Pretty Cafes Quotes

He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activites in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.

A girl came in the cafe and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair black as a crow's wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek.

We did all the tourist crap, but I just wanted to sit in a cafe and watch people

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this, at a distance of roughly ninety million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet, whose ape descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet has, or had, a problem, which was this. Most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small, green pieces of paper, which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn't the small, green pieces of paper which were unhappy. And so the problem remained, and lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans. And then one day, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl, sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realised what it was that had been going wrong all this time and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no-one would have to get nalied to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and so the idea was lost forever.

There is evidence that the honoree [Leonard Cohen] might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you're wondering, is simply this: everything is connected. Everything. Many, if not most, of the links are difficult to determine. The instrument, the apparatus, the focused ray that can uncover and illuminate those connections is language. And just as a sudden infatuation often will light up a person's biochemical atmosphere more pyrotechnically than any deep, abiding attachment, so an unlikely, unexpected burst of linguistic imagination will usually reveal greater truths than the most exacting scholarship. In fact. The poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting romantic passion, let alone disclosing the inherent mystical qualities of the material world. Cohen is a master of the quasi-surrealistic phrase, of the "illogical" line that speaks so directly to the unconscious that surface ambiguity is transformed into ultimate, if fleeting, comprehension: comprehension of the bewitching nuances of sex and bewildering assaults of culture. Undoubtedly, it is to his lyrical mastery that his prestigious colleagues now pay tribute. Yet, there may be something else. As various, as distinct, as rewarding as each of their expressions are, there can still be heard in their individual interpretations the distant echo of Cohen's own voice, for it is his singing voice as well as his writing pen that has spawned these songs. It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher's stone. A voice marinated in kirschwasser, sulfur, deer musk and snow; bandaged with sackcloth from a ruined monastery; warmed by the embers left down near the river after the gypsies have gone. It is a penitent's voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toasts -- spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women -- and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word "naked" as nakedly as Cohen. He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been. Finally, the actual persona of their creator may be said to haunt these songs, although details of his private lifestyle can be only surmised. A decade ago, a teacher who called himself Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh came up with the name "Zorba the Buddha" to describe the ideal modern man: A contemplative man who maintains a strict devotional bond with cosmic energies, yet is completely at home in the physical realm. Such a man knows the value of the dharma and the value of the deutschmark, knows how much to tip a waiter in a Paris nightclub and how many times to bow in a Kyoto shrine, a man who can do business when business is necessary, allow his mind to enter a pine cone, or dance in wild abandon if moved by the tune. Refusing to shun beauty, this Zorba the Buddha finds in ripe pleasures not a contradiction but an affirmation of the spiritual self. Doesn't he sound a lot like Leonard Cohen? We have been led to picture Cohen spending his mornings meditating in Armani suits, his afternoons wrestling the muse, his evenings sitting in cafes were he eats, drinks and speaks soulfully but flirtatiously with the pretty larks of the street. Quite possibly this is a distorted portrait. The apocryphal, however, has a special kind of truth. It doesn't really matter. What matters here is that after thirty years, L. Cohen is holding court in the lobby of the whirlwind, and that giants have gathered to pay him homage. To him -- and to us -- they bring the offerings they have hammered from his iron, his lead, his nitrogen, his gold.

I brought a picture with me that I had at home, of a girl in a swing with a castle and pretty blue bubbles in the background, to hang in my room, but that nurse here said the girl was naked from the waist up and not appropriate. You know, I've had that picture for fifty years and I never knew she was naked. If you ask me, I don't think the old men they've got here can see well enough to notice that she's bare-breasted. But, this is a Methodist home, so she's in the closet with my gallstones.

I'm still not sold on this waxing thing, but I'm pretty sure I won't be signing up to get a facial and a Brazilian wax from the same person anytime soon.

I waved back and pocketed the money with a guilty conscience. As I turned and headed for the cafe, it struck me a teenage girl being forced to spend money was pretty bizarre.

A girl came in the cafe and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair was black as a crow's wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek. I looked at her and she disturbed me and made me very excited. I wished I could put her in the story, or anywhere, but she had placed herself so she could watch the street and the entry and I knew she was waiting for someone. So I went on writing.

In the days when I was ambitious I worked out a very pretty little plan for conquering the whole earth and rearranging things as they ought to be; and when, in the end, everything became so good it almost began to be boring, then I was going to stuff my pockets with as much money as I could lay hands on and creep away, vanish in some cosmopolis and sit at a corner cafe and drink absinthe and enjoy seeing how everything went to the devil as soon as I wasn't on the scene any more.

Loneliness, on the other hand, has no age bracket. I used to think that exciting countries could keep you happy and warm on novelty alone. Now I know: you can move to Paris, delight in the city, drink your cafe au lait, but no matter how pretty the buildings and balconies are, eventually you're going to find yourself hugging the lamp posts for company like you're in Les Miserables.

A girl came in the cafe and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair was black as a crow’s wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek. I

I want to fight, Becky. Can you understand that? I want struggle, I want danger. You know, Sally said something to me once: we were talking about happiness and what that might mean. She said she didn't want to be /happy/, that was a weak, passive sort of thing; she wanted to be alive and active. She wanted /work/. That's the spirit I like. That's what I want; and my work is a rough dirty dangerous kind of work. Oh, I want other things too. I want to write a play and see Henry Irving perform in it. I want to swank about town smoking Havanas and have supper with pretty girls in the Cafe Royal. I want to play poker on a Mississippi riverboat. I want to see Dan Goldberg get into Parliament. I want to see you go to university and get a first-class degree. Sally. . . Sally can do anything we wants, by me. There's a whole world I want, Becky.

The breakdown of the neighborhoods also meant the end of what was essentially an extended family....With the breakdown of the extended family, too much pressure was put on the single family. Mom had no one to stay with Granny, who couldn't be depended on to set the house on fire while Mom was off grocery shopping. The people in the neighborhood weren't there to keep an idle eye out for the fourteen-year-old kid who was the local idiot, and treated with affection as well as tormented....So we came up with the idea of putting everybody in separate places. We lock them up in prisons, mental hospitals, geriatric housing projects, old-age homes, nursery schools, cheap suburbs that keep women and the kids of f the streets, expensive suburbs where everybody has their own yard and a front lawn that is tended by a gardener so all the front lawns look alike and nobody uses them anyway....the faster we lock them up, the higher up goes the crime rate, the suicide rate, the rate of mental breakdown. The way it's going, there'll be more of them than us pretty soon. Then you'll have to start asking questions about the percentage of the population that's not locked up, those that claim that the other fifty-five per cent is crazy, criminal, or senile. WE have to find some other way....So I started imagining....Suppose we built houses in a circle, or a square, or whatever, connected houses of varying sizes, but beautiful, simple. And outside, behind the houses, all the space usually given over to front and back lawns, would be common too. And there could be vegetable gardens, and fields and woods for the kids to play in. There's be problems about somebody picking the tomatoes somebody else planted, or the roses, or the kids trampling through the pea patch, but the fifty groups or individuals who lived in the houses would have complete charge and complete responsibility for what went on in their little enclave. At the other side of the houses, facing the, would be a little community center. It would have a community laundry -- why does everybody have to own a washing machine?-- and some playrooms and a little cafe and a communal kitchen. The cafe would be an outdoor one, with sliding glass panels to close it in in winter, like the ones in Paris. This wouldn't be a full commune: everybody would have their own way of earning a living, everybody would retain their own income, and the dwellings would be priced according to size. Each would have a little kitchen, in case people wanted to eat alone, a good-sized living space, but not enormous, because the community center would be there. Maybe the community center would be beautiful, lush even. With playrooms for the kids and the adults, and sitting rooms with books. But everyone in the community, from the smallest walking child, would have a job in it.

He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good the God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.

He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they’d have no heart to start at all.

And that was the unusual thing about me. Unlike pretty much every teen I knew, I liked to be doing the right thing. I didn’t like breaking rules. I didn’t like pushing the envelope. I didn’t like trespassing, or sneaking into cinemas, or buying alcohol or cigarettes. I didn’t even feel comfortable running into a cafe to use the toilet without having first bought a drink. Basically, I didn’t like to do half the things all teenagers did almost habitually.

Getting other people laid is hard,” I complain to Sawyer the second we’re alone. He grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and presses it into my hands. “Maybe you shouldn’t interfere,” he suggests. “No.” I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s going to work.” I take a sip and tap my fingers against the glass. “Do you have any ideas?” I look up hopefully. “Hmm.” He tugs at his ear, appearing deep in thought, then he looks at me and deadpans, “No.” “Well, you should.” “I should?” “Yeah, you were plenty creative in bulldozing me.” “I like to think of it as wooing.” “Well, it was effective. So where are your ideas now? When I need them?” “I’m not sure if I’m comfortable being involved in your plans to get my assistant laid.” “People getting laid are fifteen percent more productive than those who are not.” He stares at me for a second. “You just made that up.” I nod. “It sounded pretty good though, didn’t it? I thought it sounded pretty good.” “Well, you’re getting laid plenty, Boots, so I’m sure you’ll think of something.” Damn. He really outmaneuvered me on that one.

Suggested Reading Atkinson, Kate. Behind the Scenes at the Museum; Binchy, Maeve. Tara Road, The Copper Beech, and Evening Class; Bloom, Amy. Come to Me; Edwards, Kim. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter; Ferris, Joshua. The Unnamed; Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl; Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Franzen, Jonathan. The Corrections; Ganesan, Indira. Inheritance; Hanilton, Jane. Disobedience; Jonasson, Jonas. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared; Joyce, Rachel. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry; Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees; Mapson, Jo-Ann, The Owl & Moon Cafe; McEwan, Ian. Atonement; Miller, Arthur. All My Sons; Morrison, Toni. Love; O’Neill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey into Night; Pekkanen, Sarah. The Opposite of Me; Porter, Andrew. In Between Days; Quindlen, Anna. Blessings and One True Thing; Rosenfeld, Lucinda. The Pretty One; Sittenfeld, Curtis. Sisterland; Smith, Ali. There But For The; Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club; Tyler, Anne. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant; White, Karen. The Time Between; Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway; Yates, Richard. The Easter Parade.

The other evening, in that cafe-cabaret in the Rue de la Fontaine, where I had run aground with Tramsel and Jocard, who had taken me there to see that supposedly-fashionable singer... how could they fail to see that she was nothing but a corpse? Yes, beneath the sumptuous and heavy ballgown, which swaddled her and held her upright like a sentry-box of pink velvet trimmed and embroidered with gold - a coffin befitting the queen of Spain - there was a corpse! But the others, amused by her wan voice and her emaciated frame, found her quaint - more than that, quite 'droll'... Droll! that drab, soft and inconsistent epithet that everyone uses nowadays! The woman had, to be sure, a tiny carven head, and a kind of macabre prettiness within the furry heap of her opera-cloak. They studied her minutely, interested by the romance of her story: a petite bourgeoise thrown into the high life following the fad which had caught her up - and neither of them, nor anyone else besides in the whole of that room, had perceived what was immediately evident to my eyes. Placed flat on the white satin of her dress, the two hands of that singer were the two hands of a skeleton: two sets of knuckle-bones gloved in white suede. They might have been drawn by Albrecht Durer: the ten fingers of an evil dead woman, fitted at the ends of the two overlong and excessively thin arms of a mannequin... And while that room convulsed with laughter and thrilled with pleasure, greeting her buffoonery and her animal cries with a dolorous ovation, I became convinced that her hands no more belonged to her body than her body, with its excessively high shoulders, belonged to her head... The conviction filled me with such fear and sickness that I did not hear the singing of a living woman, but of some automaton pieced together from disparate odds and ends - or perhaps even worse, some dead woman hastily reconstructed from hospital remains: the macabre fantasy of some medical student, dreamed up on the benches of the lecture-hall... and that evening began, like some tale of Hoffmann, to turn into a vision of the lunatic asylum. Oh, how that Olympia of the concert-hall has hastened the progress of my malady!

Something I can help you find?” he asks. Because to be fair, I’m digging through his drawer. “Nope,” I tell him. “Found it.” “Everly, what in the hell are you doing?” He’s finished buttoning his shirt and is staring at me, hands on hips, the corners of his eyes creased as he frowns. “I’m putting on your underwear,” I tell him, stepping into a pair of his briefs. I was digging around for a black pair. Why the hell do they even sell them in white? Just, no. “Why?” He still looks bewildered, but he’s stopped staring at me to tuck in his shirt. “You got me all worked up and horny in there.” I point a thumb in the direction of the bathroom. “I gave you an orgasm.” He seems confused by my accusation. I snort. “Right. Which you know only makes me want your dick more.” I glance over at the clothing I brought, contemplating what will work with this underwear. I’ve been chatting with his assistant Sandra all week about what people wear to this party. Sawyer was zero help on that front. “Wear whatever you want,” he’d said. As if I can pick an outfit with that kind of direction. “I hope you’re wearing your new cufflinks with that shirt,” I tell him, eyeing his outfit of black slacks and grey dress shirt. He holds up the cat cufflinks I gave him at Christmas and fastens his left sleeve. “I still don’t understand what my underwear has to do with anything.” “Oh!” I pull a solid black sleeveless dress with a full skirt and a wide waistband off the hanger and step into it. “Because you’re obviously planning on having your way with me at this party. Probably gonna shove me into a coat closet and fuck me with your hand over my mouth so no one hears us. And if anyone’s panties are getting left behind at this party, it’s gonna be yours.” He nods slowly and fastens his right sleeve. “Do women your age still use the phrase ‘having your way with me?’” “I just did. Anyway, yours are more absorbent. Can you zip me?” I turn my back to him and swipe my hair over one shoulder, waiting. I feel his fingers on the zipper, the fabric gathering slowly up my back. He finishes and rests his thumbs on the back of my neck, rubbing small circles into my skin as he kisses the nape of my neck. I shudder, feeling his touch all the way to the black briefs. “That’s a pretty elaborate plan I came up with,” he murmurs. I turn and nod, sadly. “I know. You’re kind of a menace.” “It’s good of you to put up with me.” I shrug. “Someone’s got to.” “I’m not going to be able to rip those underwear off of you.” “Haha!” I point at him with one hand and slip a heel on with my other. “I knew it!

As I was doing this, I was also reading the book that Charlotte Clingstone had selected from Horace's library and left for me, Candide-- her cafe's namesake. It was, unexpectedly, a screwball action comedy. The hapless main character, whose name was Candide, travelled with a band of companions from Europe to the New World and back. Along the way, characters were flogged, ship-wrecked, enslaved and nearly executed several times. There were earthquakes and tsunamis and missing body parts. One of Candide's companions, Pangloss, whose name I recognized from the hundred-dollar adjective he inspired-- I'd never known the etymology-- insisted throughout that all their misfortunes were for the best, for they delivered the companions into situations that seemed, at first, pretty good. Until those situations, too, went to shit. The story concluded on a small farm outside Istanbul, where Candide plunked a hoe into the dirt and declared his intention to retreat from adventure (and suffering) and simply tend his garden. The way the author told it-- the book was written in 1959-- it was clear I was supposed to think Candide had finally discovered something important.

Dairy Chiko, in the basement of Nakano Broadway, is a surrealist ice cream shop known for octuple-decker soft-serve cones. You can also order a smaller cone with less than one billion calories, but the draw at Dairy Chiko is watching how other people eat their towering cones of vanilla, yuzu, milk tea, matcha, ramune, orange, strawberry, and chocolate (flavors may vary). Walking while eating is taboo in Japan, and Dairy Chiko has no seating area, so people loiter near the stand, two to a cone, drawing spoons up the sides of the ice cream, trying to forestall the inevitable. Old ladies, meanwhile, usually order a small matcha cone and eat it with a spoon, avoiding the shame of a green milk mustache. Near Dairy Chiko is a cafe with a public seating area and a very angry-looking drawing of an eight-layer cone with the international NO symbol superimposed on it.

But Tokyo offers cat cafes, a commercial solution to the problem of wanting to commune with cats but being unwilling or unable to have one at home. Iris's favorite cat cafe is Nekorobi, in the Ikebukuro neighborhood. When I first heard about cat cafes, I imagined something like Starbucks with a cat on your lap. Wrong. Nekorobi is what you'd get if you asked a cat-obsessed kid to draw a floorplan of her dream apartment: a bathroom, a drink vending machine(free with admission), a snack table, video games, and about ten cats and their attendant toys, scratching posts, beds, and climbing structures. Oh, and the furniture is in the beanbag chic style. Considering all the attention they get, the cats were amazingly friendly, and I'd never seen such a variety of cat breeds up close. (Nor have I ever spent more than ten seconds thinking about cat breeds.) My favorite was a light gray cat with soft fur, which curled up and slept near me while I sat on a beanbag and read a book. Iris made the rounds, drinking a bottomless cup of the vitamin-fortified soda C.C. Lemon and making sure to give equal time to each cat, including the flat-faced feline that looked like it had beaned with a skillet in old-timey cartoon fashion.

Yeah, this place needs a better-quality blueberry muffin." I raised a pointed finger. "And I could provide it." "You sound pretty sure of yourself," Jim said, placing a pat of butter on his baked potato. "And there are always blueberry pies," I said, pausing to think of other possibilities. "Turnovers, cakes, croissants..." I popped the fry into my mouth. "I don't think anybody's done blueberry croissants." "No," Jim said slowly. "I don't think they have." "Of course, I'd sell some other things, too. Can't all be blueberries," I mused as I began to envision the bakery- a tray of lemon pound cake, peach cobbler in a fluted casserole, a basket of pomegranate-and-ginger muffins. I could see myself pulling a baking sheet of cookies from the oven, the smell of melted chocolate in the air. There would be white wooden tables and chairs in the front room, and people could order coffee and sandwiches. Maybe even tea sandwiches, like the ones Gran used to make. Cucumber and arugula. Bacon and egg. Curried chicken.

See, I have this theory that humans are just living, breathing, talking forms of art, each crafted with a different technique and carved out of different materials. Each beautiful in their own way. And sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and totally subjective, and changes depending on your circumstance, yada-yada-yada… but most of the time, it’s pretty easy to classify people. Like, okay, you know those women who are gorgeous and never know it? Or the men who pass quietly through life, handsome and unnoticed, never begging for attention or crying out for recognition? Those are your watercolors. And the loud, vivacious, gorgeous-and-they-know-it creatures, with bright lipstick and closets full of bold colors and outfits they never wear twice? Acrylics. The graceful, elegant, aging beauties you pick out in the crowd, or across the cafe, the lines on their faces telling a story you just know you’d want to hear, with so many layers and smudges, twists and turns, you’re not even sure where they begin? Charcoals. Then, you’ve got the big-picture-beautiful people, with the collection of interesting features that together make a beautiful face. They’re your oil paintings — best from ten feet away and, at the end of the day, kind of funny looking if you lean closer and analyze all their elements separately. But I’m quickly learning that Chase Croft doesn’t fit any of my categories. He isn’t a brushstroke on canvas, or bumpy layers of paint on a palette, or imperfect lines scratched inside a sketchbook. His features aren’t just gorgeous as a collective — he’s one of those annoyingly attractive people whose every feature is equally stunning. He’s a sculpture.

He’s not interested in the new blonde, look at him,” Chloe observes. “Of course he’s not, but Sandra’s gonna bolt in less than a minute. Just watch.” A throat clears behind us and we both straighten and turn, finding Sawyer directly behind us. He looks pretty comfortable, hands in pockets, standing inches away. I’m guessing he’s been here a minute. He cocks an eyebrow at me before moving his gaze to Chloe. “Everly’s roommate, Chloe, I presume?” he asks, reaching out and shaking her hand. “Sawyer, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” Chloe is positively beaming. “I’m a fan of anyone who can give this one”—she nudges me in the ribs—“a run for her money.” Sawyer rubs his chin in a play of delight. “Oh, I bet you have stories. We should have lunch sometime.” “Ha, ha, you two. Ha, ha. You can exchange numbers later. We need to focus right now.” “Yeah, what have you done to my assistant?” Sawyer frowns, the corners of his eyes creasing as he takes in Sandra’s appearance. “What happened to her pants?” “She looks hot, right? You can admit it, I won’t be jealous. Damn, her legs in that skirt. I wish my legs were that long.” I say wistfully. “Are we calling that a skirt? It looks like a headband.” “Don’t be old, it’s a skirt,” I assure him. “Gabe liked it,” I add. “He definitely liked it,” Chloe agrees while I nod smugly. “But now that meddling tramp is horning in on all my hard work,” I say, waving at the unknown blonde who joined Gabe and Sandra. And then Chloe and I groan in unison. Because Sandra has just given up and left Gabe and the new blonde. She’s wandered over by the balcony, looking miserable. “Go keep her company while I strategize,” I tell Chloe, and now Sawyer is the one groaning.

We’re pretty smug, thinking we’re at the top of the food chain. Worms are the all-time champs. ~ Notes from The Last Cafe

Like fr tho! Pretty isn’t just a look because sometimes I really do feel too pretty to participate in certain things ~ LaTesha Monique

My omega dad always teased when I got like this, that my heat was a-comin’, but I was pretty regular and still had a few weeks, thank goodness. Heat was a pain in the chunk.