Red Hat Ladies Quotes

And they are dancing, the board floor slamming under the jackboots and the fiddlers grinning hideously over their canted pieces. Towering over them all is the judge and he is naked dancing, his small feet lively and quick and now in doubletime and bowing to the ladies, huge and pale and hairless, like an enormous infant. He never sleeps, he says. He says he’ll never die. He bows to the fiddlers and sashays backwards and throws back his head and laughs deep in his throat and he is a great favorite, the judge. He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling at once. His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

We were partners in sewing. And partners in luck-hunting: four-leaf clovers, sand-dollar birds, red sea glass, clouds shaped like hearts, the first daffodils of spring, ladybugs, ladies in oversized hats. Best to bet on all the horses, dear, she’d say. Quick, make a wish, she’d say. I bet. I wished. I was her disciple. I still am.

THE FORTRESS Under the pink quilted covers I hold the pulse that counts your blood. I think the woods outdoors are half asleep, left over from summer like a stack of books after a flood, left over like those promises I never keep. On the right, the scrub pine tree waits like a fruit store holding up bunches of tufted broccoli. We watch the wind from our square bed. I press down my index finger -- half in jest, half in dread -- on the brown mole under your left eye, inherited from my right cheek: a spot of danger where a bewitched worm ate its way through our soul in search of beauty. My child, since July the leaves have been fed secretly from a pool of beet-red dye. And sometimes they are battle green with trunks as wet as hunters' boots, smacked hard by the wind, clean as oilskins. No, the wind's not off the ocean. Yes, it cried in your room like a wolf and your pony tail hurt you. That was a long time ago. The wind rolled the tide like a dying woman. She wouldn't sleep, she rolled there all night, grunting and sighing. Darling, life is not in my hands; life with its terrible changes will take you, bombs or glands, your own child at your breast, your own house on your own land. Outside the bittersweet turns orange. Before she died, my mother and I picked those fat branches, finding orange nipples on the gray wire strands. We weeded the forest, curing trees like cripples. Your feet thump-thump against my back and you whisper to yourself. Child, what are you wishing? What pact are you making? What mouse runs between your eyes? What ark can I fill for you when the world goes wild? The woods are underwater, their weeds are shaking in the tide; birches like zebra fish flash by in a pack. Child, I cannot promise that you will get your wish. I cannot promise very much. I give you the images I know. Lie still with me and watch. A pheasant moves by like a seal, pulled through the mulch by his thick white collar. He's on show like a clown. He drags a beige feather that he removed, one time, from an old lady's hat. We laugh and we touch. I promise you love. Time will not take away that.

Having never had dealings with Bow Street, Lady Fieldhurst was not quite certain what to expect: perhaps a stout fellow past his prime, befuddled with sleep or spirits, with a bulbous red nose—the same sort as might be found in any number of watchmen’s boxes across the metropolis. The individual who entered the room in [the footman's] wake, however, was very nearly her own age. To be sure, his nose was somewhat crooked, as if it had been broken at some point, but it was far from bulbous, and it was certainly not red. He was quite tall, almost gangly, with curling brown hair tied at the nape of his neck in an outmoded queue. He wore an unfashionably shallow-crowned hat and a black swallow-tailed coat of good cloth but indifferent cut; indeed, his only claim to fashion lay in the quizzing glass which hung round his neck from a black ribbon, and which he now raised, the resulting magnification revealing his eyes to be a warm brown. Julia might have been much reassured as to his competence, had it not been for the fact that his mouth hung open as from a rusty hinge.

Poem for My Father You closed the door. I was on the other side, screaming. It was black in your mind. Blacker than burned-out fire. Blacker than poison. Outside everything looked the same. You looked the same. You walked in your body like a living man. But you were not. would you not speak to me for weeks would you hang your coat in the closet without saying hello would you find a shoe out of place and beat me would you come home late would i lose the key would you find my glasses in the garbage would you put me on your knee would you read the bible to me in your smoking jacket after your mother died would you come home drunk and snore would you beat me on the legs would you carry me up the stairs by my hair so that my feet never touch the bottom would you make everything worse to make everything better i believe in god, the father almighty, the maker of heaven, the maker of my heaven and my hell. would you beat my mother would you beat her till she cries like a rabbit would you beat her in a corner of the kitchen while i am in the bathroom trying to bury my head underwater would you carry her to the bed would you put cotton and alcohol on her swollen head would you make love to her hair would you caress her hair would you rub her breasts with ben gay until she stinks would you sleep in the other room in the bed next to me while she sleeps on the pull-out cot would you come on the sheet while i am sleeping. later i look for the spot would you go to embalming school with the last of my mother's money would i see your picture in the book with all the other black boys you were the handsomest would you make the dead look beautiful would the men at the elks club would the rich ladies at funerals would the ugly drunk winos on the street know ben pretty ben regular ben would your father leave you when you were three with a mother who threw butcher knives at you would he leave you with her screaming red hair would he leave you to be smothered by a pillow she put over your head would he send for you during the summer like a rich uncle would you come in pretty corduroys until you were nine and never heard from him again would you hate him would you hate him every time you dragged hundred pound cartons of soap down the stairs into white ladies' basements would you hate him for fucking the woman who gave birth to you hate him flying by her house in the red truck so that other father threw down his hat in the street and stomped on it angry like we never saw him (bye bye to the will of grandpa bye bye to the family fortune bye bye when he stompled that hat, to the gold watch, embalmer's palace, grandbaby's college) mother crying silently, making floating island sending it up to the old man's ulcer would grandmother's diamonds close their heartsparks in the corner of the closet yellow like the eyes of cockroaches? Old man whose sperm swims in my veins, come back in love, come back in pain.

The New York sidewalk led us along a little corner park rimmed with yellow-orange and violet pansies that seemed to be smiling, their faces upturned, and past a bagel shop that smelled of sesame and salt, delicious warm air. We passed an empty wine bar with a pink chandelier, whimsical and dim inside, and a neighborhood diner with its blue neon sign huge and lit up, little white line-cook hats—the city seemed in my vision like a multifaceted gem, spectacular. I wished I could keep everything I witnessed like a photograph, to forever hold this electric aliveness. The colors of the flowers and the clothing were crisp and rosy, hyper-bright against the subdued sun-drenched pigments of the streets and the brick buildings, all seeming faded, softer than real. Pops of coral and red—a scarf, a lady’s lips—were pops of life.

The judge had spied the musician and he called to him and tossed a coin that clinked upon the stones. The fiddler held it briefly to the light as if it might not serve and then slipped it away among his clothes and fitted his instrument beneath his chin and struck up an air that was old among the mountebanks of Spain two hundred years before. The judge stepped into the sunlit doorway and executed upon the stones a series of steps with a strange precision and he and the fiddler seemed alien minstrels met by chance in this medieval town. The judge removed his hat and bowed to a pair of ladies detoured into the street to bypass the doggery and he pirouetted hugely on his mincing feet and poured pulque from his cup into the old man's eartrumpet. The old man quickly stoppered the horn with the ball of his thumb and he held the horn with care before him while he augered his ear with on finger and then he drank.

On November 24, 1855, Hans Christian Andersen wrote to a friend about the funeral and its aftermath. His observations help set the stage for the whole scenario as it played itself out. Søren Kierkegaard was buried last Sunday [November 18] following a service at the Church of Our Lady. The parties concerned had done very little. The church pews were closed, and the crowd in the aisles was unusually large. Ladies in red and blue hats were coming and going. Item: a dog with a muzzle. At the graveside itself there was a scandal: when the whole ceremony was over out there (that is, when [Dean] Tryde had cast earth upon the casket), a son of a sister of the deceased stepped forward and denounced the fact that he had been buried in this fashion. He declared—this was the point, more or less—that Søren Kierkegaard had resigned from our society, and therefore we ought not bury him in accordance with our customs! I was not there, but it was said to be unpleasant.

Dex squinted at the palace. “Their queen is a white-haired lady, right? I think I saw some pictures of her when I was researching about the cameras.” “Yeah, Queen Elizabeth,” Sophie said. “I don’t know much about her. Just that she likes little dogs and wears a lot of hats. And I think that flag means she’s actually here right now.” She pointed to the red, gold, and blue standard flying from a pole in the center of the palace, instead of the British Union Jack. “Same with the fact that there are four of those guys instead of two.” She nudged her chin toward the four members of the queen’s guard, standing stolid and motionless in what appeared to be narrow blue houses. The soldier’s faces looked blank, but Sophie had no doubt their eyes were seeing everything, and it made her hope the obscurer was keeping them hidden—especially when she noticed their guns. “So wait—the dorky guys in the red coats with the big furry hats are important?” Dex asked, covering his mouth to block a giggle. “And you had the nerve to complain about our Foxfire uniforms!” “Hey—I never had to wear anything like that. That’s strictly a British soldier thing!” “Soldier?” Dex repeated, frowning at the guards. “So… is that uniform supposed to be intimidating? Because I feel like if a dude marched up to an army of ogres wearing that, he’d mostly get laughed at.” “Goblins definitely wouldn’t be able to suppress their snickers,” Sandor noted, his lips twitching with a smile.

Rider's head snapped up at the sound of gravel crunching under Willow's boots. The sight of the girl in boy's garb birthed an oath. Beneath her cotton shirt, her breasts bounced freely with each step. And within the tight mannish pants, her hips swung in an unconscious rhythm, clearly proclaiming her all woman. Hell, she might as well be naked! His body's reaction was immediate. Cursing his lack of control, he turned sideways, facing her horse, and pretended to adjust the saddle straps. Willow took Sugar's reins and waited for Rider to move aside. He didn't budge an inch. Instead, he tipped his hat back on his head, revealing undisguised disapproval. "Is that the way you always dress?" he bit out. Willow stiffened, immediately defensive. Criticizing herself was one thing; putting up with Sinclair's disdain was another! "If you were expecting a dress, you're crazy!" she snapped. "It would be suicide in this country." "Haven't you ever heard of riding skirts?" "Yes. I'm not as dumb as you seem to think. But fancy riding skirts cost money I don't have. 'Sides, pants are a hell of a lot more useful on the ranch than some damn riding skirt! Now, if you're done jawing about my clothes, I'd like to get a move on before dark." "Somebody ought to wash that barnyard mouth of yours,woman." Willow rested her hand on her gun. "You can try, if you dare." As if I'd draw on a woman, Rider cursed silently, stepping out of her way. As she hoisted herself into the saddle, he was perversely captivated by the way the faded demin stretched over her round bottom. He imagined her long slender legs wrapped around him and how her perfect heart-shaped buttocks would fill his hands and...Oh,hell, what was he doing standing here, gaping like some callow youth? Maybe the girl was right.Maybe he was crazy. One moment he was giving the little witch hell for wearing men's pants; the next he was ogling her in them. He started to turn away, then reached out and gave her booted ankle an angry jerk. "Now what?" Icy turquoise eyes met his, dark and searing. "Do you have any idea what you look like in that get-up? No self-respecting lady would dress like that. It's an open invitation to a man. And if you think that gun you're wearing is going to protect you, you're badly mistaken." Willow gritted her teeth in mounting ire. "So what's it to you, Sinclair? You ain't my pa and you ain't my brother. Hell,my clothes cover me just as good as yours cover you!" She slapped his hand from her ankle, jerked Sugar around, and spurred the mare into a brisk gallop. Before the fine red dust settled, Rider was on his horse, racing after her. Dammit, she's right.Why should I care how she dresses? Heaven knows it certainly has no bearing on my mission. No, agreed a little voice in his head, but it sure is distacting as hell! He'd always prided himself on his cool control; it had saved his backside more than once. But staying in any kind of control around Willow Vaughn was like trying to tame a whimsical March wind-impossible!

Top Dog" If I could, I would take your grief, dig it up out of the horseradish field and grate it into something red and hot to sauce the shellfish. I would take the lock of hair you put in the locket and carry it in my hand, I would make the light strike everything the way it hit the Bay Bridge, turning the ironwork at sunset into waffles. If I could, I would blow your socks off, they would travel far, always in unison, past the dead men running, past the cranes standing in snow, beyond the roads we rode, so small in our little car, it was like riding in a miner's helmet. If I could I would make everyone vote and call their public servants to say, “No one was meant for this.” I would go back to the afternoon we made love in the tall grass under the full sun not far from the ravine where the old owner had flung hundreds of mink cages. I would memorize gateways to the afterworld, the electric third rail, the blond braid our girl has hanging down her back, the black guppy we killed at our friends’ when we unplugged the bubbler and the fish floated to the top, one eye up at the ceiling, the other at the blue gravel on the bottom of the tank. I would beg an audience with Sister Lucia, the last living of the children visited by Our Lady of Fatima, I would ask her about the weight of secrets, if they let her sleep or if she woke at night with a body on her body, if the body said, “Let's play top dog, first I'll lie on you, then you lie on me.” I would ask how she lived with revelation, the normal state of affairs amplified beyond God, bumped up to the Virgin Mother, who no doubt knew a few things, passed them on, quietly, and I would ask Lucia how she lived with knowing, how she could keep it under her hat, under wraps, button up, zip her lip, play it close to the vest, never telling, never using truth as a weapon.

What in Hades were you doing, lady? I almost hit you." Remington rose to confront him, but before he could say a word, Madeline came up like an infuriated wasp. "What was I doing? What were you doing? You almost hit this dog." Her cheeks and the tip of her nose glowed scarlet with fury. Her eyes sparked with brilliant blue. She had a smudge on one cheek and her hat was askew, but that didn't matter, for all the passion she had revealed in the morning's kiss she put into the defense of a mutt she had never before seen. Surly with guilt, the youth said, "It was just a flea-ridden stray." Then her loveliness registered. He jerked to attention, back straight, shoulders back. He stared with avid fascination into her face. "I believe we may have met, although I can't quite remember-" She rampaged on, "Is that the way you were taught? To run over defenseless animals?" Stepping back, Remington folded his arms. This youth didn't stand a chance. Her eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. I recognize you. You're Lord Mauger!" "Yes, I... I am. Viscount Mauger, humbly at your service." Whipping his hat from his head, the youth bowed, eager to make a belated good impression on the beauty before him. "And you are...?" She wasn't impressed or interested. "I know your mother, and she would box your ears for this." Dull red rose in Mauger's cheeks. "You won't tell her." "Not if you promise to be more careful in the future. I won't be around to rescue the next dog, and I remember what a fine lad you were. You love animals, and you'd feel guilty if you killed one." "You're... you're right." Mauger's pleading eyes looked much like the dog's. "I just bought the chestnut, and came into town, and I wanted to show him off, but that's no excuse..." As Mauger dug his toe into the dirt, Remington realized he was observing a master at work. She had taken the young man from fury, to infatuation, to guilt in one smooth journey, and Mauger adored her for it.

Um, Your Grace,” Margrit said. “Hm?” Cinderella asked, turning to look at more of her possessions scattered through the room. “What is it Margrit?” she asked when there was silence. “She only wanted to warn you of me.” Cinderella turned around to face Friedrich. He wore a band of red cloth tied over both his eyepatch and his eye, but he was still handsome and alarmingly roguish in his military uniform with his crown fixed on his head instead of his usual hat. “Your lady’s maids tell me you have lost all sense of propriety, and I am to fix you without setting eye on you,” he teased. “You’ve

Two hours later, Nesta found herself fully clothed in a bathtub in the middle of the private library, the entire thing filled with bubbles. No water, just bubbles. In matching tubs on either side of her, Emerie and Gwyn were giggling. 'This is ridiculous,' Nesta said, even as her mouth curved upward. Each one of their requests had gotten more and more absurd, and Nesta might have felt like they were exploiting the House had it not been so... exuberant in answering their commands. Adding creative flourishes. Like the fact that each bubble held a tiny bird fluttering about inside. Silent fireworks still exploded in the far corner of the room, and a miniature pegasus- Nesta's request, made only when her friends goaded her into submitting one- fed on a small patch of grass by the shelf, content to ignore them. A cake taller than Cassian stood in the centre of the room, lit with a thousand candles. Six frogs danced circles around a red-and-white-spotted toadstool, the waltzes provided by Nesta's Symphonia. Emerie wore a diamond crown and six strings of pearls. Gwyn sported a broad-brimmed hat fit for any fine lady, perched at a rakish angle on her head. A lace parasol leaned against her other shoulder, and she twirled it idly as she surveyed the windows...

At the next street-lamp, she sees a woman with painted lips and smudged eyes waiting in a doorway. A hansom cab drives up, stops, and a man in a tail coat and a shining silk top-hat gets out. Even though the woman in the doorway wears a low-cut evening gown that might once have belonged to a lady of the gentleman’s social class, the black-clad watcher does not think the gentleman is here to go dancing. She sees the prostitute’s haggard eyes, haunted with fear no matter how much her red-smeared lips smile. One like her was recently found dead a few streets away, slit wide open. Averting her gaze, the searcher in black walks on. An unshaven man lounging against a wall winks at her. “Missus, what yer doing all alone? Don’t yer want some company?” If he were a gentleman, he would not have spoken to her without being introduced. Ignoring him, she hastens past. She must speak to no one. She does not belong here. The knowledge does not trouble her, for she has never belonged anywhere. And in a sense she has always been alone. But her heart is not without pain as she scans the shadows, for she has no home now, she is a stranger in the world’s

Good thing ’bout being a cowboy is you don’t need to be ripped to get ladies. Dirty jeans and a hat make ’em feral.

If the war could be won by the wearing of red, white, and blue ribbons on one’s hat,” said Beatrice, sitting down behind a lady with a particularly large and festooned example, “perhaps it would already be over.

Just wait a month, and this meadow will be carpeted in bluebonnets,” Sarah promised him. “And the next month, gold and red flowers, Indian blanket, Mexican hat, primroses—Nolan, you can’t believe how beautiful it is!” “I can’t believe how beautiful you are, Sarah,” he said, cupping her cheek. “And as I said in church, how kind, how brave…” “Brave? Me? I’m not brave at all,” she protested. “Milly would tell you I’ve been a quiet little mouse all my life. She’s been the brave one, the leader.” “I don’t think she’d say that anymore, Nurse Sarah. In fact, I think you have all the qualities to make an excellent doctor’s wife.” When his words hit her, she gaped at him. “Dr. Nolan Walker! Did you just propose to me, on our very first outing together?” He grinned. “Ayuh,” he said, in a deliberately exaggerated “Downeast” accent. “We men of Maine don’t waste time. Am I going too fast, sweetheart? I promise you’ll get your courtship, never fear, but you and I both know I’ve been courting you every time we met—as much as you’d let me, anyway—ever since Founder’s Day last fall.” She considered his words. “I guess that’s true. All right, as long as you don’t stint on the courtship—we Texas ladies set great store by courting, I’ll have you know—I agree.” “Did you just say yes, Miss Sarah, on our very first outing as a courting couple?” She nodded, blushing a rosy pink that made her even lovelier still. He couldn’t wait any longer, and lowered his lips to hers.

So it was with the various eccentrics she discovered in the next years. Some she went home with, some she didn't; some she photographed, others she just talked to, but everyone impressed her. Like the irate lady who appeared to Diane one night pulling a kiddy's red express wagon trimmed with bells and filled with cats in fancy hats and dresses. Like the man in Brooklyn who called himself the Mystic Barber who teleported himself to Mars and said he was dead and wore a copper band around his forehead with antennae on it to receive instructions from the Martians. Or the lady in the Bronx who trained herself to eat and sleep underwater or the black who carried a rose and noose around with him at all times, or the person who invented a noiseless soup spoon, or the man from New Jersey who'd collected string for twenty years, winding it into a ball that was now five feet in diameter, sitting monstrous and splendid in his living room.

Well, I'll try to explain," said Mrs Morland, pushing all her hairpins well into her head by the simple expedient of banging her hat with both hands. "You see, my publisher will make me write books." She paused dramatically. George said to his friend it did seem a shame, a lady like her. "So then," pursued Mrs Morland, looking earnestly into space, "I get so furious that I simply don't know what to do. So I buy some exercise books, which are a perfectly frightful price now, at least the cost the same but there are hardly any pages so it comes to much the same thing in the end, and some more pencils. And what is perfectly maddening is that the pencils called B are so soft that you use them up at once besides the lead breaking every time you sharpen them, and the ones called H don't mark at all. And then I sit down very angrily, and write a book." She then realised with horror that though she had come to the end of her subject there were still thirty minutes of her allotted time to be filled. "I think it's a shame, Miss," said George. "I don't do it on purpose," said Mrs Morland, pleading her cause as well as she could. "You see, when my husband died I wasn't very well off and I had four boys, so I simply had to do something. I didn't ever mean to write books." George's friend, going very red in the face, brought out an ill-prepared sentence to the effect that the late Mr Morland's death had been on the whole a gain to humanity. "Thank you very much," said Mrs Morland gratefully."I do so understand what you mean, and it is so kind of you, and I must say I get on very well as I am, and don't feel a bit like a widow." George said his Dad died before he was born, so he didn't seem to miss him like. "No," said Mrs Morland, after considering this statement, "you couldn't. Not unless your mother put it into your head." "Mum died when I was a month old," said George with some pride, "and auntie she brought me up." "I am sorry," said Mrs Morland.

Don’t give them any ideas,” Maestro said. “They’d do it just to tweak Doug and Carlton. Those men have enough on their plates trying to watch over those three firecrackers. And we’re not introducing them to the Red Hat ladies.” He pressed his palm to his forehead, horrified at the thought. “Those women are out of control as well. Lana, we need to get a handle on our senior citizens.