Galoshes Quotes

Native Soil

There's
Nobody simpler than us, or with
more pride, or fewer tears.
(1922)

Our hearts don't wear it as an amulet,
it doesn't sob beneath the poet's hand,
nor irritate the wounds we can't forget
in our bitter sleep. It's not the Promised Land.
Our souls don't calculate its worth
as a commodity to be sold and bought;
sick, and poor, and silent on this earth,
often we don't give it a thought.
Yes, for us it's the dirt on our galoshes,
yes, for us it's the grit between our teeth.
Dust, and we grind and crumble and crush it,
the gentle and unimplicated earth.
But we'll lie in it, become its weeds and flowers,
so unembarrassedly we call it - ours. ~ Anna Akhmatova

Discovering a note in the mending basket, Phoebe plucked it out and unfolded it. She instantly recognized West's handwriting.

Unemployed Feline Seeking Household Position


To Whom It May Concern,
I hereby offer my services as an experienced mouser and personal companion. References from a reputable family to be provided upon request. Willing to accept room and board in lieu of pay. Indoor lodgings preferred.

Your servant,
Galoshes the Cat

Glancing up from the note, Phoebe found her parents' questioning gazes on her. "Job application," she explained sourly. "From the cat."
"How charming," Seraphina exclaimed, reading over her shoulder.
"'Personal companion,' my foot," Phoebe muttered. "This is a semi-feral animal who has lived in outbuildings and fed on vermin."
"I wonder," Seraphina said thoughtfully. "If she were truly feral, she wouldn't want any contact with humans. With time and patience, she might become domesticated."
Phoebe rolled her eyes. "It seems we'll find out."
The boys returned from the dining car with a bowl of water and a tray of refreshments. Galoshes descended to the floor long enough to devour a boiled egg, an anchovy canapé, and a spoonful of black caviar from a silver dish on ice. Licking her lips and purring, the cat jumped back into Phoebe's lap and curled up with a sigh.
"I'd say she's adjusting quite well," Seraphina commented with a grin, and elbowed Phoebe ge ~ Lisa Kleypas

Mama," the child exclaimed, breathless and agitated.
Phoebe looked down at him in concern. "Justin, what is it?"
"Galoshes brought me a dead mouse. She dropped it on the floor right in front of me!"
"Oh, dear." Tenderly Phoebe smoothed his dark, ruffled hair. "I'm afraid that's what cats do. She thought it was a fine gift."
"Nanny won't touch it, and the housemaid screamed, and I had a fight with Ivo."
Although Phoebe's younger brother Ivo was technically Justin's uncle, the boys were close enough in age to play together and quarrel.
"About the mouse?" Phoebe asked sympathetically.
"No, before the mouse. Ivo said there's going to be a honeymoon and I can't go because it's for grownups." The boy tilted his head back to look up at her, his lower lip quivering. "You wouldn't go to the honeymoon without me, would you, Mama?"
"Darling, we've made no plans to travel yet. There's too much to be done here, and we all need time to settle in. Perhaps in the spring - "
"Dad wouldn't want to leave me behind. I know he wouldn't!"
In the electrified silence that followed, Tom shot a glance at West, who looked blank and startled.
Slowly Phoebe lowered to the ground until her face was level with her son's. "Do you mean Uncle West?" she asked gently. "Is that what you're calling him now?"
Justin nodded. "I don't want him to be my uncle - I already have too many of those. And if I don't have a dad, I'll never learn how to tie my shoes ~ Lisa Kleypas

The rule apparently is – once a social revolution takes place there's
no need to stoke the boiler. But I ask you: why, when this whole business started, should everybody suddenly start clumping up and down the marble staircase in dirty galoshes and felt boots? Why must we now keep our galoshes under lock and key? And put a soldier on guard over them to prevent them from being stolen? Why has the carpet been removed from the front staircase? Did Marx forbid people to keep their staircases carpeted? Did Karl Marx say anywhere
that the front door of No. 2 Kalabukhov House in Prechistenka Street must be boarded up so that people have to go round and come in by the back door? What good does it do anybody? Why can't the proletarians leave their galoshes downstairs instead of dirtying the staircase?'
'But the proletarians don't have any galoshes, Philip Philipovich,' stammered the doctor. ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

Leslie Ann was now modeling a conservative thunderstorm gray business suit/dress with lightning flashes streaking down her legs, and 1G rain splashing her silvery galoshes. ~ @hg47

Quetzalcoatl
The serpent dressed in lime-green feathers
Is the totem of an Aztec priest.
It slithers through all rainy weathers
Commanding the respect of man and beast.

Who would suspect this mighty serpent
For whom the Pyramids were built
Was nagged to death by a Jewish yent-
a, who filled his goyish head with guilt.

Deep in the jungle one can hear
The piercing battle cry of Mrs. Katz, who says, 'Nu,
take an umbrella; Oy, wear your your galoshes, dear.
If you Quetz-al-coatl, who's gonna take care of you? ~ Beryl Dov

Mark Spitz had met plenty of the divine-retribution folks over the months. This was their moment; they were umbrella salesmen standing outside a subway entrance in a downpour. The human race deserved the plague, we brought it on ourselves for poisoning the planet, for the Death of God, the calculated brutalities of the global economic system, for driving primordial species to extinction: the entire collapse of values as evidenced by everything from nuclear fission to reality television to alternate side of the street parking. Mark Spitz could only endure these harangues for a minute or two before he split. It was boring.The plague was the plague. You were wearing galoshes, or you weren't. ~ Colson Whitehead

Moses, who said to the children of Israel, Wear your galoshes; I never did this trick before. Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons

For example, when Seymour told one of the twins or Zooey or Franny or even Mme. Boo Boo (who was only two years younger than myself, and often entirely the Lady), to take off his or her galoshes on coming into the apartment, each and all of them knew he mostly meant that the floor would get tracked up if they didn't and that Bessie would have to get out the mop. When I told them to take off their galoshes, they knew I mostly meant that people who didn't were slobs. It was bound to make no small difference in the way they kidded or ragged us separately. ~ J.D. Salinger

If you're insinuating that my personal hygiene is not up to the same high standard as yours you can go suck my galoshes. ~ Alan Bradley

Like God,

you hover above the page staring down
on a small town. Outside a window
some scenery loafs in a sleepy hammock
of pastoral prose and here is a mongrel
loping and here is a train approaching
the station in three long sentences and
here are the people in galoshes waiting.
But you know this story about the galoshes
is really About Your Life, so, like a diver
climbing over the side of a boat and down
into the ocean, you climb, sentence
by sentence, into this story on this page.

You have been expecting yourself
as a woman who purrs by in a dress
by Patou, and a porter manacled to
the luggage, and a man stalking across
the page like a black cloud in a bad mood.
These are your fellow travelers and
you are a face behind or inside these
faces, a heartbeat in the volley of these
heartbeats, as you choose, out of all
the journeys, the journey of a man
with a mustache scented faintly with
Prince Albert. "He must be a secret
sensualist," you think and your awareness
drifts to his trench coat, worn, softened,
and flabby, a coat with a lobotomy, just
as the train pulls into the station.

No, you would prefer another stop
in a later chapter where the climate is
affable and sleek. But the passengers
are disembarking, and you did not
choose to be in the story of the woman
in the white dress which is ~ Lynn Emanuel

Then Gavin got into his car, and Nick hiked through the snow toward his SUV.
"Oh,mo," I mumbled through toothpaste. I couldn't let him get away.Not now.
I swished,spat,and ran for the front door,pausing only to shove my feet into galoshes owned by some unknown member of Liz's family.Her stepdad,I decided as I tried to run down the snowy front steps. The galoshes were so big,it was like wading in a Tennessee river. ~ Jennifer Echols

He grabbed the back of my parka,but I got the distinct impression he was not trying to be a gentleman by helping me out of it.He just wanted his parka back.
"When you feel cornered,you'll just fling whatever you've got at people, and you don't care who gets hurt with what."
"I am not scared." I slid down from the truck seat into Liz's stepdad's galoshes, then turned to face Nick one last time. "I am not scared of boarding or you,and I will prove it to you tomorrow.If you think I'm going easy on you in the comp just because you have a debilitating injury from yesterday-"
"That's what you think," he snarked. "I've been going yoga."
"-you have another think coming.You will buy me those Poser tickets. And I'm not even taking you.You will hand the tickets over to me,and I'll take someone else."
"Who? Your little brother's friends?"
"No,Everett Walsh." I closed the door softly behind me so as not to alarm sleeping adults,because I was that mature.
Even through the door and the rolled up window,I could clearly hear every filthy work Nick uttered, ending with, "Everett [cuss word] Walsh."
I opened the passenger door. "Ask not for whom the fire-crotch burns;it burns for thee!" I'd meant this to be an insult.Then I realized it sounded like I wanted Nick.Or like I had a feminine problem. ~ Jennifer Echols