Christening Quotes

Mother did not spend all her time in paying dull calls to dull ladies, and sitting dully at home waiting for dull ladies to pay calls to her. She was almost always there, ready to play with the children, and read to them, and help them to do their home-lessons. Besides this she used to write stories for them while they were at school, and read them aloud after tea, and she always made up funny pieces of poetry for their birthdays and for other great occasions, such as the christening of the new kittens, or the refurnishing of the doll's house, or the time when they were getting over the mumps. ~ E. Nesbit

I envisaged a woman of the late nineteenth century marrying into this milieu, finding it unendurable and fleeing back with her child to the more ordinary hazards of London: of that child, given at her christening the ancient Roman name for the island, Sarnia, but reared in ignorance of her paternal background, discovering, after her mother's death, that she was an heiress, and being bidden back to claim her patrimony. Skulduggery followed naturally.
(On the writing of SARNIA) ~ Hilary Ford

Rachel delivered it like an official pronouncement. Like she was one of the fairies gifting Sleeping Beauty's christening: Beauty. Intelligence. Heterosexual. ~ Josh Lanyon

The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin. ~ Ann Patchett

Quintana's christening was in 1966, this Christian Dior show was two years later, 1968: 1966 and 1968 were a world removed from each other in the political and cultural life of the United States but they were for women who presented themselves a certain way the same time. It was a way of looking, it was a way of being. It was a period. What became of that way of looking, that way of being, that time, that period? What became of the women smoking cigarettes in their Chanel suits and their David Webb bracelets, what became of Diana holding the champagne flute and the one of Sara Mankiewicz's Minton plates? What became of Sara Mankiewicz's Minton plates? ~ Joan Didion

What we do every St. Patty's day, which is wear green and drink a lot of Guinness. And maybe cry a little bit and laugh, and everyone will have to sing a song. That's how every funeral, christening, and wedding ends up in Ireland. Everyone ends up having to sing a song by the end of it. ~ Saoirse Ronan

The older Irene got, the more she swore. I remember when her grandson pooped in his diaper at his christening, she said, 'Holy shit,' loud enough for everyone to hear. The look on that priest's face! ~ Anita Diamant

Everything ends this way in France - everything. Weddings, christenings, duels, burials, swindlings, diplomatic affairs - everything is a pretext for a good dinner. ~ Jean Anouilh

Physical beauty is a subject that many skirt around and almost everyone attempts to down-play thereby demonstrating some sound moral stance, but it remains one of the glories of human existence. Of course, there are many people who are attractive without being beautiful just as there are beauties who bore, and the danger of beauty in the very young is that it can make the business of life seem deceptively easy. All this I am fully aware of. I know too, however, that of the four great gifts that the fairies may or may not bring to the christening – Brains, Birth, Beauty and Money – it is Beauty that makes locked doors spring open at a touch. Whether it is for a job interview, a place at a dining table, a brilliant promotion or a lift on the motorway, everyone, regardless of their sex or their sexual proclivity, would always rather deal with a good-looking face. And no one is more aware of this than the Beauties themselves. They have a power they simultaneously respect and take for granted. Despite the moralists who tut about its transience, it is generally a power that is never completely lost. One can usually trace in the wrinkled lines of a nonagenarian, stooped and leaning on a stick, the style and confidence that turned heads in a ballroom in 1929. ~ Julian Fellowes

Romance Of A Youngest Daughter"

Who will wed the Dowager's youngest daughter,
The Captain? filled with ale?
He moored his expected boat to a stake in the water
And stumbled on sea-legs into the Hall for mating,
Only to be seduced by her lady-in-waiting,
Round-bosomed, and not so pale.


Or the thrifty burgher in boots and fancy vest
With considered views of marriage?
By the tidy scullery maid he was impressed
Who kept that house from depreciation and dirt,
But wife does double duty and takes no hurt,
So he rode her home in his carriage.


Never the spare young scholar antiquary
Who was their next resort;
They let him wait in the crypt of the Old Library
And found him compromised with a Saxon book,
Claiming his truelove Learning kept that nook
And promised sweet disport.


Desirée (of a mother's christening) never shall wed
Though fairest child of her womb;
"We will have revenge," her injured Ladyship said,
"Henceforth the tightest nunnery be thy bed
By the topmost stair! When the ill-bred lovers come
We'll say, She is not at home. ~ John Crowe Ransom

Jayden's brain stalled. He just called you fit! the voice shrieked. It was beside itself. He just called you fit! That settles it, he's gay, gay as a christening robe, now get your head out of the sink and kiss him! "Um," he said instead. "You get brain freeze under there? ~ Matthew J. Metzger

Together they spent their whole lives waiting for their luck to change, as though luck were some fabulous tide that would one day flood and consecrate the marshes of our island, christening us in the iridescent ointments of a charmed destiny. ~ Pat Conroy

Success doesn't come overnight and there's certain things you can't do. I've missed so many weddings, christenings and birthdays, but I know all my family are there behind me, wanting me to do really well and it was worth the sacrifice. ~ Jenny Meadows

They were so absorbed in their plotting that they did not hear Boule de Suif return. But the Comte's whispered 'shh!' made them all look up. There she was. A sudden silence fell, and at first a feeling of embarrassment prevented them from speaking to her. At last, however, the Comtesse, more of an adept than the rest in social duplicity, asked her: 'Did you enjoy the christening? ~ Guy De Maupassant

It is a hard service they take that help me. Many that are red-cheeked now will be pale-cheeked; many that have been free to walk the hills and the bogs and the rushes will be sent to walk hard streets in far countries; many a good plan will be broken; many that have gathered money will not stay to spend it; many a child will be born, and there will be no father at its christening to give it a name. They that had red cheeks will have pale cheeks for my sake; and for all that, they will think they are well paid. ~ W.B.Yeats

Really, Emmanuel,' said Julie, 'wouldn't you think that all these rich people, so happy only a short while ago, had built their fortunes, their happiness and their social position, while forgetting to allow for the wicked genie; and that this genie, like the wicked fairy in Perrault's stories1 who is not invited to some wedding or christening, had suddenly appeared to take revenge for that fatal omission? ~ Alexandre Dumas

The fairies came to christening parties and gave the babies magical gifts.
Bounce, effort, and snark.
Contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee.
Sugar, curiosity, and rain.
And yet, there was a witch.
There's always a witch. ~ E. Lockhart

In honor of my goddaughter's christening, I will perform 'The Real Slim Shady,' by Eminem," he says confidently. ~ Sophie Kinsella

What a blight that woman is. Do you happen to know why? I lean toward a malignant fairy at her christening. ~ Mary Ann Shaffer

Prepare ye the way of the Lord ~ Isaiah

Like a christening, a wedding, a graduation ceremony, a holy war, a revolutioneven?a fireworksdisplay, agaudy promise of what life ought to be, not life itself. ~ Alistair Cooke

Theodore Rex. Roosevelt was driven by ambition, idealism and vanity. As his daughter famously remarked: My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening. ~ Margaret MacMillan

Confessions of an Anglo-Welshman For my own country's part Her lore and language I should have by heart. 'Twas she who raised me, Built me bone by bone Out of the teeming earth, the dreaming stone. Even at my christening it was she decreed Uprooted I should bleed. And yet for another's sake No wound deletes, No patriotism dulls The true and the beautiful Bequeathed to me by Blake, Shelley and Shakespeare and the ravished Keats. 1943 ~ R.S. Thomas

The Churches of the Standing Order were filled with unconverted persons, with many who had grown up in them from infancy, being introduced at that time by christening; and but a small proportion of their members made any claim to a spiritual regeneration. The intuitions of a converted soul recoil from Church associations with those whose only claim to membership in Christ's mystical body is a ceremony performed over an unconscious infant, for the renewed man seeks fellowship with those who, like himself, have exercised faith in Christ's saving merits, and he is likely to take the Scriptures for his guide in seeking his Church home. ~ Thomas Armitage

What's up, sulky bear?"

"I was appreciating the beauty of nature," Jared said. "In a sulky way."

"You might have noticed me giving you odd looks occasionally in the past."

"I assumed you were thinking, 'Three fairies clearly attended that guy's christening, and all three gave him the gift of chiseled,' " said Jared. "Why, were you thinking something else?"

"When I first met you, I thought you were a creep with serious behavioral and emotional issues."

"But once you really got to know me," Jared suggested, "you realized I was a creep with behavioral and emotional issues that were quite funny? ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

Have you forgotten me?
by Nancy B. Brewer

The bricks I laid or the stitches I sewed.
I was the one that made the quilt; a drop of blood still shows from my needle prick.
Your wedding day in lace and satin, in a dress once worn by me.
I loaned your newborn baby my christening gown, a hint of lavender still preserved.

Do you know our cause, the battles we won and the battles we lost?
When our soldiers marched home did you shout hooray!
Or shed a tear for the fallen sons.

What of the fields we plowed, the cotton, the tobacco and the okra, too.
There was always room at my table for one more,
Fried chicken, apple pie, biscuits and sweet ice tea.

A time or two you may have heard our stories politely told.
Some of us are famous, recorded on the pages of history.
Still, most of us left this world without glory or acknowledgment.

We were the first to walk the streets you now call home,
Perhaps you have visited my grave and flowers left,
but did you hear me cry out to you?

Listen, my child, to the voices of your ancestors.
Take pride in our accomplishments; find your strength in our suffering.
For WE are not just voices in the wind, WE are a living part of YOU! ~ Nancy B. Brewer

You do have money, don't you? You never paid your fare yesterday. It's six pounds, eight. If you haven't the coin, I'll have no choice but to hold you for ransom once we reach Tortola."
Her fare. Sophia sipped her tea with relief. If Mr. Grayson was this concerned over six pounds, he surely had no idea he was harboring a runaway heiress with nearly one hundred times that amount strapped beneath her stays. She suppressed a nervous laugh. "Yes, of course I can pay my passage. You'll have your money today, Mr. Grayson."
"Gray."
"Mr. Grayson," she said, her voice and nerves growing thin, "I scarcely think that my moment of…of indisposition gives you leave to make such an intimate request, that I address you by your Christian name. I certainly shall not."
He clucked softly, wrapping the handkerchief around his fingers. With hypnotic tenderness, he reached out, drawing the fabric across her temple.
"Now, sweetheart-surely my parents can be credited with greater imagination than you imply. Christening me 'Gray Grayson'?" He chuckled low in his throat. "Everyone aboard this ship calls me Gray. Sorry to disappoint you, but it's no particular privilege. There's but one woman on earth permitted to address me by my Christian name."
"Your mother?"
He grinned again. "No."
She blinked.
"Oh, now don't look so disappointed," he said. "It's my sister."
Sophia slanted her gaze to her lip, cursing herself for playing into his charm. If the sight ~ Tessa Dare

The women in the kitchen took turns making a fuss over the baby, acting like it was their job to keep her entertained until the Magi arrived. But the baby wasn't entertained. Her blue eyes were glazed over. She was staring into the middle distance, tired of everything. All this rush to make sandwiches and take in presents for a girl who was not year a year old. ~ Ann Patchett