apartment. Now you
would think that the cable company might have told me this when I set up the
appointment but no, they wait until the guy gets here and then they tell
me. And I think I saw a smirk. The reason they can't set up, without the
TV's, is a good one! Seems the cable lines leak something - don't know what -
he didn't explain. Radiation? Cable ooze? CBS eyes or NBC peacocks oozing
out of the lines? Don't rightly know, do know that we won't have cable until
Tuesday, the next available appointment.

The last helpful person to visit this uninformed, irate, thoughtfully prepared
clutz last Friday was the gas man. No, he didn't blow the house to kingdom
come. How could he, he turned the gas *off.* Don't ask! And so, as moving
day was the following day, we froze our asses off Saturday night.

Now, five days later, I'm pretty much over my frozen, irate, uninformed,
thoughtfully prepared clutz state of being and just back to being me, such as
me is. Oh, the furniture was finally assembled on Tuesday but on Monday, in a
burst of enthusiasm I figured I might try to conquer the entertainment center.
I opened the box and ensured the presence of all pieces and then read the first
page - no words actually, only pictures - showing piece F being atttached to
piece C. I mean, really, couldn't they at least have the decency to start with
A and B. I gave up.

kap

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acclimate [uh-KLY-mit; AK-luh-mayt], transitive and intransitive verb:
To accustom or become accustomed to a new climate,
environment, or situation.
Ex.: The Korbels did not have much time to pull their lives
together and acclimate themselves to English culture.
--Ann Blackman,
_Seasons of Her Life_

galumph [guh-LUHM(P)F], intransitive verb:
To move in a clumsy manner or with a heavy tread.
Then he climbed up the little iron ladder that led to the
wharf's cap, placed me once more upon his shoulders and
galumphed off again.
--Alistair MacLeod,
_Island: The Complete Stories_
Galumph is probably an alteration of gallop. It was coined
by Lewis Carroll in the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky."

migrate (verb) ['mI-greyt]
To move from one location or locality to another.
migration (noun)
migratory (adj.)
immigrate - to migrate to a place
emigrate - migrate from a place




MOVING ON

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see: "LOVE & MARRIAGE (OR NOT)" for related links


Finish each day and be done with it ... You have done what you
could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget
them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin
it well and serenely.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.

Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
--John Milton (1608—1674)
English poet.




MOZART

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see "MUSIC" for related links
see "PEOPLE" for related links


Mozart's music is so pure and beautiful that I see it
as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.
In Armin Hermann's _Albert Einstein_ [1994].




MULTICULTURALISM

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The 1960s, the decade that became a state of mind, is finally over.
With each new terrorist horror in London, as we learn more and more
about British homeboy terrorists, it seems safe to declare that age
of innocence is dead.

It was an age where wide-eyed all-you-need-is-love romanticism
inevitably spawned moral and cultural relativism. But when boys,
born in British hospitals, develop allegiances that demand death to
their countrymen, you know that the utopian vision of
multiculturalism, urged on us with the best of intentions, has not
gone as planned.

Three years ago, to suggest that multiculturalism was slowly killing
us, or at least killing some of us, brought down a heavy rain of
criticism.

Back in September 2002, to mark the approaching first anniversary of
the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, I wrote on this page that the
West's multiculturalism created conditions that encouraged the
West's fanatical enemies. We were so busy being inclusive,
denigrating our own culture, that we were not noticing what was
happening. I suggested that Multicultural Man and his lazy cultural
relativist thinking needed to be dismantled. A few others were
saying the same thing. But not many.

[...]

How times have changed. When four young British Muslims set off from
Luton, detonating four bomb blasts in London, most people were
shaken out of their reverie. Eventually, it seems, reality bites.
Sometimes slowly. Sometimes cruelly. Now, more than a few people are
saying that tolerance is not as safe as it seems. That too much of
the stuff can be a problem because it suggests to those who detest
our values and our societies that we will not make judgments about
what is right and what is wrong.

[...]

Advocating multiculturalism for people from cultures with similar
values was never going to be problematic. But when cultures differ
sharply, multicultural policies that promote all cultures as equal
lead us in all sorts of wrong directions. A young Aboriginal woman
points to tribal law to excuse her for killing her philandering
husband. An educated man, the father of a group of Pakistani gang
rapists, claims they did not understand our culture.

Finally, more of us are saying "Hang on, some values are non-
negotiable." Perhaps we can draw a shade on the '60s view that all
cultures are equal. That utopian-driven decade is drawing to a close
on other fronts too. Welfare is not all it's cracked up to be. No-
fault divorce has not been the blessing it promised to be. It seems
we may be growing up, learning to draw a line in at least some of
the right places. Who knows which of the '60s sacred cows will be
next?

--Janet Albrechtsen,
"End of an innocent age," _The Australian_





MURDER

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see "CRIME & PUNISHMENT" for related links


Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that
society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf
demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime
in which society has a direct interest.
--W.H. [Wystan Hugh] Auden (1907—1973)
English-born poet and man of letters.
"The Guilty Vicarage" _Harpers_ [May 1948]

I never killed a man, but I have read many
obituaries with a lot of pleasure.
--Clarence Darrow (1857—1938)
American lawyer.

Willie poisoned his father's tea;
Father died in agony
Mother came, and looked quite vexed:
"Really, Will," she said, "what next?!"
--Harry Graham (1874—1936)
British writer and journalist.
_Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes_ [1899]

Television has brought back murder into
the home — where it belongs.
--Alfred Hitchcock (1899—1980)
British-born film director.
In "Observer" [19 December 1965].

In that case, if we are to abolish the
death penalty, let the murderers take
the first step.
--Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808—1890)
French novelist and journalist.
In "Les Guκpes" [January 1849].

^^

In Texas, when Orvell Lloyd was asked why he had killed his
mother-in-law, he said he had mistaken her for a raccoon.
_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_
Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Crime and the Law"

^^

^

Dwarfing all known records for matrimonial homicide, Mr Peter
Scott of Southsea made seven attempts to kill his wife without her
once noticing that anything was wrong. In 1980 he took out an
insurance policy on his good lady which would bring him £250,000
in the event of her accidental death. Soon afterward, he placed a
lethal dose of mercury in her strawberry flan, but it all rolled out.
Not wishing to waste the lethal substance, he then stuffed her
mackerel with the entire contents of the bottle. This time she ate
it, but with no side effects whatsoever. Warming to the task, he
then took his wife on holiday to Yugoslavia. Recommending the
panoramic views, he invited her to sit on the edge of a cliff — she
declined to do so, prompted by what she later described as some
'sixth sense.' The same occurred only weeks later when he urged
her to savour the view from Beachy Head. When his spouse was
in bed with chicken-pox he started a fire outside the bedroom
door, but some interfering busybody put it out. Undeterred, he
started another fire and burnt down the whole flat in Turswell
Road, Southsea: the wife of his bosom escaped uninjured.
Another time he asked her to stand in the middle of the road so
that he could drive towards her and check if his brakes were
working. At no time did Mrs Scott feel that the magic had gone
out of their marriage. Since it appeared that nothing short of a
small nuclear bomb would have alerted this good woman to her
husband's intentions, he eventually gave up and confessed all to
the police. After the case, a detective said Mrs Scott was
absolutely shattered when told of her husband's plot to
kill her. She had not clued it at all and she was dumbstruck.
--John Mortimer (1923— )
English barrister and author.
In _The Best After-Dinner Stories_
Selected and introduced by Tim Heald [2003].

^

Roast beef and Yorkshire, or roast pork and apple sauce, followed
up by suet pudding and driven home, as it were, by a cup of
mahogany-brown tea, have put you in just the right mood. Your
pipe is drawing sweetly, the sofa cushions are soft underneath
you, the fire is well alight, the air is warm and stagnant. In
these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to read
about? Naturally, about a murder.
--George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903—1950)
English novelist.
"Decline of the English Murder" [written 1946]

-

"I don't know. What kind of things usually provide motives?"

"For murder? Because that's what we're dealing with in this case.
[...] If it's unpremeditated, then anger. Lust. Money, if the
killing occurs during a hold-up. Stupidity, if it happens in a
hijacking. But this was premeditated. We don't know how it was
done, but it called for advance planning. So then the motives are
different. Jealousy. Envy. Greed. Revenge."

"You sound like you're running through the list of the seven
deadly sins."

"Why do you think they're called deadly?"

--dialogue, Charles Sheffield "The Waste Land",
_Asimov's Science Fiction_ [March 2003]

-

Murder most foul, as in the best it is.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Hamlet_ [1601], I, 5, 27

CAESAR: To the end of history, murder shall breed
murder, always in the name of right and honor and
peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create
a race that can understand.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
_Caesar and Cleopatra_ [1899]

I didn't want to hurt the man. I thought he was
a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought
so right up to the moment I cut his throat.
--Perry Smith
Confession. In Truman Capote
_In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences_ [1966].

Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though
he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever
rescues a single life earns as much merit as though
he had rescued the entire world.
--Talmud (A.D.1st—6th cent.)
Rabbinical writings.

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill
came always together, who would escape hanging?
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.

-

There was a young lady of Malta
Who strangled her aunt with a halter.
She said, 'I won't bury her;
She'll do for my terrier;
She'll keep for a month if I salt her.'
--anon.

-

If a Ripuarian kills a Frankish foreigner, let him be
held liable for 200 solidi ...
3, If a Ripuarian kills a Roman foreigner, let him be
fined twice 50 solidi ...
5 If anyone kills a freeborn clerk, let him be held
liable for twice 50 solidi
8. If anyone kills a free-born priest [or bishop], let
him be fined thrice 200 solidi.
10. If anyone kills the foetus within a woman or a
newborn before he has a name, let him be held liable
for twice 50 solidi. If he kills the mother along with
the foetus, let him be fined 700 solidi.
--_The Laws of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks_
(5th or 6th century; 1986 trans.) Ripuarian pt. 40,
in M.J. Cohan and John Major {ed.} _History in Quotations_ [2004].
Cohan & Major note:
The blood-feud was a feature of barbarian life. All law codes
included wergeld, a price by which the taking of life could be
redeemed without further killing. The social status of the victim
affected the price.

-----

vendetta (noun) [ven-'de-tκ]
A blood feud between families that usually begins with a murder
and continues with violent reciprocation on both sides.




MUSHROOMS

.
.

see "FOOD & DRINK" for related links


I confess, that nothing frightens me more than the
appearance of mushrooms on the table, especially in
a small provincial town.
--Alexandre Dumas (which?)


end page





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