This essay presents some examples of irregular quotations, namely quotations that are neither immediately recognizable and clear, nor interpretable. On the contrary, citations appear rather ambiguous – especially in regard to the relationship between quoting and quoted authors –; indirect and blurred; distorted or parodic. The first part, here published, examines the presence of George Meredith in an essay by Max Beerbohm, and the presence of some nineteenth-century poets in a novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett.