“Come on, it's almost midnight. Let's go watch them cut the cake.”

Marquet quoted by his wife Marcelle, in &#x27;Exposition Albert Marquet&#x27;, Musee Jenisch, p. 8; as cited in Albert Marquet and the Fauve movement; 1898-1908, Norris Judd, Thesis (A.B.), published by Sweet Briar College, May, 1976 – - digitized by Internet Archive, 2010 https://archive.org/details/albertmarquetfau00judd, p. 52 <br class="br">[comment of his wife: Marquet frequently said this to his companions; he rarely appeared in the studio of his art teacher Gustave Moreau for any length of time because he felt ill at ease there. He preferred to sketch in the streets of Paris with w:Charles Camoin or w:Henri Manguin.

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 30

This passage contains a statement Qu'ils mangent de la brioche that has usually come to be attributed to Marie Antoinette; this was written in 1766, when Marie Antoinette was 10 and still 4 years away from her marriage to Louis XVI of France, and is an account of events of 1740, before she was born. It also implies the phrase had been long known before that time.
Variant: At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, "Then let them eat cake!"
Source: Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), Books II-VI, VI

Source: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

Two By Two

Source: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

I'm guessing this comes from having watched too many Second World War movies.

Essay, "Easy, tiger". p.80
Source: Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls (2013)

Variant: Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?
Source: Either/Or, Part I