Marquis Quotes

That vervey spontaneity became encounter theater therapy under the direction of the Marquis de Paar, who was peerless at grittily vapid chatter, misty bathos, and scenery-chewing controversy. Dick Cavett, who wrote for Paar, said that working for him was like having an alcoholic in the family. ~ James Wolcott

The affairs of America I shall ever look upon as my first business whilst I am in Europe. Any confidence from the king and ministers, any popularity I may have among my own countrymen, any means in my power, shall be, to the best of my skill, and till the end of my life, exerted in behalf of an interest I have so much at heart. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another. ~ Marquis De Condorcet

Never lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man's imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices. The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries. ~ Marquis De Sade

The pleasure of the senses is always regulated in accordance with the imagination. Man can aspire to felicity only by serving all the whims of his imagination. ~ Marquis De Sade

There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate. - MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE ~ Michelle Moran

I've already told you: the only way to a woman's heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure. ~ Marquis De Sade

The Huron and Iroquois forests are peopled by my friends; with me, the despots of Europe and their courts are the savages. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

He calls himself the Marquis de Carabas," he said. "He's a fraud and a cheat and possibly even something of a monster. If you're ever in trouble, go to him. He will protect you, girl. He has to. ~ Neil Gaiman

Miserable creatures, thrown for a moment on the surface of this little pile of mud, is it decreed that one half of the flock should be the persecutor of the other? Is it for you, mankind, to pronounce on what is good and what is evil? ~ Marquis De Sade

The Marquis believed himself to be hardened against flattery. He thought that he had experienced every variety, but he discovered that he was mistaken: the blatantly worshipful look in the eyes of a twelve-year-old, anxiously raised to his, was new to him, and it pierced his defences. ~ Georgette Heyer

No man can be subject to any laws, excepting those which have received the assent of himself or his representatives and which are promulgated beforehand and applied legally. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

Prohibition makes you want to cry into your beer and denies you the beer to cry into ~ Don Marquis

The penalty of death is the only one that makes an injustice absolutely irreparable; from which it follows that the existence of the death penalty implies that one is exposed to committing an irreparable injustice; from which it follows that it is unjust to establish it. This reasoning appears to us to have the force of a demonstration. ~ Nicolas De Caritat, Marquis De Condorcet

In Russian administration, minuteness does not exclude disorder. Much trouble is taken to attain unimportant ends, and those employed believe they can never do enough to show their zeal. The result is ... that having passed through one formality does not secure the stranger from another. ~ Marquis De Custine

Life's too damn funny for me to explain. ~ Don Marquis

The Marquis looked very grave and replied, 'I knew, of course, the minute whalebone corsets went out of fashion that things were coming to a pretty pass. ~ Sally Gardner

Wondering how I would make it through a hand-to-hand duel, I glanced around--and just then I saw one of Galdran's equerries fall from his saddle, his banner-spear spinning through the air toward me. Instinctively my free hand reached up and I caught the spear by the shaft. Ignoring the sting in my hand, I jammed my sword into its sheath and started whirling the spear round and round, making the banner snap and stream as my prancing, sidling horse circled round my brother. Horses turned their heads and backed away; no one was able to edge up and get in a good blow at Bran, who swayed in his saddle, his bad arm hanging limp. The warriors fell back, and no one swung at me.
Dimly I became aware of an ugly, harsh voice shouting over the crash and thuds of battle. Keeping the banner whirling, I guided my horse with my knees and risked a glance back over my shoulder--and looked straight into Galdran's rage-darkened face. He said something, spittle flying from his mouth, as he pointed straight at me.
A moment later a flicker of movement on my immediate left caused me to glance round. Shevraeth was there, next to me. "Fall back," he ordered, his voice sharp.
"No. Got to protect Bran--"
There was no time for more. The Marquis was beset by furious attackers as the King shouted orders from a short distance away. Then more riders appeared from somewhere, and for a moment everything was too chaotic to follow. I found myself suddenly on the edge of the battle; there were ~ Sherwood Smith

If they who are appointed to instruct and rule over men had wisdom and virtue themselves, realities, and not fantasies, would enable them to govern better; but scoundrels, quacksalvers, ambitious ruffians, or low sneaks, the lawgivers have ever found it easier to lull nations to sleep with bedtime tales than to teach truths to the public, than to develop intelligence in the population, than to encourage men to virtue by making it worthwhile for sound and palpable reasons, than, in short, to govern them in a logical manner. ~ Marquis De Sade

It takes all sorts of people to make the underworld. ~ Don Marquis

There's no use in talking about the plan, because of course nothing went the way it was supposed to. Even the passage of time was horribly distorted. At first the ride to the hill seemed endless, with me sneaking looks at my brother, who was increasingly unsteady in his saddle.
The Marquis insisted on riding in front of us the last little distance, where we saw a row of four horse riders waiting--the outer two bearing banners, dripping from the rain, but the flags' green and gold still brilliant, and the inner two riders brawny and cruel faced and very much at ease, wearing the plumed helms of command.
"I just wanted to see if you traitors would dare to face me," Galdran said, his caustic voice making me feel sick inside. Sick--and angry.
The Marquis bowed low over his horse's withers, every line of his body indicative of irony.
Galdran's face flushed dark purple.
"I confess," Shevraeth drawled, "we had a small wager on whether you would have the courage to face us. ~ Sherwood Smith

…the expression "beyond good and evil" is all too easily (mis)understood. When we say of someone that he is acting as if he were "beyond good and evil," we usually mean that, to put it plainly, he doesn't give a damn about the good. The expression "beyond good and evil," which has become a kind of ritornello, is typically misused - that is to say, it is used to refer to what would be more correctly referred to as "beyond good." In other words, it is employed to describe a space where, although the good is no longer taken into consideration, the evil and fascination with evil are still very much at work. In this context (and if we follow Lacan's thinking to its logical conclusion), even the scandalous Marquis de Sade got no further than merely transgressing the good. In de Sade's literature, the victims not only remain beautiful throughout the horror to which they are subjected, but even gain in beauty during this process: right up to the end, a sublime beauty "covers" the bodies of the victims, even in their naked exposure. Lacan's point is that there are walls and defences that humanity has erected as shields against the central field of das Ding (connoted as evil): the first protective barrier is the good; the second is the beautiful or sublime. This is where the intimate link between sublime beauty and evil (or danger) originally springs from. Nietzsche himself develops the idea that, by transgressing (or being indifferent to) the good, we enter the domain of the sublime, ~ Alenka Zupančič

My heart hath followed all my days Something I cannot name. ~ Don Marquis

The marquis de Carabas was not a good man, and he knew himself well enough to be perfectly certain that he was not a brave man. He had long since decided that the world, Above or Below, was a place that wished to be deceived, and, to this end, he had named himself from a lie in a fairy tale, and created himself
his clothes, his manner, his carriage
as a grand joke.
There was a dull pain in his wrists and his feet, and he was finding it harder and harder to breathe. There was nothing more to be gained by feigning unconsciousness, and he raised his head, as best he could, and spat a gob of scarlet blood into Mr. Vandemar's face.
It was a brave thing to do, he thought. And a stupid one. Perhaps they would have let him die quietly, if he had not done that. Now, he had no doubt, they would hurt him more.
And perhaps his death would come the quicker for it. ~ Neil Gaiman

Beauty belongs to the sphere of the simple, the ordinary, whilst ugliness is something extraordinary, and there is no question but that every ardent imagination prefers in lubricity, the extraordinary to the commonplace ~ Marquis De Sade

Before you were born, you were nothing more than an indistinguishable lump of unformed matter. After death, you simply will return to that nebulous state. You are going to become the raw material out of which new beings will be fashioned. Will there be pain in this natural process? No! Pleasure? No! Now, is there anything frightening in this? Certainly not! And yet, people sacrifice pleasure on earth in the hope that pain will be avoided in an after-life. The fools don't realize that, after death, pain and pleasure cannot exist: there is only the sensationless state of cosmic anonymity: therefore, the rule of life should be ... to enjoy oneself! ~ Marquis De Sade

It wont be long now it wont be long man is making deserts of the earth it wont be long now before man will have used it up so that nothing but ants and centipedes and scorpions can find a living on it. ~ Don Marquis

In America there are none poor, and none even that can be called peasants. Each citizen has some property, and all citizens have the same rights as the richest individual, or landed proprietor, in the country. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

From an early period, I had the happiness to rank among the foremost in the American Revolution. In the affection and confidence of the people, I am proud to say, I have a great share. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

I come," replied he, "to thee, Manfred, usurper of the principality of Otranto, from the renowned and invincible Knight, the Knight of the Gigantic Sabre: in the name of his Lord, Frederic, Marquis of Vicenza, he demands the Lady Isabella, daughter of that Prince, whom thou hast basely and traitorously got into thy power, by bribing her false guardians during his absence; and he requires thee to resign the principality of Otranto, which thou hast usurped from the said Lord Frederic, the nearest of blood to the last rightful Lord, Alfonso the Good. If thou dost not instantly comply with these just demands, he defies thee to single combat to the last extremity. ~ Horace Walpole

The reasoning man who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily becomes the enemy of simpletons; he must expect as much, and laugh at the inevitable. ~ Marquis De Sade

Any enjoyment is weakened when shared. ~ Marquis De Sade

Tea was good. Tea was possibly the safest drink in the entire Empire. It defied anything untoward. ~ Kate Harper

He was right! Said you'd go straight after 'em, sword and knife. What's with you?"
"You said, 'A trap.' I thought it was them," I muttered through suddenly numb lips. "Wasn't it?"
"Didn't you see the riding of greeners?" Bran retorted. "It was Debegri, right enough. He had paid informants in those inns, for he was on the watch for your return. Why d'you think Vidanric sent the escort?"
"Vidanric?"
"His name," Branaric said, still staring at me with that odd gaze. "You could try to use it--only polite. After all, Shevraeth is just a title, and he doesn't go about calling either of us Tlanth."
I'd rather cut out my tongue, I thought, but I said nothing.
"Anyway--life, sister--if he'd wanted me dead, why not in the comfort of his own home, where he could do a better job?"
I shook my head. "It made sense to me."
"It makes sense when you have a castle-sized grudge." He sighed. "It was the Renselaeus escort, hard on their heels, that attacked Debegri's gang and saved my life. Our friend the Marquis wasn't far behind--he'd just found out about the spies, he said. Between us we pieced together what happened, and what I said, and what you'd likely do. I thought you'd stay home. He said you'd ride back down the mountain breathing fire and hunting his blood. He was right." He stared to laugh, but it came out a groan, and he closed his eyes for a long breath. Then, "Arrow clipped me on the right, or I'd be finished. But I can't talk long--I'm alrea ~ Sherwood Smith

Were he supreme, were he mighty, were he just, were he good, this God you tell me about, would it be through enigmas and buffooneries he would wish to teach me to serve and know him? ~ Marquis De Sade

Give up the dream that Love may trick the fates To live again somewhere beyond the gleam Of dying stars, or shatter the strong gates Some god has builded high; give up the dream. ~ Don Marquis

As the skull of the man grows broader, so do his creeds. And his gods they are shaped in his image and mirror his needs. And he clothes them with thunders and beauty, He clothes them with music and fire, Seeing not, as he bows by their altars, That he worships his own desire. ~ Don Marquis

Here am I: at one stroke incestuous, adulteress, sodomite, and all that in a girl who only lost her maidenhead today! What progress, my friends with what rapidity I advance along the thorny road of vice! ~ Marquis De Sade

What I should like to find is a crime the effects of which would be perpetual, even when I myself do not act, so that there would not be a single moment of my life even when I were asleep, when I was not the cause of some chaos, a chaos of such proportions that it would provoke a general corruption or a distubance so formal that even after my death its effects would still be felt. ~ Marquis De Sade

The imagination serves us only when the mind is absolutely free of any prejudice. A single prejudice suffices to cool off the imagination. This whimsical part of the mind is so unbridled as to be uncontrollable. Its greatest triumphs, its most eminent delights consist in smashing all the restraints that oppose it. Imagination is the enemy of all norms, the idolater of all disorder and of all that bears the color of crime. ~ Marquis De Sade

I feel happy that twenty-five years of vicissitudes in my fortune, and firmness in my principles, warrant me in repeating here that if, to recover her rights, it is sufficient for a nation to resolve to do so, she can preserve them only by rigid fidelity to her civil and moral duties. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

Respectable?...Not another word, my dear, for I assure you of all the sentiments I should like to inspire respect is the very last: love is what I wish to arouse. Respect! I am not yet old enough for respect. ~ Marquis De Sade

They declaim against the passions without bothering to think that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch. ~ Marquis De Sade

There are thorns everywhere, but along the path of vice, roses bloom above them. ~ Marquis De Sade

You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit othere is a fool. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being,the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. For my system, which you disapprove of is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness -it means more to me than my life itself. ~ Marquis De Sade

Taki

As a prolific author and journalist, Taki has written for many top-rated publications, including the Spectator, the London Sunday Times, Vanity Fair, National Review, and many others. Greek-born and American-educated, Taki is a well-known international personality and a respected social critic all over the world.

In June 1987, I was an usher at the wedding of Harry Somerset, Marquis of Worcester, to Tracy Ward. The wedding and ensuing ball took place in the grand Ward country house, attended by a large portion of British society, including the Prince and Princess of Wales. Late in the evening, while I was in my cups, a friend, Nicky Haslam, grabbed my arm and introduced me to Diana, who was coming off the dance floor. We exchanged pleasantries, me slurring my words to the extent that she suddenly took my hand, looked at me straight in the face, and articulated, "T-a-k-e y-o-u-r t-i-m-e." She mistook my drunken state for a severe speech impediment and went into her queen-of-hearts routine. Nicky, of course, ruined it all by pulling her away and saying, "Oh, let him be, ma'am; he's drunk as usual. ~ Larry King

I once heard the survivors of a colony of ants that had been partially obliterated by a cow's foot seriously debating the intention of the gods towards their civilization. ~ Don Marquis

What's happening?" he asked.
The Marquis spared him a glance, and then returned his gaze to the action in front of them. "You," he said, "are out of your depth, in deep shit, and, I would imagine, a few hours away from an untimely and undoubtedly messy end. We on the other hand are auditioning bodyguards. ~ Neil Gaiman

I don't want to be pinned down to any position. My position is the lack of a position, but of course you can't even talk about it; the minute you talk you spoil the whole game-Marcel Duchamp ~ Alice Goldfarb Marquis

Certain souls may seem harsh to others, but it is just a way, beknownst only to them, of caring and feeling more deeply. ~ Marquis De Sade

Our articles of confederation ought to be revised and measures immediately taken to invigorate the Continental Union. Depend upon it: there lies the danger for America. This last stroke is wanting, and unless the states be strongly bound to each other, we have to fear from British and, indeed, from European politics. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness. ~ Don Marquis

Crime is the soul of lust. What would pleasure be if it were not accompanied by crime? It is not the object of debauchery that excites us, rather the idea of evil. ~ Marquis De Sade

It is a cheering thought to think that God is on the side of the best digestion. ~ Don Marquis

All the evils of France have been produced less by the perversity of the wicked and the violence of fools than by the hesitation of the weak, the compromises of conscience, and the tardiness of patriotism. Let every deputy, every Frenchman show what he feels, what he thinks, and we are saved! ~ Marquis De Lafayette

But to declare his wishes only in some unknown corner of Asia, to choose the most double-dealing and the most superstitious of peoples as followers, and the vilest, most ridiculous, and most roguish working man as representative, to muddle up the message so much that it is impossible to comprehend, to teach it only to a tiny number of individuals while leaving everyone else in the dark, and to punish them for remaining there ... Oh, no, Therese, no, no, such atrocities cannot be our guide. I would rather die a thousand times than believe in them. When atheism wants martyrs, let it choose them and my blood is ready. ~ Marquis De Sade

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination. ~ Marquis De Sade

May the States be so bound to each other as forever to defy European politics. Upon that union, their consequence, their happiness, will depend. This is the first wish of a heart more truly American than words can express. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

The Marquis de V... - whose falsetto voice and little watery eyes I have always detested - was saying to me with a wicked smile: 'Then again, the master gymnast might break his neck at any moment. What he is doing now is very dangerous, my dear, and the pleasure you take in his performance is the little frisson that danger affords you. Wouldn't it be thrilling, if his sweaty hand failed to grip the bar? The velocity acquired by his rotation about the bar would break his spine quite cleanly, and perhaps a little of the cervical matter might spurt out as far as this! It would be most sensational, and you would have a rare emotion to add to the field of your experience - for you collect emotions, don't you? What a pretty stew of terrors that man in tights stirs up in us!

'Admit that you almost wish that he will fall! Me too. Many others in the auditorium are in the same state of attention and anguish. That is the horrible instinct of a crowd confronted with a spectacle which awakens in it the ideas of lust and death. Those two agreeable companions always travel together! Take it from me that at the very same moment - see, the man is now holding on to the bar by his fingertips alone - at the very same moment, a good number of the women in these boxes are ardently lusting after that man, not so much for his beauty as for the danger he courts.'

The voice subtly changed its tone, suddenly becoming more interested. 'You have singularly pale eyes this evening, my ~ Jean Lorrain

The Marquis had known whom he had wanted not to be, when he was a boy. He had definitely not wanted to be like Peregrine. He had not wanted to be like anyone at all. He had, instead, wanted to be elegant, elusive, brilliant and, above all things, he had wanted to be unique.
Just like Peregrine. ~ Neil Gaiman

I look back on my life
and it seems to me to be
just one damned kitten
after another ~ Don Marquis

The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram. ~ Don Marquis

The Marquis De Sade said that the most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage. When a boss humiliates an employee, or a man humiliates his wife, he is merely being cowardly or taking his revenge on life, they are people who have never dared to look into the depths of their soul, never attempted to know the origin of that desire to unleash the wild beast, or to understand that sex, pain and love are all extreme experiences. Only those who know those frontiers know life; everything else is just passing the time, repeating the same tasks, growing old and dying without ever having discovered what we are doing here. ~ Paulo Coelho

The American women are very pretty and have great simplicity of character, and the extreme neatness of their appearance is truly delightful: cleanliness is everywhere even more studiously attended to here than in England. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

It is only by sacrificing everything to sensual pleasure that this being known as Man, cast into the world in spite of himself, may succeed in sowing a few roses on the thorns of life. ~ Marquis De Sade

But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. ~ Charles Dickens

I am almost ashamed to answer,' she said. 'As I have said before, Emily
Fox-Seton has become the lodestar of my existence. I cannot live without
her. She has walked over to Maundell to make sure that we do not have a
dinner-party without fish to-night.'
'She has _walked_ over to Maundell,' said Lord Walderhurst
'after
yesterday?'
'There was not a pair of wheels left in the stable,' answered Lady
Maria. 'It is disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid walker, and
she said she was not too tired to do it. It is the kind of thing she
ought to be given the Victoria Cross for
saving one from a dinner-party
without fish.'
The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the cord of his monocle and fixed the
glass rigidly in his eye.
'It is not only four miles to Maundell,' he remarked, staring at the
table-cloth, not at Lady Maria, 'but it is four miles back. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe it. ~ Don Marquis

There is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author. ~ Marquis De Sade

Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust. ~ Marquis De Sade

Thus, that happiness the two sexes cannot find with the other they will find, one in blind obedience, the other in the most energetic expression of his domination. ~ Marquis De Sade

Fuck! Is one expected to be a gentleman when one is stiff? ~ Marquis De Sade

Fishing: a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes. ~ Don Marquis

I suggest somewhere that anyone who wishes to write and has no aptitude for it would be better off making shoes for ladies and boots for men. ~ Marquis De Sade

The world was in a confused turmoil-wars, H-bombs, confrontations, fear, hate, hate. And Hollywood was feeding the confusion with a steady diet of sex, violence, and lewdness. What wisdom needed, to catch up with our runaway technology, was time. And time might be bought not with violence, but with compassion-that divine unguent that lubricates and soothes our abrasive human hates. Compassion might just possibly slow down the ticking till we could defuse the world with reason.
And we had an outside chance of buying a little precious extra time by filming the life of Schnozzola, the great compassionate clown. A chance that got lost among stars and their satellites. Pity Pity.
Now what would I do? Certainly the world didn't need more films about sex, violence, and lewdness. Judging by contemporary Hollywood films, the United States was made up of sexpots, homosexuals, lesbians, Marquis de Sades, junkies too! too! beautiful people, country-club liberals, draft-card burners, and theatrical and religious figures bleeding make-believe blood for cause and camera. "Shock films," they called them; "skin flicks" that dealt not with the humorous, honest, robust, Rabelaisian earthiness that nurtures life, but with the cologned, pretentious, effete, adulterated crud that pollutes life. ~ Frank Capra

I despise Wednesdays! They are the Marquis de Sade of the work week. Wednesday are so awful that...wait..what? It's Thurs? (face-palm) ~ L.G.A. McIntyre

There's a dance in the old dame yet. ~ Don Marquis

In a slow, pleasant voice, Prince Alaerec asked mild questions--weather, travel, Bran's day and how he'd filled it. I stayed silent as the three of them worked away at this limping conversation. The Renselaeus father and son were skilled enough at nothing-talk, but poor Bran stumbled over half his words, sending frequent glances at me. In the past I'd often spoken for both of us, for truth was he felt awkward with his tongue and was somewhat shy with new people, but I did not feel like speaking until I'd sorted my emotions out--and there was no time for that.
To bridge his own feelings, my brother gulped at the very fine wine they offered. Soon a servant came in and announced that dinner was ready, and the old Prince rose slowly, leaning heavily on a cane. His back was straight, though, as he led the way to a dining room. Bran and I fell in behind, I treading cautiously, with my skirts bunched in either hand.
Bran snickered. I looked up, saw him watching me, his face flushed. "Life, Mel, are you supposed to walk like that?" He snickered again, swallowed the rest of his third glass of wine, then added, "Looks like you got eggs in those shoes."
"I don't know how I'm supposed to walk," I mumbled, acutely aware of that bland-faced, elegantly dressed Marquis right behind us, and elbowed Bran in the side. "Stop laughing! If I drop these skirts, I'll trip over them."
"Why didn't you just ask for riding gear?"
"And a coach-and-six while I was at it? This is w ~ Sherwood Smith

Are wars anything but the means whereby a nation is nourished, whereby it is strengthened, whereby it is buttressed? ~ Marquis De Sade

Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles. ~ Don Marquis

In the American colonies, the main problem of liberty has been solved, demonstrated and practiced in such a manner as not to leave much to be said by European institutions. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

It is so painful for a historian to begin his tale convinced no one will believe him, that if I thought belief had quite vanished from the face of this earth, I would leave this page blank. ~ Anne Gedeon LaFitte, Marquis De Pelleport

Oh! What an enigma is man!" exclaimed the Duke. "Yes, my friend," said Curval. "That is why a certain very intelligent gentleman once said it was better to fuck him than to understand him. ~ Marquis De Sade

My youth i shall never forget
but there s nothing i really regret
wotthehell wotthehell
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai ~ Don Marquis

Beg for mercy," said the Elephant.
That one was easy. "Mercy!" said the Marquis. "I beg! I plead! Show me mercy - the finest of all gifts. It befits you, mighty Elephant, as lord of your own demesne, to be merciful to one who is not even fit to wipe the dust from your excellent toes ... "
"Did you know," said the Elephant, "that everything you say sounds sarcastic? ~ Neil Gaiman

The Marquis sighed. "I thought it was just a legend," he said. "Like the alligators in the sewers of New York City."
Old Bailey nodded, sagely: "What, the big white buggers? They're down there. I had a friend lost a head to one of them." A moment of silence. Old Naeiley handed the statue back to the Marquis. Then he raised his hand, and snapped it, like a crocodile hand, at the Carabas. "It was OK," gurned Old Bailey with a grin that was most terrible to behold. "He had another. ~ Neil Gaiman

Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron," Sebastian said approvingly. "Excellent choice."
"You have read this?" Alexei asked.
"It's not as good as Miss Davenport and the Dark Marquis, of course, but worlds better than Miss Sainsbury and the Mysterious Colonel."
Harry found himself rendered speechless.
"I'm reading Miss Truesdale and the Silent Gentleman right now."
"Silent?" Harry echoed.
"There is a noticeable lack of dialogue," Sebastian confirmed. ~ Julia Quinn

Between the years of ninety-two and a hundred and two, however, we shall be the ribald, useless, drunken, outcast person we have always wished to be. We shall have a long white beard and long white hair; we shall not walk at all, but recline in a wheel chair and bellow for alcoholic beverages; in the winter we shall sit before the fire with our feet in a bucket of hot water, a decanter of corn whiskey near at hand, and write ribald songs against organized society ... We look forward to a disreputable, vigorous, unhonoured, and disorderly old age. ~ Don Marquis

Do not calculate what I have done, for I shall accept no recompense. Calculate the public advantage, the welfare and liberty of my country, and believe that I shall refuse no burden, no danger, provided that, at the hour of tranquillity, I may return to private life, for there now remains but one step for my ambition - that of arriving at zero. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

The Spaniards are slow in their motions but strong in their attachments. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

Under the freest constitution ignorant people are still slaves. ~ Nicolas De Caritat, Marquis De Condorcet

Happiness lies only in that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime. ~ Marquis De Sade

Nature has not got two voices, you know, one of them condemning all day what the other commands. ~ Marquis De Sade

What," asked Mr Croup, "do you want?"
"What," asked the Marquis de Carabas, a little more rhetorically, "does anyone want?"
"Dead things," suggested Mr Vandemar. "Extra teeth. ~ Neil Gaiman

The ditch once covered over, above it acorns shall be strewn, in order that the spot become green again, and the copse grown back thick over it, the traces of my grave may disappear from the face of the earth as I trust the memory of me shall fade out of the minds of all men save nevertheless for those few who in their goodness have loved me until the last and of whom I carry away a sweet remembrance with me to the grave.
Last Will and Testament (1806) ~ Marquis De Sade

There was a low rumbling. "I'm going to kill somebody," said the Elephant. "As soon as I figure out who."
"Whoa, dear heart," said the Marquis, rubbing his hands together. "You mean whom. ~ Neil Gaiman

A perversion must be baptized and patronized (the Marquis De Sade and Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch were on to something). ~ Philippe Lejeune

Let us remember that, despite the tasteless fables in the Holy Writ -- Sodom and Gomorrah, for example -- Nature does not have two voices; She does not create the appetite for buggery, then proscribe its practice. This fallacious proscription is the work of those imbeciles who seem unable to view sex as anything but an instrumentality for the multiplication of their own imbecilic kind. But I put it to you thusly: would it not be unreasonable for Nature, if she opposed buggery, to reward its practitioners with consummate pleasure at the very moment when they, by buggering, heap insults upon Her "natural" order? Furthermore, if procreation were the primary purpose of sex, would woman be created capable of conceiving during only sixteen to eighteen hours of each month -- and thus, all arithmetic being performed, during only four to six years of her total life span? No, child, let us not ascribe to Nature those prohibitions which we acquire through fear or prejudice; all things which are possible are natural; let no one ever persuade you otherwise. ~ Marquis De Sade

Greetings, Colonel. Please sit ~ Samuel Marquis

Humanity has gained its suit; Liberty will nevermore be without an asylum. ~ Marquis De Lafayette