Heirloom Quotes

Anyone may have diamonds: an heirloom is an ornament of quite a different kind. ~ Elizabeth Aston

Yes, your jewelry choices make a difference. When you invest in ethical, heirloom-quality jewelry, you're also investing in the future. Your purchase supports a creative community of like-minded humanitarians, out there doing important work. ~ Zoe Helene

Advice for New Knitters
When choosing a pattern, look for ones that have words such as "simple", "basic", and "easy". If you see the words "intriguing", "challenging", or "intricate", look elsewhere.
If you happen across a pattern that says "heirloom", slowly put down the pattern and back away.
"Heirloom" is knitting code for "This pattern is so difficult that you would consider death a relief". ~ Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

The world needs opportunities for new leaders and new ideas. Kids need opportunities to lead and succeed. Are you ready to make the match? Because the world's problems shouldn't be the human family's heirloom. ~ Adora Svitak

The special was a tomato salad with bacon, basil, and blue cheese. It was a work of art. Fiona had found a rainbow of heirloom tomatoes- red, orange, yellow, green, purple, yellow with green stripes- and she stacked them on the plate in a tower as colorful as children's blocks. ~ Elin Hilderbrand

For so long, talking about Samira, acknowledging her as someone who no longer lived in him, had felt dangerous as running his fingers along a sharp edge. It had been Miel eating a slick of honey off a knife. It was an heirloom blade his mother would not leave out, fearing Sam was still a child who might cut himself.
But now he was Samir, and Samira was the friend he almost thought he imagined. And she would be a little more imaginary once he and his mother finished changing his name. He wanted to neither forget she existed nor live inside her.
She was someone he could not be. ~ Anna-Marie McLemore

The flavor the came to me was a luscious Sincerest peach that I once had in California. This heirloom variety needed time to ripen on the tree to achieve its peak flavor. Unlike other peaches that were picked unripe so they would ship more easily, Sincerest peaches had to be eaten right away. But they were worth it- fragrant, luscious, juice-dripping-down-your-chin perfection. ~ Judith Fertig

The dress only means something if you want it to. What is important are the people behind it. When it comes to these things that are handed down from generation to generation, each woman leaves her own mark on it, so that it tells ours story, stitch by stitch. ~ Brenda Janowitz

You must never allow something that happened to you to become a morbidly treasured heirloom that you carry, show people, put back in its black velvet pouch and then tuck back into your jacket where you can keep it close to your heart. ~ Augusten Burroughs

The flavor that came to me was a luscious Suncrest peach that I once had in California. This heirloom variety needed time to ripen on the tree to achieve its peak flavor. Unlike other peaches that were picked unripe so they would ship more easily. Suncrest peaches had to be eaten right away. But they were worth it- fragrant, luscious, juice-dripping-down-your-chin perfection.
The problem was that I didn't have any peach mousse or filling. But I quickly improvised.
"You're getting married in August, when peaches are in season," I said. "Taste our browned butter yellow cake with a little apricot and some vanilla-almond buttercream, and see what you think."
As they each took a small bite of what I hoped would be their signature cake flavors, I was drawn back into the taste of the peach. It was juicy and sweet, but as I got close to the center of the peach, their was an off flavor of rot. In my mind's eye, I could see a darkened area close to the center that would soon cause the peach to wither. I knew what that meant.
I didn't know whose life would be blighted, but these golden days were few. They wouldn't have much time together. ~ Judith M. Fertig

I don't know the first thing about holding together a family, especially one that resembles an heirloom vase, shattered but glued back together for its beauty, and no one mentions that you can see the cracks as plain as day. ~ Jodi Picoult

You can't save the whales by eating whales, but paradoxically, you can help save rare, domesticated foods by eating them. They're kept alive by gardeners who have a taste for them, and farmers who know they'll be able to sell them. The consumer becomes a link in this conservation chain by seeking out the places where heirloom vegetables are sold, taking them home, whacking them up with knives, and learning to incorporate their exceptional tastes into personal and family expectations. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Find Mundungus Fletcher?" he croaked.
"And bring him here, to Grimmauld Place," said Harry. "Do you think you could do that for us?"
As Kreacher nodded and got to his feet, Harry had a sudden inspiration. He pulled out Hagrid's purse and took out the fake Horcrux, the substitute locket in which Regulus had placed the note to Voldemort.
"Kreacher, I'd, er, like you to have this," he said, pressing the locket into the elf's hand. "This belonged to Regulus and I'm sure he'd want you to have it as a token of gratitude for what you--"
"Overkill, mate," said Ron as the elf took one look at the locket, let out a howl of shock and misery, and threw himself back onto the ground.
It took them nearly half an hour to calm down Kreacher, who was so overcome to be presented with a Black family heirloom for his very own that he was too weak at the knees to stand properly. When finally he was able to totter a few steps they all accompanied him to his cupboard, watched him tuck up the locket safely in his dirty blankets, and assured him that they would make its protection their first priority while he was away. He then made two low bows to Harry and Ron, and even gave a funny little spasm in Hermione's direction that might have been an attempt at a respectful salute, before Disapparating with the usual loud crack. ~ J.K. Rowling

I think we all have a dream of what it would be like not to work and grow heirloom tomatoes, and I do have that dream. It would be lovely. I do love gardening and all of that, but I do love my work. ~ Helen Mirren

I thought about how my great-grandparents had starved to death. I thought about their wasted bodies being fed to incinerators because people they didn't know hated them. I thought about how the children who lived in this house had been burned up and blown apart because a pilot who didn't care pushed a button. I thought about how my grandfather's family had been taken from him and how because of that my dad grew up feeling like he didn't have a dad. And how I had acute stress and nightmares and was sitting alone in a falling down house and crying hot stupid tears all over my shirt. All because of a seventy year old hurt that had somehow been passed down to me like some poisonous heirloom. ~ Ransom Riggs

Freedom is not just something with which we are born; it is something we achieve. America did not receive a perpetual endowment of freedom; it has had to struggle and fight to preserve it. Freedom is not an heirloom or an antique; it is a life that must fight against the corrosive powers of death and nourish itself on the daily bread of goodness and virtue. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

It doesn't matter so much who carries on neglected heirloom seeds, just as long as someone does, and that someone might as well be me - or you. ~ Will Bonsall

He was a parade all by himself, a burst of dazzle and jingle, Santa Claus drinking his whiskey straight and groaning with a bellyache ... Babe Ruth made the music that his joyous years danced to in a continuous party ... What Babe Ruth is comes down, one generation handing it down to the next, as a nation heirloom. ~ Jimmy Cannon

She loved old things. The brown-brick place was a survivor of the 1907 earthquake and fire, and proudly bore a plaque from the historical society. The building had a haunted history- it was the site of a crime of passion- but Tess didn't mind. She'd never been superstitious.
The apartment was filled with items she'd collected through the years, simply because she liked them or was intrigued by them. There was a balance between heirloom and kitsch. The common thread seemed to be that each object had a story, like a pottery jug with a bas-relief love story told in pictures, in which she'd found a note reading, "Long may we run. -Gilbert." Or the antique clock on the living room wall, each of its carved figures modeled after one of the clockmaker's twelve children. She favored the unusual, so long as it appeared to have been treasured by someone, once upon a time. Her mail spilled from an antique box containing a pigeon-racing counter with a brass plate engraved from a father to a son. She hung her huge handbag on a wrought iron finial from a town library that had burned and been rebuilt in a matter of weeks by an entire community.
Other people's treasures captivated her. They always had, steeped in hidden history, bearing the nicks and gouges and fingerprints of previous owners. She'd probably developed the affinity from spending so much of her childhood in her grandmother's antique shop. ~ Susan Wiggs

My parents treated me like a breakable heirloom, afraid to fight or fret in front of me least I shatter. ~ Ransom Riggs

You'll leave a trail of trash on this Earth that will far exceed anything of worth you leave behind. For every ounce of heirloom, you leave a ton of landfill. ~ Adam Sternbergh

Throughout my childhood, the war was present but unacknowledged, like the heirloom lion's-head tureen stored behind our usual dishware. I understood that THE WAR was a loud and deadly event and that it happened before my parents were born. I knew that my country refused the idea of engaging in war ever since THE WAR. I thought that there was nothing heroic or meaningful about being a soldier, and that preserving peace was paramount. The notion that other countries could still be at war seemed to me like madness. ~ Nora Krug

You don't have to be the greatest gardener in the world to make a difference--You just need a gnome. ~ Donna Hamill

Besides, what's in a name? Actually, a lot. Whether taken from a parent or grandparent, some saint, or even the late great Elvis, your name insists another person's dream of what you should have been. The portrait of some ancestral ideal lingers through heirloom names. Gender specific names imply all sorts of expectations. More than just a signifier used to summon, instruct, address, accuse, sometimes praise us, our names define and thereby limit us. They put us in a cage. ~ Brien Piechos

My message is use grass-fed beef, use heirloom pork varieties, use organic chickens, wait until wild salmon or wild seafood are in season, smoke organic vegetables. ~ Steven Raichlen

I know that our hands break things just as frequent as we can fix them. And we often forget that sexism / is a family heirloom that we've been passing down for generations. As men, it is important that we start asking ourselves / What will the boys learn from us? ~ Rudy Francisco

The bracelet - an heirloom, I presume."
"So you didn't mistake it for a 'cheap bauble' after all. And you still didn't try to nick it. I'm shocked."
He glowered as he got to his feet.
"What?" I said. "I've offended you? I should be ashamed of myself. Those pieces in your pocket just fell in there, didn't they? Damn museum displays. Stuff just drops off them - ~ Kelley Armstrong

No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language. ~ Theodore Bikel

She wore white heirloom lace about her throat
And in her hair a bright golden feather
A pearl like a plum hung ripe from her neck
But her smile fetched ten gold together ~ Shannon Hale

Once again Erak bellowed with laughter. "Your master here went nearly the same shade of green as his cloak," he told Will. Halt raised an eyebrow. "At least I found a use for that damned helmet," he said, and the smile disappeared from Erak's face. "Yes. I'm not sure what I'm going to tell Gordoff about that," he said. "He made me promise I'd look after that helmet. It's his favorite-a real family heirloom." "Well it certainly has a lived in feel to it now," Halt told him, and Will noticed there was a hint of malicious pleasure in his eye. ~ John Flanagan

Chloe sighted, then continued, 'She's very attached to the past - the mirror is ancient, a famili heirloom; perhaps it was her grandmother's. And she uses an unusual perfume - no one wears Habanita any more - she writes weird things in her notebook, she has a book signed by an author you admire...' Then she concluded with an ironic smile, 'She's the woman for you. ~ Antoine Laurain

If you want to save seeds from year to year, you need to grow open-pollinated varieties. The words "heirloom" and "open-pollinated" are sometimes used interchangeably, but they don't necessarily mean the same thing. "Heirloom" refers to a variety that was popular before World War II. "Open-pollinated" refers to a plant that produces stable characteristics from generation to generation. Heirlooms are usually open-pollinated, because hybridization in edible plants didn't become common until the 1970s. ~ Katie Elzer-Peters

A comic strip that your parents read when they were young is a curious thing: it's an heirloom, and it's also intimate. You peer through windows and look at the things that made your elders laugh, and then you wonder whether the laugh really belongs to you. ~ Elizabeth McCracken

Speaking as a biologist, I think women are less aggressive than men, and they play a larger role in the early education of the young and helping them overcome their genetic heirloom. ~ Christian De Duve

The old woman had been bent over a patch of heirloom tomatoes, their aroma seeping up into the air, making indiscernible patterns on the sky. -The Girl with Dragonfly Wings ~ Shilo Niziolek

I would have my own stories from the island that, for so long, had been an heirloom I couldn't touch. ~ Nina Moreno

It's an heirloom, isn't it?"

... "I got it from my father."

The tutor ran his hand along the sheathed blade. "This is a remarkable weapon - a knight's sword - tarnished with time and travel. You don't use it as often as the others. The bastard and short sword are tools to you, but this - ah - this is something else - something revered. It lays concealed in a paltry sheath, covered in clothes not its own. It doesn't belong there. This sword belongs to another time and place. It is part of a grand and glorious world where knights were different, loftier - virtuous. It rests in this false scabbard because the proper one has been lost, or perhaps, it waits for a quest yet to be finished. It longs for that single moment when it can shine forth in all its brilliance. When dream and destiny meet on a clear field, then and only then will it find its purpose. When it faces that honorable cause - that one worthy and desperate challenge for which it was forged and on which so much depends - it will find peace in the crucible of struggle. For good or ill, it will ring true or break. But the wandering, the waiting, the hiding will at last be over. This sword waits for the day when it can save the kingdom and win the lady. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

The heirloom biblical wheat of our ancestors is something modern humans never eat. ~ Rick Warren

It is said that the skill of the Dwarves is in their hands rather than in their tongues,' she said; 'yet that is not true of Gimli. For none have ever made to me a request so bold and yet so courteous. And how shall I refuse, since I commanded him to speak? But tell me, what would you do with such a gift?'
'Treasure it, Lady,' he answered, 'in memory of your words to me at our first meeting. And if ever I return to the smithies of my home, it shall be set in imperishable crystal to be an heirloom of my house, and a pledge of good will between the Mountain and the Wood until the end of days. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

And this should not surprise us. The plunder of black life was drilled into this country in its infancy and reinforced across its history, so that plunder has become an heirloom, an intelligence, a sentience, a default setting to which, likely to the end of our days, we must invariably return. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Persecution is the heirloom of the church, and the ensign of the elect. ~ Charles Spurgeon

She was the kind of elegance
That would never tarnish.
A mixture of lace and mesh,
Like a classic heirloom that begged to be worn.
She was sharp intellect and quick wit.
The type of woman that spoke her mind,
Even if it shook.
(Or even if no one was listening.)
She was beautiful.
But not someone you'd see in magazines,
Her hips were too wide, her hair a mess of wispy tendrils,
(Rather, she was actually very ordinary.)
My, was she stubborn! She'd drive you mad!
(Sometimes, you'd probably call her crazy.)
But mostly, her laughter was a joyful moments.
Like a warm towel fresh from the dryer,
Or finding a twenty-dollar bill in your winter coat.
And that was the true revelation.
That magic does exist,
It ran through her like a wild, fiery current. ~ M.J. Abraham

There was a few seconds' pause. Then Amit said: I meant, what were you thinking just now.

When? said Lata.

When you were looking at Pran and Savita. Over the pudding.

Oh.

Well, what?

I can't remember, said Lata with a smile.

Amit laughed.

Why are you laughing? asked Lata

I like making you feel uncomfortable, I suppose.

Oh. Why?

--Or happy--or puzzled--just to see your change of mood. It's such fun. I pity you!

Why? said Lata, startled.

Because you'll never know what a pleasure it is to be in your company.

Do stop talking like that, said Lata. Ma will come in any minute.

You're quite right. In that case: Will you marry me?

Lata dropped her cup. It fell to the floor and broke. She looked at the broken pieces--luckily, it has been empty--and then at Amit.

Quick! said Amit. Before they come running to see what's happened. Say yes.

Lata had knelt down; she was gathering he bits of the cup together and placing them on the delicately patterned blue-and-gold saucer.

Amit joined her on the floor. Her face was only a few inches away from his, but her mind appeared to be somewhere else. he wanted to kiss her but he sensed that there was no question of it. One by one she picked up the shards of china.

Was it a family heirloom? asked Amit.

What? I'm sorry--said Lata, snap ~ Vikram Seth

Writer Brigid Brophy exposes [their motives] with great precision:
"Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it. These slogans have a long history. After being used to justify slave traders, ruthless industrialists, and contractors who had found that the most economically 'realistic' method of cleaning a chimney was to force a small child to climb it, they have now been passed on, like an heirloom, to the factory farmers. 'We mustn't be sentimental' tries to persuade us that factory farming isn't, in fact, cruel. It implies that the whole problem had been invented by our sloppy imaginations. ~ Peter Cox

Antique things have an appreciation and worth. Something can be old, but it can be timeless; therefore, it becomes an antique. If this antique is preserved and deemed precious, it could be passed down as a family heirloom. ~ CeeLo Green

Look at our farmers' markets today, bursting with heritage breeds and heirloom varieties, foods that were once abundant when we were an agricultural nation, but that we have lost touch with. Bringing all these back helps us connect to our roots, our communities and helps us feed America the proper way. ~ Jose Andres

Memory dilutes, but the object remains unaltered. ~ Aanchal Malhotra

Liberty is no heirloom. It requires the daily bread of self-denial, the salt of law and, above all, the backbone of acknowledging responsibility for our deeds. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Leaving the world without keeping an heirloom is a degradation of the divine purpose. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

She reached out and touched the bright colors of the cashmere scarf, her face filled with wonder as much as shock. "This ... this is Ibrahim's scarf ... it's a family heirloom ... "
"No, it belongs to this mobster guy named Abe ...
[ ... ]
"Mom," I said disbelievingly. "You know Abe."
"Yes, Rose. I know him."
"Please don't tell me ... "
Oh, man. Why couldn't I have been an illegitimate half-royal like Robert Doru? Or even the mail-man's daughter?
"Please don't tell me Abe is my father ... "
She didn't have to tell me. It was all over her face.
"Oh God, " I said. "I'm Zmey's daughter. Zmey Junior. Zmeyette, even."
That got her attention. She looked up at me. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"Nothing," I said. ~ Richelle Mead

In many respects, designing heirloom products means saying no to designing consumer crap that you know will not last very long. ~ Saul Griffith