“
Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.
Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.
Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
“
I have never planned anything illegal in my life,' Aunt Augusta said. 'How could I plan anything of the kind when I have never read any of the laws and have no idea what they are?
”
”
Graham Greene (Travels with My Aunt)
“
LADY BRACKNELL. May I ask if it is in this house that your invalid friend Mr. Bunbury resides?
ALGERNON. [Stammering.] Oh! No! Bunbury doesn't live here. Bunbury is somewhere else at present. In fact, Bunbury is dead,
LADY BRACKNELL. Dead! When did Mr. Bunbury die? His death must have been extremely sudden.
ALGERNON. [Airily.] Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon. I mean poor Bunbury died this afternoon.
LADY BRACKNELL. What did he die of?
ALGERNON. Bunbury? Oh, he was quite exploded.
LADY BRACKNELL. Exploded! Was he the victim of a revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation. If so, he is well punished for his morbidity.
ALGERNON. My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was found out! The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live, that is what I mean - so Bunbury died.
LADY BRACKNELL. He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians. I am glad, however, that he made up his mind at the last to some definite course of action, and acted under proper medical advice. And now that we have finally got rid of this Mr. Bunbury, may I ask, Mr. Worthing, who is that young person whose hand my nephew Algernon is now holding in what seems to me a peculiarly unnecessary manner?
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
“
Ah! That must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
“
Switzerland is only bearable covered with snow," Aunt Augusta said, "like some people are only bearable under a sheet.
”
”
Graham Greene (Travels with My Aunt)
“
Why didn't I know about this, Gideon?" Lady Augusta demanded, clearly aggrieved at not being first with the news. "And what Welsh aunt is this?"
"Auntie Angharad," Gideon informed her solemnly.
Lady Augusta thought for a moment and then declared, "You don't have an Auntie Angharad!"
"No," he agreed in a sorrowful voice. "She's dead.
”
”
Anne Gracie (The Perfect Rake (The Merridew Sisters, #1))
“
Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well. Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta. Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
“
Yet Katie held fast to the dream that perhaps there were men in the world who appreciated good women - men capable of loving a woman enough to die for her.
Something had to inspire the heroes in fairy tales and books.
Her Aunt Augusta always said it was only womenfolk’s eternal wish for better men that inspired such stories…but Katie liked to believe that living or, at least, once-living men inspired them.
”
”
Marcia Lynn McClure (The Prairie Prince)
“
I have never planned anything illegal in my life,’ Aunt Augusta said. ‘How could I plan anything of the kind when I have never read any of the laws and have no idea what they are?
”
”
Graham Greene (Travels with My Aunt)
“
Lady Bracknell. My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality. Jack. On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Importance Of Being Earnest)
“
Please don't touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered especially for Aunt Augusta.
JACK: Well, you have been eating them all the time.
ALGERNON: That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
“
I think the reason lay partly in his idea of immortality, but I think too it belonged to his war against the Inland Revenue. He was a great believer in delaying tactics. “Never answer all their questions,” he would say. “Make them write again. And be ambiguous. You can always decide what you mean later according to circumstances. The bigger the file the bigger the work. Personnel frequently change. A newcomer has to start looking at the file from the beginning. Office space is limited. In the end it’s easier for them to give in.” Sometimes, if the inspector was pressing very hard, he told me that it was time to fling in a reference to a non-existing letter. He would write sharply, “You seem to have paid no attention to my letter of April 6, 1963.” A whole month might pass before the inspector admitted he could find no trace of it. Mr Pottifer would send in a carbon copy of the letter containing a reference which again the inspector would be unable to trace. If he was a newcomer to the district, of course he blamed his predecessor; otherwise, after a few years of Mr Pottifer, he was quite liable to have a nervous breakdown. I think when Mr Pottifer planned to carry on after death (of course there was no notice in the papers and the funeral was very quiet) he had these delaying tactics in mind. He didn’t think of the inconvenience to his clients, only of the inconvenience to the inspector.’ Aunt Augusta
”
”
Graham Greene (Travels With My Aunt)
“
ALGERNON:
I suspected that, my dear fellow! I have Bunburyed all over Shropshire on two separate occasions. Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the country?
JACK:
My dear Algy, I don’t know whether you will be able to understand my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It’s one’s duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.
ALGERNON:
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!
JACK:
That wouldn’t be at all a bad thing.
ALGERNON:
Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.
JACK:
What on earth do you mean?
ALGERNON:
You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn’t for Bunbury’s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Willis’s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays)
“
Ojalá pudiera reproducir con más claridad los tonos de su voz. A tía Augusta le gustaba hablar, le gustaba contar historias. Construía las frases con cuidado, como un escritor lento que prevé la fase siguiente y encamina hacia ella su pluma. Nunca dejaba suelta una frase, nunca interrumpía el hilo del relato. En su dicción había algo clásicamente preciso; o quizás sería más exacto decir anticuado. Las expresiones fuera de lo común (y a veces, debo admitirlo, chocantes) brillaban con tanto más resplandor sobre las viejas construcciones.
”
”
Graham Greene (Travels with My Aunt)
“
I have nearly always, during the last sixty or more years, had a friend,’ Aunt Augusta said. She added, perhaps because I looked incredulous, ‘Age, Henry, may a little modify our emotions—it does not destroy them.
”
”
Graham Greene (Travels with My Aunt)
“
have never planned anything illegal in my life,’ Aunt Augusta said. ‘How could I plan anything of the kind when I have never read any of the laws and have no idea what they are?
”
”
Graham Greene (Travels with My Aunt)
“
I have always preferred an occasional orgy to a nightly routine."
"What?"
"Aunt Augusta said that. In Travels with My Aunt.
”
”
Armistead Maupin (Mary Ann in Autumn (Tales of the City, #8))