The difference between my quotations and those of the next man is that I leave out the inverted commas.

Moore’s quip is a sardonic confession about literary borrowing. By saying he “leaves out the inverted commas” (quotation marks), he implies that many writers rely on others’ words and ideas, but most at least signal the borrowing; he, by contrast, would present the borrowed material as seamlessly his own. The joke works as self-mockery and as a critique of originality as a literary ideal: writing is often an art of selection, adaptation, and recombination. It also gestures toward the ethics of attribution—highlighting how thin the line can be between influence, quotation, and plagiarism, especially in a culture that prizes wit and allusion.