Winifred Watson · 234 pages
Rating: (10.8K votes)
“Odd, said Miss Pettigrew conversationally, 'the undermining effect of flowers on a woman's common sense.”
― Winifred Watson, quote from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
“All the men send you orchids because they're expensive and they know that you know they are. But I always kind of think they're cheap, don't you, just because they're expensive. Like telling someone how much you paid for something to show off.”
― Winifred Watson, quote from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
“All these years she had never had the wicked thrill of powdering her nose. Others had experienced that joy. Never she. And all because she lacked courage.”
― Winifred Watson, quote from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
“The psychology of silk underclothes has not yet been fully considered," mused Miss Pettigrew happily.”
― Winifred Watson, quote from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
“You've gone all red. It's cooking over a hot stove. That's why I've never cultivated the art. It simply ruins the complexion. I'm terribly sorry."
"It's all right," said miss Pettigrew with resignation. "I've reached the age when... when complexions don't matter."
"Not matter!" said miss LaFosse, shocked. "Complexions always matter.”
― Winifred Watson, quote from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
“her destination. It was a very exclusive, very opulent, very intimidating block of flats. Miss Pettigrew was conscious of her shabby clothes, her faded gentility, her courage lost through weeks of facing the workhouse. She stood a moment.”
― Winifred Watson, quote from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
“It’s my last chance. You know it. I know it.”
― Winifred Watson, quote from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
“If you act “ marriage or nothing” they generally give you marriage. I”
― Winifred Watson, quote from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
“If you act “ marriage or nothing” they generally give you marriage. I was very lucky. I went to his head, but he couldn’t stand the pace. He got a nice tombstone and I got the parlour.”
― Winifred Watson, quote from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
“You talk more when you're nervous," he said, still standing close to her.
"No i don't. That's absurd. I'm just trying to explain to you-"
"Do i make you nervous?"
"No. I'm not nervous."
"You're trembling."
"I'm cold. I'm wearing practically zero clothes."
His glance went to her lips, then back to her eyes. "I noticed.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from Prom Nights from Hell
“Her Lips Are Copper Wire”
whisper of yellow globes
gleaming on lamp posts that sway
like bootleg licker drinkers in the fog
and let your breath be moist against me
like bright beads on yellow globes
telephone the power-house
that the main wires are insulate
(her words play up and down
dewy corridors of billboards)
then with your tongue remove the tape
and press your lips to mine
till they are incandescent”
― Jean Toomer, quote from Cane
“Aliás, não podemos deixar passar em claro o seguinte: provavelmente, se alguém quisesse, se alguém quisesse muito transformar o senhor Goliádkin num trapo, transformá-lo-ia sem problema, sem resistência e impunemente (o que o próprio senhor Goliádkin às vezes sentias), e ele ficaria um trapo e não o Goliádkin - um trapo ignóbil, imundo; não um simples trapo, mas um trapo com dignidade, um trapo com espírito e sentidos, nem que fosse uma dignidade submissa e uns sentimentos submissos, escondidos profundamente nas rugas sujas do trapo, mas, mesmo assim, sentimentos..." (p. 79)”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Double
“Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist.... Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.”
― Allan Bloom, quote from The Closing of the American Mind
“She believes in will. It is so frail and delicate at night that she can’t even imagine the next morning, but it is so wide and binding by the middle of the next day that she cannot even remember the terrible night. It is as if she gives birth every day.”
― Amy Bloom, quote from Away
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