Embroidery Quotes

Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.

To speak behind others' backs is the ventilator of the heart.

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.

He sank into the rocking chair, the same one in which Rebecca had sat during the early days of the house to give embroidery lessons, and in which Amaranta had played Chinese checkers with Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, and in which Amarana Ursula had sewn the tiny clothing for the child, and in that flash of lucidity he became aware that he was unable to bear in his soul the crushing weight of so much past.

Embroidery?" I sucked at embroidery. Aunt Hyacinth had tried to teach me, but we'd both given it up as a lost cause.Lucy, strangely, had picked it up really quickly and embroidered a tapestry of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow for my last birthday.

Four people wheel out a huge wedding cake from a side room. Most of the guests back up, making way for this rarity, this dazzling creation with blue-green, white-tipped icing waves swimming with fish and sailboats, seals and sea flowers. But I push my way through the crowd to confirm what I knew at first sight. As surely as the embroidery stitches in Annie's gown were done by Cinna's hand, the frosted flowers on the cake were done by Peeta's.

It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.

If the reality of our life has become an unsettling arabesque puzzle and we still want to add more filigree embroidery to it, we might, some day, expect to stray from the point of recognition, lose the final thread, be expelled to the edge of delusion and forced to dance on the brim of chaos. ("Alert. High noon." )

Now the Earth with many flowers puts on her spring embroidery

Helda's been trying to impress me with the embroidery on the sheets. One more minute and I thought I might use them to hang myself." "My mother did the embroidery," Bittterblue said. Katsa clapped her mouth shut and glared at Helda. "Thank you, Helda, for mentioning that detail.

You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters—all that matters, really—is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest—women, art, success—is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.

Such a captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: that what really keeps her where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside and for no reason at all. Having no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disk jockey. If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else?

We Irish prefer embroideries to plain cloth. To us Irish, memory is a canvas--stretched, primed, and ready for painting on. We love the "story" part of the word "history," and we love it trimmed out with color and drama, ribbons and bows. Listen to our tunes, observe a Celtic scroll: we always decorate our essence.

She has always had a secret liking for this part of the embroidery, the ‘wrong’ side, congested with knots, striations of silk and twists of thread. How much more interesting it is, with its frank display of the labour needed to attain the perfection of the finished piece.

Memory is not a storage place but a story we tell ourselves in retrospect. As such, it is made of storytelling materials: embroidery and forgery, perplexity and urgency, revelation and darkness.

My father once nearly came to blows with a female dinner guest about whether a particular patch of embroidery was fuchsia or magenta. But the infinite gradations of color in a fine sunset - from salmon to canary to midnight blue - left him wordless.

Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.

I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there's more enterprise In walking naked

In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white; Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee; Fairies use flower for their charactery.

She sifted, sighed, and stared up at the ceiling, trying to think about anything but Lord Maccoon, her current predicament, or Lord Akeldama's safety. Which meant she could do nothing but reflect on the complex plight of her mama's more recent embroidery project. Thins, in itself, was a worse torture than any her captors could devise.

When I was four or five years old, my mom made me a beautiful white dress with red embroidery on the top for Christmas. I remember her laboring over it because sewing didn’t come naturally to her. I tried it on, and the gathered waistline with the fitted bodice just didn’t please her. It didn’t lie the way it should, so she ripped it out several times.

... life may be compared to a piece of embroidery, of which, during the first half of his time, a man gets a sight of the right side, and during the second half, of the wrong. The wrong side is not so pretty as the right, but it is more instructive; it shows the way in which the threads have been worked together

One can't help thinking, Daddy, what a colourless life a man is forced to lead, when one reflects that chiffon and Venetian point and hand embroidery and Irish crochet are to him mere empty words. Whereas a woman- whether she is interested in babies or microbes or husbands or poetry or servants or parallelograms or gardens or Plato or bridge- is fundamentally and always interested in clothes.

Thanks to His Majesty," the magus said, and my father seemed startled at the correction but not displeased. He looked thoroughly satisfied and very much like Ina when she has all her embroidery threads arranged to her satisfaction. He looked so pleased that I checked over my shoulder to see if there might be someone else behind me who had drawn his attention.

Some of us are fated to live in a box from which there is only temporary release. We of the damned-up spirits, of the thwarted feelings, of the blocked hearts, and the pent-up thoughts, we who long to blast out, flood forth in a torrent of rage or joy or even madness, but there is nowhere for us to go, nowhere in the world because no one will have us as we are, and there is nothing to do except to embrace the secret pleasures of our sublimations, the arc of a sentence, the kiss of a rhyme, the image that forms on paper or canvas, the inner cantata, the cloistered embroidery, the dark and dreaming needlepoint from hell or heaven or purgatory or none of those three, but there must be some sound and fury from us, some clashing cymbals in the void.

She was passionate about knitting because it allowed her to reach a state of peacefulness, and she loved to embroider because it let her express her creativity. Both activities were liberating. They allowed her to exist outside of time.

Something is unfolding, being revealed to me. I see that there's a whole world of of girls and their doings that has been unknown to me, and that I can be part of without making any effort at all. I don't have to keep up with anyone, run as fast, aim as well, make loud explosive noises, decode messages, die on cue. I don't have to think about whether I do these things well, as well as a boy. All I have to do is sit on the floor and cut frying pans our of the Eaton's Catalogue with embroidery scissors, and say I've done it badly.

One isn't born courageous, one becomes it.

I learned embroidery," Kaede said, "But you can't kill anyone with a needle." "You can," Shizuka said offhandedly. "I'll show you one day.

And oh, how she pitched herself into things. She would draw pictures all day long for weeks on end, then throw out the pencils and never draw another thing. Then it was embroidery with her, she had to learn it, and she'd make the most beautiful thing, fussing at herself for the least little mistake, then throw down the needles and be done with that forevermore. I never saw a child so changeable. It was as though she was looking for something to which she could give herself, and she never found it. Least ways not while she was a little girl.

It's not disgusting, that little skin that hangs?" "The foreskin? No, it's okay. I think that generally speaking , a dick isn't really photogenic." "I quite agree.

I can smell the smoke now. I can see tendrils of it comin' up between the cracks in the shrikin' floorboards. There she is, calmly taking down the framed examples of fine embroideries, samplers, and needlework from teh hallway wall and tucking them under her arm. "Mistress! Come on! You've got to leave!" She calmly turns and faces me. "Why?" she asks. "The British are coming?" "Only one, Mistress," I say

Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood; But noble platitudes — ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded.

Would you like to become my wife?" "Imbecile! What a question. It's my greatest dream!!!

Love is the opposite of good sense.

To be the mistress of a married man is to have the better role. Do you realize? His dirty shirt, his disgusting underwear, his daily ironing, his bad breath, his hemorrhoid attacks, his fuss, not to mention his bad moods, and his tantrums. Well all that is for his wife. When a married man comes to his mistress... he's always bleached and ironed, his teeth sparkle, his breath is like perfume, he's in a good mood, he's full of conversation, he is there to have a good time with you.

Men's pride is situated in their scrotums.

As far as we could tell, the face of the revolution was a sea of embroidering women, patiently waiting the resignation of their repressive governor.

I began to know my story then. Like everybody's, it was going to be the story of living in the absence of the dead. What is the thread that holds it all together? Grief, I thought for a while. And grief is there sure enough, just about all the way through. From the time I was a girl I have never been far from it. But grief is not a force that has not power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.

Tu oublies que tout le monde n'a pas ta force, ni ton courage..." "On ne nait pas courageux, on le devient".

The King and Queen did the best they could. They hired the most superior tutors and governesses to teach Cimorene all the things a princess ought to know— dancing, embroidery, drawing, and etiquette. There was a great deal of etiquette, from the proper way to curtsy before a visiting prince to how loudly it was permissible to scream when being carried off by a giant. (...) Cimorene found it all very dull, but she pressed her lips together and learned it anyway. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she would go down to the castle armory and bully the armsmaster into giving her a fencing lesson. As she got older, she found her regular lessons more and more boring. Consequently, the fencing lessons became more and more frequent. When she was twelve, her father found out. “Fencing is not proper behavior for a princess,” he told her in the gentle-but-firm tone recommended by the court philosopher. Cimorene tilted her head to one side. “Why not?” “It’s ... well, it’s simply not done.” Cimorene considered. “Aren’t I a princess?” “Yes, of course you are, my dear,” said her father with relief. He had been bracing himself for a storm of tears, which was the way his other daughters reacted to reprimands. “Well, I fence,” Cimorene said with the air of one delivering an unshakable argument. “So it is too done by a princess.

There are days when I think there really is some huge great tapestry of a plan out there and we're all woven into it - this fabulous, complex pattern of life and death, full of recurring motifs and waves of color, and we're each one tiny thread in the weave.

Aunt Amelia would perish on the spot if she walked in on such… impropriety.” “Hmm. Her untimely end would excuse you from any more embroidery lessons, would it not? Perhaps we should skip the dancing and passionately embrace instead.” “Thomas,” I chided. I told myself the sooner we discovered who the murderer was, the sooner I’d be rid of Thomas Cresswell and his devious ways. We’d be kissing in back alleys before I knew it. Then my reputation would truly be in the gutter.

I asked him what his work was. He answered that he devoted all his time to his political activities... He was undoubtedly busy with the diplomatic relations between his testicles and women's breast.

Will watched her go with regret. His attraction to the dark-haired lady with her execrable embroidery had taken him by surprise. She'd been laughing at his brothers - that was what had done it. Her eyes had sparkled with humor, her smiling lips just begging for a kiss.

In Mexico City they somehow wandered into an exhibition of paintings by the beautiful Spanish exile Remedios Varo: in the central painting of a triptych, titled “Bordando el Manto Terrestre,” were a number of frail girls with heart-shaped faces, huge eyes, spun-gold hair, prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in the tapestry, and the tapestry was the world. Oedipa, perverse, had stood in front of the painting and cried. No one had noticed; she wore dark green bubble shades. For a moment she’d wondered if the seal around her sockets were tight enough to allow the tears simply to go on and fill up the entire lens space and never dry. She could carry the sadness of the moment with her that way forever, see the world refracted through those tears, those specific tears, as if indices as yet unfound varied in important ways from cry to cry. She had looked down at her feet and known, then, because of a painting, that what she stood on had only been woven together a couple thousand miles away in her own tower, was only by accident known as Mexico, and so Pierce had take her away from nothing, there’d been no escape. What did she so desire escape from? Such a captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: that what really keeps her where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside and for no reason at all. Having no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disk jockey. If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else?

I’d always felt that one could read a woman’s discontent in the amount of embroidery in her sitting room. It gave me a crowded and nervous feeling to sit among so much frantic stitchery.

You know men!! As soon as you give in to them, they ignore you.

The embroidery came later, in the retelling, as the story was told again and again by the men, taking on its own character as it passed over camp. The Prince had ridden out, with only one soldier. Deep in the mountains, he had chased down the rats responsible for these killings. Had ripped them out of their hiding holes and fought them, thirty to one, at least. Had brought them back thrashed, lashed and subdued. That was their Prince for you, a twisty, vicious fiend who you should never, ever cross, unless you wanted your gullet handed to you on a platter. Why, he once rode a horse to death just to beat Torveld of Patras to the mark. In the men's eyes the feat was reflected as the wild, impossible thing it was--their Prince vanishing for two days, then appearing out of the night with a sackful of prisoners thrown over his shoulder, tossing them at the feet of his troop and saying: You wanted them? Here they are.

They wear their secrets like glittering diamonds, embroidery woven through their lavish buba tops and wrapped iro skirts. Their lies and lily-scented perfumes taint the honeyed aroma of sweet cakes I am no longer allowed to eat.

WHAT YOU WON’T FIND IN HER CLOSET * Three-inch heels. Why live life halfway? * Logos. You are not a billboard. * Nylon, polyester, viscose and vinyl will make you sweaty, smelly and shiny. * Sweatpants. No man should ever see you in those. Except your gym teacher – and even then. Leggings are tolerated. * Blingy jeans with embroidery and holes in them. They belong to Bollywood. * UGG boots. Enough said.

NEXT LIFE. My embroidery studio on the main street of Bayeux will be just one part of my Institute of Slow Information. I will also teach letter writing, listening, miniature portrait painting, and the art of doing one thing at a time.

This womens skin is shimmering and pale, her long black hair is tied with dozens of silver ribbons that fall over her shoulders. Her gown is white, covered in what to Bailey looks like looping black embroidery, but as he walks closer he sees that the black marks are actually words written across the fabric. When he is near enough to read parts of the gown, he realizes that they are love letters, inscribed in handwritten text. Words of desire and longing wrapping around her waist, flowing down the train of her gown as it spills over the platform. The statue herself is still, but her hand is held out and only then does Bailey notice the young woman with a red scarf standing in front of her, offering the love letter-clad statue a sungle crimson rose. The movement is so subtle that it is almost undetectable, but slowly, very, very slowly, the statue reaches to accept the rose. Her fingers open, and the young woman with the rose waits patiently as the statue gradually closes her hand around the stem, releasing it only when it is secure. ....The statue is lifting the rose, gradually, to her face. Her eye lids slowly close.

Men dressed in an embroidery of excuses are not fit to enter the colorful chamber of champions

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery.

Then allow me to finish it. Categorically. I am happy for you to pursue all the adventure you like. Here. In this house. Under this roof. Drink until you can no longer stand. Curse like a dockside sailor. Set your embroidery aflame, for God’s sake. But, as your elder brother, the head of the family, and the earl,” he stressed the last words, “I forbid you from frequenting taverns, public houses, or other establishments of vice.

It is astonishing how much you can enjoy almost everything. There are few things more desirable than to be an accepter and an enjoyer. You can like and enjoy almost any kind of food or way of life. You can enjoy country life, dogs, muddy walks, towns, noise, people, clatter. In the one there is repose, ease for nerves, time for reading, knitting, embroidery, and the pleasure of growing things; in the other theatres, art galleries, good conerts, and seeing friends you would otherwise seldom see. I am happy to say that I can enjoy almost everything.

An embroidery circle takes up a spot in the middle of the counter. I rush toward it and pick it up. My heart rate speeds up in my chest as I check out the most beautiful design I’ve ever seen. There’s no mistaking who made this. Santiago crafted a field of wildflowers, making up every color of the rainbow. It’s hands-down the best gift anyone has given me. A wobbly looking quote takes up the top of the design. Where most people see weeds, I only see you—my beautiful wildflower, untamed and free.

Then it dawned on me that men throughout the country had to know about nu shu (women's written word). How could they not? They wore it on their embroidered shoes. They saw us weaving our messages into cloth. They heard us singing our songs and showing off our third-day wedding books. Men just considered our writing beneath them. It is said men have the hearts of iron, while women are made of water. This comes through men's writing and women's writing. Men's writing has more than 50,000 characters, each uniquely different, each with deep meanings and nuances. Our women's writing has 600 characters, which we use phonetically, like babies to create about 10,000 words. Men's writing takes a lifetime to learn and understand. Women's writing is something we pick up as girls, and we rely on the context to coax meaning. Men write about the outer realm of literature, accounts, and crop yields; women write about the inner realm of children, daily chores, and emotions. The men in the Lu household were proud of their wives' fluency in nu shu and dexterity in embroidery, though these things had as much importance to survival as a pig's fart.

Memories… memories. The air is heavy with them. I can’t stand it anymore. I no longer fit in that big room with the piano, the little boxes of seeds, the peacock embroidery. I run outside and lie down on the grass. I look up at the moon between the two eucalyptuses; it touches the ledge of the cistern, and I can see the silhouette of a frog in its circle of light. But the frog is not on the moon. Like me, it is on the ground looking up.

The door of the jail being flung open, the young woman stood fully revealed before the crowd. It seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom that she might conceal a certain token which was wrought or fastened to her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush and yet a haughty smile, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.

Everyone gathered around this drink in order to devote themselves to their favorite activity: discussion. This discussion had its own purpose: To speak behind others' backs is the ventilator of the heart.

None of us can be proof against the influences that proceed from the persons he associates with. Wherefore, in books and men, let us look out for the best society, that which yields a bracing and wholesome influence. We all know the person for whose company we are the better, though the talk is only about fishing or embroidery.

As for Nina, Genya had offered up a glorious red kefta from her collection and they’d pulled out the embroidery, altering it from blue to black. She and Genya were hardly the same size, but they’d managed to let out the seams and sew in a few extra panels. It had felt strange to wear a proper kefta after so long. The one Nina had worn at the House of the White Rose had been a costume, cheap finery meant to impress their clientele. This was the real thing, worn by soldiers of the Second Army, made of raw silk dyed in a red only a Fabrikator could create. Did she even have a right to wear such a thing now? When Matthias had seen her, he’d frozen in the doorway of the suite, his blue eyes shocked. They’d stood there in silence until he’d finally said, “You look very beautiful.” “You mean I look like the enemy.” “Both of those things have always been true.” Then he’d simply offered her his arm.

He felt something on his neck. Warmth. He hesitated, then turned weary eyes toward the sky. Sunlight bathed his face. He gaped; it seemed so long since he’d seen pure sunlight. It shone down through a large break in the clouds, comforting, like the warmth of an oven baking a loaf of Adrinne’s thick sourdough bread. Almen stood, raising a hand to shade his eyes. He took a deep, long breath, and smelled… apple blossoms? He spun with a start. The apple trees were flowering. That was plain ridiculous. He rubbed his eyes, but that didn’t dispel the image. They were blooming, all of them, white flowers breaking out between the leaves. [...] What was happening? Apple trees didn’t blossom twice. Was he going mad? Footsteps sounded softly on the path that ran past the orchard. Almen spun to find a tall young man walking down out of the foothills. He had deep red hair and he wore ragged clothing: a brown cloak with loose sleeves and a simple white linen shirt beneath. The trousers were finer, black with a delicate embroidery of gold at the cuff. “Ho, stranger,” Almen said, raising a hand, not knowing what else to say, not even sure if he’d seen what he thought he’d seen. “Did you… did you get lost up in the foothills?” The man stopped, turning sharply. He seemed surprised to find Almen there. With a start, Almen realized the man’s left arm ended in a stump. The stranger looked about, then breathed in deeply. “No. I’m not lost. Finally. It feels like a great long time since I’ve understood the path before me.

Nikeya had worn more faces than Dumai could count, but never all at once. Her features were not a mask now, but pure embroidery, made up of the finest stitches of emotion: surprise, tenderness, sorrow, too many shades and myriads of feeling to be picked apart.

Catherine de Medici brought her cooks to France when she married, and those cooks brought sherbet and custard and cream puffs, artichokes and onion soup, and the idea of roasting birds with oranges. As well as cooks, she brought embroidery and handkerchiefs, perfumes and lingerie, silverware and glassware and the idea that gathering around a table was something to be done thoughtfully. In essence, she brought being French to France.

She noticed this time that his eyes weren't really gray, but green, and that perhaps they were set too close together. His forehead was awfully high, and when he smiled, his teeth were slightly crooked. And there was something cocky in his manner, but that might just be the salesman in him, she thought. Honora laid these flaws aside as one might overlook a small stain on a beautifully embroidered tablecloth one wanted to buy, only later to discover, when it was on the table and all the guests were seated around it, that the stain had become a beacon, while the beautiful embroidery lay hidden in everybody's laps.

Parler derrière le dos des autres est le ventilateur du couer.

That's life! Sometimes you're on the horse's back, and sometimes it's the horse that's on your back.

Marriage, it's like roulette: Sometimes one wins, often one loses. Even if you're very in love, it can still go bad.

I begin to want things I've never wanted before: braids, a dressing-gown, a purse of my own. Something is unfolding, being revealed to me. I see that there's a whole world of girls and their doings that has been unknown to me, and that I can be part of it without making any effort at all. I don't have to keep up with anyone, run as fast, aim as well, make loud explosive noises, decode messages, die on cue. I don't have to think whether I've done these things well, as well as a boy. All I have to do is sit on the floor and cut frying pans out of the Eaton's Catalogue with embroidery scissors, and say I've done it badly. Partly this a relief.

Sewing is a way to mark our existence on cloth: patterning our place in the world, voicing our identity, sharing something of ourselves with others and leaving the indelible evidence of our presence in stitches held fast by our touch.

It was almost a direct reversal of the old rules of conduct, under which a woman had to remain virginal or risk being cast out of society. Nowadays young women were apparently supposed to count being a sexual dynamo among their accomplishments—a far riskier avocation than embroidery or playing the harp. From damned if you do to damned if you don’t: the story of women’s lives

The difference in structure is of the same kind as that between an ordinary wallpaper in which the same pattern is repeated again and again in regular periodicity and a masterpiece of embroidery, say a Raphael tapestry, which shows no dull repetition, but an elaborate, coherent, meaningful design traced by the great master.

And why is it the women who have to be virgins? Why suffer torment to satisfy an asshole? Because the man who demands "virginity" from a women is nothing but an asshole! Why don't we behave as Westerners do!? For them, since the problem of sex is resolved, they can move on to other things! This is the reason they progress!!!

He told me and Rafe to stay put in case you came home, burn the note and get hot water and disinfectant and bandages ready—' 'Which would have come in useful, Rafe said, lighting another cigarette, 'if we'd been delivering a baby in Gone with the Wind. What on earth was he picturing? Home surgery on the kitchen table with Abby's embroidery needle?

You must have misunderstood,” Keredwel said severely. “No one volunteers to be a dragon’s princess. It isn’t done.” “Actually, Alianora’s quite right,” Cimorene said as she set the teacups in front of her visitors. “I did volunteer.” She smiled sweetly at the thunderstruck expressions on the faces of the first two princesses. “I got tired of embroidery and etiquette.” Keredwel

I’m riding a tram and, as is my habit, slowly absorbing every detail of the people around me. By ‘detail’ I mean things, voices, words. In the dress of the girl directly in front of me, for example, I see the material it’s made of, the work involved in making it – since it’s a dress and not just material – and I see in the delicate embroidery around the neck the silk thread with which it was embroidered and all the work that went into that. And immediately, as if in a primer on political economy, I see before me the factories and all the different jobs: the factory where the material was made; the factory that made the darker coloured thread that ornaments with curlicues the neck of the dress’ and I see the different workshops in the factories, the machines, the workmen, the seamstresses. My eyes’ inward gaze even penetrates into the offices, where I see the managers trying to keep calm and the figures set out in the account books, but that’s not all: beyond that I see into the domestic lives of all those who spend their working hours in these factories and offices...A whole world unfolds before my eyes all because the regularly irregular dark green edging to a pale green dress worn by the girl in front of me of whom I see only her brown neck. ‘A whole way of life lies before me. I sense the loves, the secrets, the souls of all those who worked just so that this woman in front of me on the tram should wear around her mortal neck the sinuous banality of a thread of dark green silk on a background of light green cloth. I grow dizzy. The seats on the tram, of fine, strong cane, carry me to distant regions, divide into industries, workmen, houses, lives, realities, everything. I leave the tram exhausted, like a sleepwalker, having lived a whole life.

In the specially Christian case we have to react against the heavy bias of fatigue. It is almost impossible to make the facts vivid, because the facts are familiar; and for fallen men it is often true that familiarity is fatigue. I am convinced that if we could tell the supernatural story of Christ word for word as of a Chinese hero, call him the Son of Heaven instead of the Son of God, and trace his rayed nimbus in the gold thread of Chinese embroideries or the gold lacquer of Chinese pottery, instead of in the gold leaf of our own old Catholic paintings, there would be a unanimous testimony to the spiritual purity of the story. We should hear nothing then of the injustice of substitution or the illogicality of atonement, of the superstitious exaggeration of the burden of sin or the impossible insolence of an invasion of the laws of nature. We should admire the chivalry of the Chinese conception of a god who fell from the sky to fight the dragons and save the wicked from being devoured by their own fault and folly. We should admire the subtlety of the Chinese view of life, which perceives that all human imperfection is in very truth a crying imperfection. We should admire the Chinese esoteric and superior wisdom, which said there are higher cosmic laws than the laws we know.

Yet they sense that something is wrong. They can’t quite put their finger on the problem. As time passes, they grow more and more dependent on each other; they are getting older; any opportunities to make a new life are vanishing fast. They try to keep busy doing reading or embroidery, watching television, seeing friends, but there is always the conversation over supper or after supper. He is easily irritated, she is more silent than usual. They can see that they are growing further and further apart, but cannot understand why. They reach the conclusion that this is what marriage is like, but won’t talk to their friends about it; they are the image of the happy couple who support each other and share the same interests. She takes a lover, so does he, but it’s never anything serious, of course. What is important, necessary, essential, is to act as if nothing is happening, because it’s too late to change.

I've never seen or touched anything." "Can you explain then how you had children?" "You're right. It's true I have four kids. Four! But still I have never seen the male organ. He came into the bedroom, he turned off the light, and then Bam! Bam! Bam! and voila I was pregnant! What's more, I was granted four girls. So I have never seen penises.

An we, inhabitants of the great coral of the Cosmos, believe the atom (which still we cannot see) to be full matter, whereas, it too, like everything else, is but an embroidery of voids in the Void, and we give the name of being, dense and even eternal, to that dance of inconsistencies, that infinite extension that is identified with absolute Nothingness an that spins from its own non-being the illusion of everything.

... something in the back of her mind whispered that there was no help coming and if she ran out of money, she had no real way to earn more. Her only skills were embroidery and weeding gardens. I suppose I could sell my body, but I'm not sure how one does that, either. It seemed like it would be a lot more complicated than getting a seat on a coach. Dis you approach people, or did they approach you, and how did you start a conversation that ended in money for sex? Was there an etiquette? This was not the sort of thing one was taught at convents. It was easier just to sleep in the coaches.

But as far as your virginity is concerned... Now that you are married and divorced, it's normal that you're no longer a virgin! You can make love with whomever you want, without anyone knowing! You know! There's no meter down here!

There is a – let us say – a machine. It evolved itself (I am severely scientific) out of a chaos of scraps of iron and behold! – it knits. I am horrified at the horrible work and stand appalled. I feel it ought to embroider – but it goes on knitting. You come and say: “this is all right; it’s only a question of the right kind of oil. Let us use this – for instance – celestial oil and the machine shall embroider a most beautiful design in purple and gold”. Will it? Alas no. You cannot by any special lubrication make embroidery with a knitting machine. And the most withering thought is that the infamous thing has made itself; made itself without thought, without conscience, without foresight, without eyes, without heart. It is a tragic accident – and it has happened. You can’t interfere with it. The last drop of bitterness is in the suspicion that you can’t even smash it. In virtue of that truth one and immortal which lurks in the force that made it spring into existence it is what it is – and it is indestructible! It knits us in and it knits us out. It has knitted time space, pain, death, corruption, despair and all the illusions – and nothing matters. I’ll admit however that to look at the remorseless process is sometimes amusing.

It’s why I like needlework,” she added. Fenris lifted an eyebrow. “Like splitting wood. Like you said. Embroidery doesn’t do anything. It isn’t anything but what it is, and I don’t have to worry that I’ve done something terribly wrong and my tutors will get sent away or that I slighted someone important and they’ll want to close down trade with my kingdom. I can just make pictures and patterns, and if I make a mistake, I can tear it out again and no one dies.” She took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter that I’m a princess. The thread doesn’t care.

She hesitated: "Do you love your wife?" Mersault smiled: "That's not essential." "You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters - all that matters, really - is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever present consciousness. The rest - women, art, success - is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries." "What matters to me is a certain quality of happiness. I can only find it in a certain struggle with its opposite - a stubborn and violent struggle...

It was her only room, I now saw, trying not to look around too conspicuously—it served as her kitchen, bedroom, and sitting area. It was immaculately clean, the narrow bed in one corner made up with a white quilt and ornamented with several white pillows embroidered in bright colors. Next to the bed stood a table that held a book, a lamp with a glass chimney, and a pair of eyeglasses, and beside that a small chair. At the foot of the bed was a wooden chest, painted with flowers. The kitchen area, where we sat, consisted of a simple cookstove and a table and chairs. There was no electricity, nor was there a bathroom (I learned about the outhouse in the back garden only later in the visit). On one wall hung a calendar with a photograph of workers in a factory, and on another wall hung a piece of embroidery in red and white. There were flowers in a jar and white curtains at the windows. A tiny woodstove stood near the kitchen table, with sticks of wood piled next to it.

Her little hands, Crumb. Her little paws, like a child's. She has no guile in her. And she never speaks. And if she does I have to bend my head to hear what she says. And in the pause I can hear my heart. Her little bits of embroidery, her scraps of silk, her halcyon sleeves, she cut out of the cloth some admirer gave her once, some poor boy struck with love for her...and yet she has never succumbed. Her little sleeves, her seed pearl necklace...she has nothing...she expects nothing...' A tear at last sneaks from Henry's eye, meanders down his cheek and vanishes into the mottled grey and ginger of his beard.

Basket of Figs” Bring me your pain, love. Spread it out like fine rugs, silk sashes, warm eggs, cinnamon and cloves in burlap sacks. Show me the detail, the intricate embroidery on the collar, tiny shell buttons, the hem stitched the way you were taught, pricking just a thread, almost invisible. Unclasp it like jewels, the gold still hot from your body. Empty your basket of figs. Spill your wine. That hard nugget of pain, I would suck it, cradling it on my tongue like the slick seed of pomegranate. I would lift it tenderly, as a great animal might carry a small one in the private cave of the mouth. Ellen Bass, Mules of Love (BOA Editions Ltd.; 1st edition (April 1, 2002)

Kate Walker´s attitude is characteristic of contemporary feminists' determination not to reject femininity but to empty the term of its negative connotations, to reclaim and refashion the category: "I have never worried that embroidery's association with femininity, sweetness, passivity and obedience may subvert my work's feminist intention. Femininity and sweetness are part of women's strength. Passivity and obedience, moreover, are the very opposites of the qualities necessary to make a sustained effort in needlework. What's required are physical and mental skills, fine aesthetic judgement in colour, texture and composition; patient during long training: and assertive individuality of design (and consequence disobedience of aesthetic convention). Quiet strength need not be mistaken for useless vulnerability".

No one moved. No one spoke. They seemed be riveted by whatever it was they saw in his eyes. “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.” A few gasps erupted. His voice rang out, bold, clear. “It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.” It was safe to say everyone was awake now. He’d startled most of his parishioners and aroused the rest of them. “Evie Duggan …” And all the heads official swiveled to follow the beam of the reverend’s gaze. Then swiveled back to him. Then back to Eve. Whose heart was in her eyes. “ … You are the seal upon my heart. You are the fire and flame that warms me, heals me, burns me. You are the river that cools me and carries me. I love you. And love may be as strong as death, but you … I know now you are my life.” A pin would have echoed like a dropped kettle in the church then. Eve was absolutely riveted. Frozen, her eyes burning into his. “And though I wish I could have protected you and kept you safe from some of the storms of your life, I find cannot regret any part of your past. For it has made you who you are. Loyal, passionate, brave, kind, remarkable. You need repent nothing.” The last word fell like a gavel. Not a single person moved or breathed. “There are those who think good is a pastime, to engage in like embroidery or target shooting. There are those who think beauty is a thing of surface, and forget that it’s really of the soul. But good is something you are, not something you do. And by that definition, I stand before you today and declare that Evie Duggan is one of the best people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

Mr. Severin smiled, tiny constellations of reflected chandelier lights glinting in his eyes. "Since I've told you about my tastes... what are yours?" Cassandra looked down at her folded hands in her lap. "I like trivial things, mostly," she said with a self-deprecating laugh. "Handiwork, such as embroidery, knitting, and needlepoint. I sketch and paint a little. I like naps and teatime, and taking a lazy stroll on a sunny day, and reading books on a rainy afternoon. But I would like two have my own family someday, and... I want to help other people far more than I'm able to now. I take baskets of food and medicine to tenants and acquaintances in the village, but that's not enough. I want to provide real help to people who need it." She sighed shortly. "I suppose that's not very interesting. Pandora's the exciting, amusing twin, the one people remember. I've always been... well, the one who's not Pandora.

Cixi’s lack of formal education was more than made up for by her intuitive intelligence, which she liked to use from her earliest years. In 1843, when she was seven, the empire had just finished its first war with the West, the Opium War, which had been started by Britain in reaction to Beijing clamping down on the illegal opium trade conducted by British merchants. China was defeated and had to pay a hefty indemnity. Desperate for funds, Emperor Daoguang (father of Cixi’s future husband) held back the traditional presents for his sons’ brides – gold necklaces with corals and pearls – and vetoed elaborate banquets for their weddings. New Year and birthday celebrations were scaled down, even cancelled, and minor royal concubines had to subsidise their reduced allowances by selling their embroidery on the market through eunuchs. The emperor himself even went on surprise raids of his concubines’ wardrobes, to check whether they were hiding extravagant clothes against his orders. As part of a determined drive to stamp out theft by officials, an investigation was conducted of the state coffer, which revealed that more “than nine million taels of silver had gone missing. Furious, the emperor ordered all the senior keepers and inspectors of the silver reserve for the previous forty-four years to pay fines to make up the loss – whether or not they were guilty. Cixi’s great-grandfather had served as one of the keepers and his share of the fine amounted to 43,200 taels – a colossal sum, next to which his official salary had been a pittance. As he had died a long time ago, his son, Cixi’s grandfather, was obliged to pay half the sum, even though he worked in the Ministry of Punishments and had nothing to do with the state coffer. After three years of futile struggle to raise money, he only managed to hand over 1,800 taels, and an edict signed by the emperor confined him to prison, only to be released if and when his son, Cixi’s father, delivered the balance. The life of the family was turned upside down. Cixi, then eleven years old, had to take in sewing jobs to earn extra money – which she would remember all her life and would later talk about to her ladies-in-waiting in the court. “As she was the eldest of two daughters and three sons, her father discussed the matter with her, and she rose to the occasion. Her ideas were carefully considered and practical: what possessions to sell, what valuables to pawn, whom to turn to for loans and how to approach them. Finally, the family raised 60 per cent of the sum, enough to get her grandfather out of prison. The young Cixi’s contribution to solving the crisis became a family legend, and her father paid her the ultimate compliment: ‘This daughter of mine is really more like a son!’ Treated like a son, Cixi was able to talk to her father about things that were normally closed areas for women. Inevitably their conversations touched on official business and state affairs, which helped form Cixi’s lifelong interest. Being consulted and having her views acted on, she acquired self-confidence and never accepted the com“common assumption that women’s brains were inferior to men’s. The crisis also helped shape her future method of rule. Having tasted the bitterness of arbitrary punishment, she would make an effort to be fair to her officials.

Looking up at him from across the room, Bond had to admit that there was something larger than life in the looming, imperious figure, in the hypnotically direct stare of the eyes, in the tall white brow, in the cruel downward twist of the thin lips. The square-cut, heavily draped kimono, designed to give the illusion of bulk to a race of smallish men, made something huge out of the towering figure, and the golden dragon embroidery, so easily to be derided as a childish fantasy, crawled menacingly across the black silk and seemed to spit real fire from over the left breast. Blofeld had paused in his harangue. Waiting for him to continue, Bond took the measure of his enemy. He knew what would be coming – justification. It was always so. When they thought they had got you where they wanted you, when they knew they were decisively on top, before the knock-out, even to an audience on the threshold of extinction, it was pleasant, reassuring to the executioner, to deliver his apologia – purge the sin he was about to commit.

The Winding Stair My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent, Upon the broken, crumbling battlement, Upon the breathless starlit air, 'Upon the star that marks the hidden pole; Fix every wandering thought upon That quarter where all thought is done: Who can distinguish darkness from the soul My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was, Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass Unspotted by the centuries; That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn From some court-lady's dress and round The wodden scabbard bound and wound Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man Long past his prime remember things that are Emblematical of love and war? Think of ancestral night that can, If but imagination scorn the earth And intellect is wandering To this and that and t'other thing, Deliver from the crime of death and birth. My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it Five hundred years ago, about it lie Flowers from I know not what embroidery - Heart's purple - and all these I set For emblems of the day against the tower Emblematical of the night, And claim as by a soldier's right A charter to commit the crime once more. My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows And falls into the basin of the mind That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind, For intellect no longer knows Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known - That is to say, ascends to Heaven; Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue's a stone. II My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more? Endure that toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain Brought face to face with his own clumsiness; The finished man among his enemies? - How in the name of Heaven can he escape That defiling and disfigured shape The mirror of malicious eyes Casts upon his eyes until at last He thinks that shape must be his shape? And what's the good of an escape If honour find him in the wintry blast? I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch, A blind man battering blind men; Or into that most fecund ditch of all, The folly that man does Or must suffer, if he woos A proud woman not kindred of his soul. I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest

I run my finger along the textured silk. “It’s so beautiful.” “Salishen silk,” Mage Florel says reverently. “From the Salishen Isles. They’re master weavers, the Salish. True artists. And all of their embroidery is as exquisite as this.” I glance up at her. “Do you think you could use this?” “Of course, Mage Gardner,” she replies, obviously thrilled by my choice. Fallon’s hand comes down on the fabric. “You can’t use this,” she says, her tone hard. I blink up at her in resentful surprise. “Why?” “Because,” she replies, her voice syrupy with condescension, “this is what my dress is being made of.” “Ah, what a pity,” Mage Florel sighs. She pats my shoulder sympathetically. “I’ve others, Mage Gardner, don’t you fret. We’ll find something just as lovely for you...” Heart racing, I put my own hand down firmly on the fabric sample, right next to Fallon’s. I meet Fallon’s stare and hold it. “No. I want this one.” Everyone gapes at me. Fallon leans in a fraction and bares her teeth. “You can’t have it.” I try to ignore the slight trembling of my hand. “Oh, come now, Fallon,” I say as I gesture at the fabric around us, mimicking her sneering tone. “It’s all black. And I’m sure the cut will be different.” I look over at Mage Florel, whose eyes are as wide as everyone else’s. “Can you make sure it’s very different from hers?” Fallon spits out a sound of contempt. “My dress isn’t being made here. I have my own dressmaker.” “Well, then,” I tell her. “That simplifies things.” I turn to Mage Florel. “Can you make it for me in time? With this fabric?” Mage Florel gives me an appraising look, her eyes darting toward Fallon as if weighing the options. She lifts her chin. “Why, yes, Mage Gardner. I think I can.” She smiles coldly at Fallon. “Why don’t you tell me what your dress is like, dear? I’ll make sure it’s quite different.

The careful, embroidered stitches delineated a coil of some sort. It looked rather like a halved snail shell, but the interior was divided into dozen of intricate chambers. "Is that a nautilus?" he asked. "Close, but no. It's an ammonite." "An ammonite? What's an ammonite? Sounds like an Old Testament people overdue for smiting." "Ammonites are not a biblical people," she replied in a tone of strained forbearance. "But they have been smited." "Smote." With a snap of linen, she shot him a look. "Smote?" "Grammatically speaking, I think the word you want is 'smote.' " "Scientifically speaking, the word I want is 'extinct.' Ammonites are extinct. They're only known to us in fossils." "And bedsheets, apparently." "You know..." She huffed aside a lock of hair dangling in her face. "You could be helping." "But I'm so enjoying watching," he said, just to devil her. Nonetheless, he picked up the edge of the top sheet and fingered the stitching as he pulled it straight. "So you made this?" "Yes." Though judging by her tone, it hadn't been a labor of love. "My mother always insisted, from the time I was twelve years old, that I spend an hour every evening on embroidery. She had all three of us forever stitching things for our trousseaux." 'Trousseaux.' The word hit him queerly. "You brought your trousseau?" "Of course I brought my trousseau. To create the illusion of an elopement, obviously. And it made the most logical place to store Francine. All these rolls of soft fabric made for good padding." Some emotion jabbed his side, then scampered off before he could name it. Guilt, most likely. These were sheets meant to grace her marriage bed, and she was spreading them over a stained straw-tick mattress in a seedy coaching inn. "Anyhow," she went on, "so long as my mother forced me to embroider, I insisted on choosing a pattern that interested me. I've never understood why girls are always made to stitch insipid flowers and ribbons." "Well, just to hazard a guess..." Colin straightened his edge. "Perhaps that's because sleeping on a bed of flowers and ribbons sounds delightful and romantic. Whereas sharing one's bed with a primeval sea snail sounds disgusting." Her jaw firmed. "You're welcome to sleep on the floor." "Did I say disgusting? I meant enchanting. I've always wanted to go to bed with a primeval sea snail.

They [mountains] are portions of the heart of the earth that have escaped from the dungeon down below, and rushed up and out. For the heart of the earth is a great wallowing mass, not of blood, as in the hearts of men and animals, but of glowing hot melted metals and stones. And as our hearts keep us alive, so that great lump of heat keeps the earth alive: it is a huge power of buried sunlight—that is what it is. Now think: out of that caldron, where all the bubbles would be as big as the Alps if it could get room for its boiling, certain bubbles have bubbled out and escaped—up and away, and there they stand in the cool, cold sky—mountains. Think of the change, and you will no more wonder that there should be something awful about the very look of a mountain: from the darkness—for where the light has nothing to shine upon, it is much the same as darkness—from the heat, from the endless tumult of boiling unrest—up, with a sudden heavenward shoot, into the wind, and the cold, and the starshine, and a cloak of snow that lies like ermine above the blue-green mail of the glaciers; and the great sun, their grandfather, up there in the sky; and their little old cold aunt, the moon, that comes wandering about the house at night; and everlasting stillness, except for the wind that turns the rocks and caverns into a roaring organ for the young archangels that are studying how to let out the pent-up praises of their hearts, and the molten music of the streams, rushing ever from the bosoms of the glaciers fresh-born. Think too of the change in their own substance—no longer molten and soft, heaving and glowing, but hard and shining and cold. Think of the creatures scampering over and burrowing in it, and the birds building their nests upon it, and the trees growing out of its sides, like hair to clothe it, and the lovely grass in the valleys, and the gracious flowers even at the very edge of its armour of ice, like the rich embroidery of the garment below, and the rivers galloping down the valleys in a tumult of white and green! And along with all these, think of the terrible precipices down which the traveller may fall and be lost, and the frightful gulfs of blue air cracked in the glaciers, and the dark profound lakes, covered like little arctic oceans with floating lumps of ice. All this outside the mountain! But the inside, who shall tell what lies there? Caverns of awfullest solitude, their walls miles thick, sparkling with ores of gold or silver, copper or iron, tin or mercury, studded perhaps with precious stones—perhaps a brook, with eyeless fish in it, running, running ceaseless, cold and babbling, through banks crusted with carbuncles and golden topazes, or over a gravel of which some of the stones are rubies and emeralds, perhaps diamonds and sapphires—who can tell?—and whoever can't tell is free to think—all waiting to flash, waiting for millions of ages—ever since the earth flew off from the sun, a great blot of fire, and began to cool. Then there are caverns full of water, numbing cold, fiercely hot—hotter than any boiling water. From some of these the water cannot get out, and from others it runs in channels as the blood in the body: little veins bring it down from the ice above into the great caverns of the mountain's heart, whence the arteries let it out again, gushing in pipes and clefts and ducts of all shapes and kinds, through and through its bulk, until it springs newborn to the light, and rushes down the mountain side in torrents, and down the valleys in rivers—down, down, rejoicing, to the mighty lungs of the world, that is the sea, where it is tossed in storms and cyclones, heaved up in billows, twisted in waterspouts, dashed to mist upon rocks, beaten by millions of tails, and breathed by millions of gills, whence at last, melted into vapour by the sun, it is lifted up pure into the air, and borne by the servant winds back to the mountain tops and the snow, the solid ice, and the molten stream.