Lady In White Dress Quotes

What fragmented individualism really meant was what happened to a black man who tried to make it in this society: in order to succeed, he had to become an imitation white man - dress white, talk white, think white, express the values of middle-class white culture (at least when he was in the presence of white men). Implied in all this was the hiding, the denial, of his selfhood, his negritude, his culture, as though they were somehow shameful. If he succeeded, he was an alienated marginal man - alienated from the strength of his culture and from fellow black men, and never able, of course, to become that imitation white man because he bore the pigment that made the white man view him as intrinsically other. ~ John Howard Griffin

Swirling furiously among the stairs and corridors of her exquisite home like a small and angry white bat Sybilla, Dowager Lady Culter, was not above spitting at her unfortunate son when he chose to sit down in his own great hall to take his boots off. 'If Madge Mumblecrust comes down those stairs once again for a morsel of fowl's liver with ginger, or pressed meats with almond-milk, I shall retire to a little wicker house in the forest and cast spells which will sink Venice into the sea for ever, and Madame Donati with it. The Church,' said Sybilla definitely, 'should excommunicate girls who do not replace lids on sticky jars and wash their hair every day with the best towels. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

I got back from the University late in the afternoon, had a quick swim, ate my dinner, and bolted off to the Stanton house to see Adam. I saw him sitting out on the galley reading a book (Gibbon, I remember) in the long twilight. And I saw Anne. I was sitting in the swing with Adam, when she came out the door. I looked at her and knew that it had been a thousand years since I had last seen her back at Christmas when she had been back at the Landing on vacation from Miss Pound's School. She certainly was not now a little girl wearing round-toed, black patent-leather, flat-heeled slippers held on by a one-button strap and white socks held up by a dab of soap. She was wearing a white linen dress, cut very straight, and the straightness of the cut and the stiffness of the linen did nothing in the world but suggest by a kind of teasing paradox the curves and softnesses sheathed by the cloth. She had her hair in a knot on the nape of her neck, and a little white ribbon around her head, and she was smiling at me with a smile which I had known all my life but which was entirely new, and saying, 'Hello, Jack,' while I held her strong narrow hand in mine and knew that summer had come. ~ Robert Penn Warren

I have to admit that I'm up to my neck in frivolity, buried in dresses to the point of ruin! Fifteen different garments! My wardrobe jam-packed! My girl, this is not the way for an old woman to behave - particularly since you never wear anything but black and white, or a little grey, so that you always look as though you were in the same dress. Why fritter away your money so absurdly? (22 August 1919) ~ Liane De Pougy

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, g ~ Jean Lorrain

Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar. A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable - not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate, too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. "Oh my," she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, "it's fruitcake weather! ~ Truman Capote

The girl standing before me wore a dress of pure white that made her seem about six feet tall. The dress was heavy enough it pulled her back straight, and she stood proudly, the train of the dress spread neatly behind her. Her lips were as red as roses, her eyes outlined in black kohl. Her dark hair had been bundled at the nape of her neck, braided and folded as required, a few curls springing loose to caress her pale shoulders, which were bare.

That girl was one of the most powerful mages to ever live.

And that girl was me. ~ Aprille Legacy

I don't know why religious zealots have this compulsion to try to convert everyone who passes before them – I don't go around trying to make them into St Louis Cardinals fans, for Christ's sake – and yet they never fail to try.
Nowadays when accosted I explain to them that anyone wearing white socks with Hush Puppies and a badge saying HI! I'M GUS! probably couldn't talk me into getting out of a burning car, much less into making a lifelong commitment to a deity, and ask them to send someone more intelligent and with a better dress sense next time, but back then I was too meek to do anything but listen politely and utter non-committal 'Hmmmm's' to their suggestions that Jesus could turn my life around. Somewhere over the Atlantic, as I was sitting taking stock of my 200 cubic centimetres of personal space, as one does on a long plane flight, I spied a coin under the seat in front of me, and with protracted difficulty leaned forward and snagged it. When I sat up, I saw my seatmate was at last looking at me with that ominous glow.
'Have you found Jesus?' he said suddenly.
'Uh, no, it's a quarter,' I answered and quickly settled down and pretended for the next six hours to be asleep, ignoring his whispered entreaties to let Christ build a bunkhouse in my heart. ~ Bill Bryson

Your dress has been a big hit in the Capitol!"
"Has it? Well, the Covey love color, and me more than most. But this was my mama's, so it's extra special to me," she said.
"She in District Twelve?" Lepidus asked.
"Just her bones, darling. Just her pearly white bones. ~ Suzanne Collins

None were particularly interesting, although I got a kick out of a note from the Philadelphia Zoo suggesting that since the tiger was not entirely reliable around humans, perhaps Mr. Willing would consider a leopard for his painting instead. It had been a pet until the demise (natural) of its owner and would, if not firmly admonished, climb into a person's lap, purring, and drool copiously.
I pulled a sheet of scrap paper (the Stars spent a lot of time sending all-school e-mails about recycling) out of my bag and made a note on the blank side: "Leopard in The Lady in DeNile?" It wasn't my favorite, Cleopatra Awaiting the Return of Anthony. It was a little OTT, loaded with gold and snake imagery and, of course, the leopard. Diana hadn't liked the painting,either, apparently; she was the one who'd given it the Lady in DeNile nickname.I wondered if the leopard had drooled on her.
None of the papers were personal, but they were Edward's and some were special, if you knew about his life. There was a bill from the Hotel Ritz in Paris in April 1890, and one from Cartier two months later for a pair of Tahitian pearl drop earrings. Diana was wearing them in my favorite photograph of the two of them: happy and visibly tanned, even in black and white, holding lobsters on a beach in Maine. "I insisted we let them go," Diana wrote in a letter to her niece. "Edward had a snit.He wanted a lobster dinner, but I could not countenance eating a fellow model. ~ Melissa Jensen

She really is a completely different First Lady. Eleanor Roosevelt was not going to suffer and withdraw in the White House. And I think he's a very different President. He does not want his wife to suffer and withdraw in the White House. And they really are partners. They're partners in a big house where there are two separate courts, and they both know they have two separate courts. But these are courts that are allied in purpose, united in vision. ~ Blanche Wiesen Cook

Do you see the Field of Mars, where I walked next to my bride in her white wedding dress, with red sandals in her hands, when we were kids?"
"I see it well."
"We spent all our days afraid it was too good to be true, Tatiana," said Alexander. "We were always afraid all we had was a borrowed five minutes from now."
Her hands went on his face. "That's all any of us ever has, my love," she said. "And it all flies by."
"Yes," he said, looking at her, at the desert, covered coral and yellow with golden eye and globe mallow. "But what a five minutes it's been. ~ Paullina Simons

Midway through my treatments, I was at the White House to do an interview with President Bush's press secretary, Tony Snow. He had recently revealed he was facing cancer for a second time. While there I was told that the First Lady, Laura Bush, wanted to see me in the private residence for tea. Mrs. Bush has a family history of breast cancer. She personally invited me to accompany her on a portion of an international breast cancer initiative with the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and I couldn't pass up this opportunity. My doctors cleared me to travel - although getting my mom's blessing was far more difficult. Remember, I was in the middle of chemo treatments. I spent time with Mrs. Bush in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, in the UAE and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I met some incredible women on the trip. ~ Robin Roberts

At my Grand Gala Ball of Coming Out, everyone will be required to wear a white dress, or else tuxedo tails and nothing else. A kiddie pool of sweet tea will be the dance floor as we wrestle with our complex identities because we all, every one of us, are complex, slippery, and tasty. We'll dance to bad eighties music as we lick and suck the excesses of multiple oppressions off one another. We'll all come out for what we are, and see ourselves in one another's body glitter. ~ Scott Turner Schofield

I wish I wasn't an imperial highness or an ex-grand duchess. I'm sick of people doing things to me because of what I am. Girl-in-white-dress. Short-one-with-fringe. Daughter-of-the-tsar. Child-of-the-ex-tyrant. I want people to look and see me, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, not the caboose on a train of grand duchesses. Someday, I promise myself, no one will be able to hear my name or look at my picture and suppose they know all about me. Someday I will do something bigger than what I am. ~ Sarah Miller

Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear,
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

*Oh, she shows the torches how to burn bright! She stands out against the darkness like a jeweled earring hanging against the cheek of an African. Her beauty is too good for this world; she's too beautiful to die and be buried. She outshines the other women like a white dove in the middle of a flock of crows. When this dance is over, I'll see where she stands, and then I'll touch her hand with my rough and ugly one. Did my heart ever love anyone before this moment? My eyes were liars, then, because I never saw true beauty before tonight.* ~ William Shakespeare

Something More Fragile Than This"

Quick
before our bodies turn themselves in,
with a reverence reserved for the dead touch me
because I want to remember how beautiful I am.
While Spring snows around us, cracking her eggs
on our windows, in her meager dress of yellowing-white,
because I want to rise into today.

So why the urge to render something
more fragile than this?
Why, always, the soul blowing glass?
The soul, once again, filling the lungs
with smoke because a memory of regret sweats
in the plastic sleeve of a family
album. Because there's a snapshot caught
between the pages of some thick book:
my heavy 20 year old frame setting off
the 60lb weight of a dying mother. Because
somewhere, there's a negative slide
of my heart. Because and because and because
I'm sure there's a photo
in some drawer that shows me dressed in black.

But I want to devote myself to the mystery
of this afternoon. I want to honor this falling night, worship the
hour vanishing
between six and seven. This moment
where I'm standing against myself and against you with a taste in my mouth
that's yolk.

With Bob Marley taking that one long drag
on the refrigerator door. ~ Olena Kalytiak Davis

TIA OR TARA has stopped applying makeup to my wife's face and is looking at Scottie with disapproval. The light is hitting this woman's face, giving me an opportunity to see that she should perhaps be working on her own makeup. Her coloring is similar to a manila envelope. There are specks of white in her eyebrows, and her concealer is not concealing. I can tell my daughter doesn't know what to do with this woman's critical look.

"What?" Scottie asks. "I don't want any makeup." She looks at me for protection, and it's heartbreaking. All the women who model with Joanie have this inane urge to make over my daughter with the notion that they're helping her somehow. She's not as pretty as her older sister or her mother, and these other models think that slapping on some rouge will somehow make her feel better about her facial fate. They're like missionaries. Mascara thumpers.

"I was just going to say that I think your mother was enjoying the view," Tia or Tara says. "It's so pretty outside. You should let the light in."

My daughter looks at the curtain. Her little mouth is open. Her hand reaches for a tumbleweed of hair.

"Listen here, T. Her mother was not enjoying the view. Her mother is in a coma. And she's not supposed to be in bright light."

"My name is not T," she says. "My name is Allison."

"Okay, then, Ali. Don't confuse my daughter, please."

"I'm turning into a remarkable young lady," Scottie say ~ Kaui Hart Hemmings

I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game. It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as players - more if they are moderately restless. It is the only competitive activity of any type, other than perhaps baking, in which you can dress in white from head to toe and be as clean at the end of the day as you were at the beginning. ~ Bill Bryson

He did not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland Archer to be a simpleton. He meant her (thanks to his enlightening companionship) to develop a social tact and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with the most popular married women of the 'younger set,' in which it was the recognized custom to attract masculine homage while playfully discouraging it. If he had probed to the bottom of his vanity (as he sometimes nearly did) he would have found there the wish that his wife should be as worldly-wise and eager to please as the married lady whose charms had held his fancy through two mildly agitated years; without, of course, any hint of the frailty which had so nearly marred that unhappy being's life, and had disarranged his own plans for a whole winter.

How this miracle of fire and ice was to be created, and to sustain itself in a harsh world, he had never taken the time to think out; but he was content to hold his view without analyzing it, since he knew it was that of all the carefully-brushed, white-waistcoated, buttonhole-flowered gentlemen who succeeded each other in the club box, exchanged friendly greetings with him, and turned their opera-glasses critically on the circle of ladies who were the product of the system. In matters intellectual and artistic Newland Archer felt himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New York gentility; he had probably read more, thought more, and even seen a good deal more of the world, than a ~ Edith Wharton

I had a dream about you."
"Yeah?"
"You looked so pretty like always, and you were coming toward me in a white dress. The closer you got to me, the more you cried. And when you were close enough, I grabbed your hand."
...
" ... After the minister said a prayer, I told you how beautiful you were."
"Asher- "
"I told you that every star in the sky was made for you, and they were, Kate. You light up my world even in my darkest moments.
I told you that I loved you over and over again because I do, Kate. I love you so much, and the thought of leaving you alone is killing me more than cancer ever could." ~ Lisa De Jong

Go and change your gown, Mary," Daniel interjected. "I'm partial to gold. If you've a gown in that color, wear it to please me. If not, white will do well enough. I'm wedding you, Lady Mary."
Lord Daniel Ferguson caught Lady Mary before she hit the floor. He wasn't at all irritated that his intended had just fainted dead away, and he actually let out a full burst of laughter as he swept Mary up into his arms and held her against his chest.
"She's overcome with gratitude, Alec," Daniel called out to his friend.
"Aye, Daniel, I can see she is," Alec answered. ~ Julie Garwood

The white dress, made of billowy fabric like a cargo parachute, made her look like the female Boss Hogg trying out for a part in a community theater presentation of Brigadoon. ~ Jon Konrath

Is this too dressy?" is Southern Lady code for: I look fabulous and it would be in your best interest to tell me so.
"I'm not crazy about it" is code for: I hate that more than sugar-free
punch.
"What do you think about her?" is code for: I don't like her.
"She's always been lovely to me" is code for: I don't like her either.
"She has a big personality" means she's loud as a T. rex.
"She's the nicest person" means she's boring as pound cake.
"She has beautiful skin" means she's white as a tampon.
"She's old" means she's racist as Sandy Duncan in Roots.
"You are so bad!" is Southern Lady code for: That is the tackiest thing I've ever heard and I am delighted that you shared it with me.
"No, you're so bad!" is code for: Let's snitch and bitch.
"She's a character" means drunk.
"She has a good time means slut.
"She's sweet" means Asperger's.
"She's outdoorsy" means lesbian.
"Hmm" is Southern Lady code for: I don't agree with you but am polite enough not to rub your nose in your ignorance.
"Nice talking with you" is code for: Party's over, now scoot. ~ Helen Ellis

I have seldom met an individual of literary tastes or propensities in whom the writing of love was not directly attributable to the love of writing.
A person of this sort falls terribly in love, but in the end it turns out that he is more bemused by a sheet of white paper than a sheet of white bed linen. He would rather leap into print with his lady than leap into bed with her. (This first pleases the lady and then annoys her. She wants him to do both, and with virtually the same impulse.) ~ E.B. White

After assessing what's in your closet, make a list of what you need. Not want, but need. Write down the basics missing from your wardrobe. It could be a classic white shirt, a trenchcoat, or the perfect little black dress. Whatever the blank spots, write them down. This will be your reference for shopping. ~ Nina Garcia

According to the National Gardening Association, food gardening is now a $3.5 billion industry. In 2013, 37 million home gardens were growing food, an increase of four million since 2008. Even First Lady Michelle Obama joined the trend, planting a "kitchen garden" on the White House (back) lawn. Gardeners' most popular motivations: better-tasting food and lower grocery bills. ~ Anonymous

I'm the kind of girl who wants to get married in a big, white dress, wearing my grandma's pearls. I want a husband who loves me and is faithful to me. I want him to come home to me every night, and I don't want to have to worry if he's doing his secretary, because he's the kind of man who has too much honor to do that. I want to wait a year and then I want to start trying for the two kids that we'll eventually have, a girl and a boy. And when we have those kids, I do not want, one day, to have to look in their little faces and explain why their daddy is on the internet having relations with everyone from College Honeys to Cougars Gone Wild for money. I want to throw a cartoon themed birthday party at a jump house for my six year old, not mark the occasion by explaining what a "money shot" is. I have a feeling your life goals are somewhat different than mine. And by 'somewhat,' I mean, utterly and completely. Does that explain why it would be a waste of time for both of us to continue being in each other's presence? ~ Mia Sheridan

I am mad with joy.
At least I think it's joy. Strangers have come, and it's a whole new game. I kiss the ice on the frozen creeks, I press my ear to it, honoring the water that rattles below, for by water they came: the icebergs parted as if gently pushed back by enormous hands, and the ship sailed through, sea-eager, foamy-necked, white sails, riding the swan-road, flying like a bird! O happy Grendel! Fifteen glorious heroes, proud in their battle dress, fat as cows! ~ John Gardner

I frowned."You didn't dress up!"
He grinned,opening my door for me. "Sure I did.I dressed up as the non-invisible man!"
I smacked him in the chest. "Lazy."
"Hey,I wear a costume every waking hour. You only dress up once a year,which I believe makes you the lazy one.However,you look really hot in pink tights,so I'll let it pass."
"How noble of you. ~ Kiersten White

No," I hear myself say. "You're not supposed to be here."
She's sitting on my bed. She's leaning back on her elbows, legs outstretched in front of her, crossed at the ankles. And while some part of me understands I must be dreaming, there's another, overwhelmingly dominant part of me that refuses to accept this. Part of me wants to believe she's really here, inches away from me, wearing this short, tight black dress that keeps slipping up her thighs. But everything about her looks different, oddly vibrant; the colors are all wrong. Her lips are a richer, deeper shade of pink; her eyes seem wider, darker. She's wearing shoes I know she'd never wear. And strangest of all: she's smiling at me.
"Hi," she whispers.
It's just one word, but my heart is already racing. I'm inching away from her, stumbling back and nearly slamming my skull against the headboard, when I realize my shoulder is no longer wounded. I look down at myself. My arms are both fully functional. I'm wearing nothing but a white T-shirt and my underwear.
She shifts positions in an instant, propping herself up on her knees before crawling over to me. She climbs onto my lap. She's now straddling my waist. I'm suddenly breathing too fast.
Her lips are at my ear. Her words are so soft. "Kiss me," she says.
"Juliette - "
"I came all the way here." She's still smiling at me. It's a rare smile, the kind she's never honored me with. But somehow, right now, she's mine. She's mine and she's ~ Tahereh Mafi

Charles Fort was erected in 1667 by the Duke of Ormonde. It is said to be haunted by a ghost known as the "White Lady, ~ St John D. Seymour

Honest to God, I hadn't meant to start a bar fight.
"So. You're the famous Jordan Amador." The demon sitting in front of me looked like someone filled a pig bladder with rotten cottage cheese. He overflowed the bar stool with his gelatinous stomach, just barely contained by a white dress shirt and an oversized leather jacket. Acid-washed jeans clung to his stumpy legs and his boots were at least twice the size of mine. His beady black eyes started at my ankles and dragged upward, past my dark jeans, across my black turtleneck sweater, and over the grey duster around me that was two sizes too big.
He finally met my gaze and snorted before continuing. "I was expecting something different. Certainly not a black girl. What's with the name, girlie?"
I shrugged. "My mother was a religious woman."
"Clearly," the demon said, tucking a fat cigar in one corner of his mouth. He stood up and walked over to the pool table beside him where he and five of his lackeys had gathered. Each of them was over six feet tall and were all muscle where he was all fat.
"I could start to examine the literary significance of your name, or I could ask what the hell you're doing in my bar," he said after knocking one of the balls into the left corner pocket.
"Just here to ask a question, that's all. I don't want trouble."
Again, he snorted, but this time smoke shot from his nostrils, which made him look like an albino dragon. "My ass you don't. This place is for fallen ~ Kyoko M.

If a summer were a girl, she'd always be lying stretched out in the grass in a long white dress, her arms over her head, her eyes half closed. ~ Elizabeth Berg

The solidity of the building, its quite interiors, the monumental presence of its white facade in the middle of the city- in all its deliberate order and calm, the hotel underlined its separateness from its setting. Its effect was felt most keenly by the menial staff, who traveled each day from their homes in the flood-threatened outskirts of Allahabad and approached their place of work with something like awe. They looked very ill at ease in their green uniforms and were obsequiously polite with guests, calling to mind the Indians who had come to serve in the new city of Allahabad built by the British after the rude shock of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the city whose simple colonial geography was plain from my sixth-floor hostel room, the railway tracks partitioning the congested "black town," with its minarets and temple domes, from the tree-lined grid of "white town," where for a long period no Indians, apart from servants, could appear in native dress. ~ Pankaj Mishra

IN MEMORIAM: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
She whom we love, our Lady of Compassion,
Can never die, for Love forbids her death.
Love has bent down in his old kindly fashion,
And breathed upon her his immortal breath.
On wounded soldiers, in their anguish lying,
Her gentle spirit shall descend like rain.
Where the white flag with the red cross is flying,
There shall she dwell, the vanquisher of pain. ~ Joyce Kilmer

Disco bowling? Seriously? Is there such a thing?"
He laughed. "I've never been,but you mentioned bowling a few weeks ago,and I figured tonight of all nights I could go ahead and impress you with my mad lack of bowling skills.Besides which, you look way too hot to waste on trick-or-treaters.They have a costume competition-you're a shoo-in."
I laughed,giddy,and grabbed his hand to kiss his knuckles.I knew he'd rather stay at home,but he planned tonight around making me happy. And he wanted to show me off,which appealed to my vanity more than I cared to admit. Best. Boyfriend. Ever.
"Pictures,please?And if we're going disco bowling,you have to dress up."
He pretended to sigh,but his glamour hair grew out into a massive 'fro and I squealed with delight. Then it shifted into shorter hair with a yellow-blond side part. "I figure with an ascot and blue pants I can do a mean Fred to your Daphne,right?"
Tonight was perfect. ~ Kiersten White

I could imagine my grandmother's opinion about Holly's white wedding dress, since Holly had a little boy in school - but hey, whatever made the bride happy. White used to symbolize the virgin purity of the wearer. Now it just meant the bride had acquired an expensive and unusable dress to hang in her closet after the big day. ~ Charlaine Harris

Cindy came up with a glass world with a lone woman - Tori - having to navigate with bare feet. Karen came up with the idea of white. I dug it because if the woman missteps, then there is nowhere to hide all that blood on such a pretty white dress. I found that expression more in the vein of Artemis, if you're looking for an archetype. Artemis - the lone huntress, who finds other women to help her achieve what must be achieved as she tries to protect those creatures that she cares for. ~ Ann Powers

Tom Ford, who is my all-time favourite, once said to me, 'Here's the thing about dress shirts, Rob. You need white, and you need black.' 'What about blue,' I asked. He said, 'Have you ever seen Cary Grant in a blue dress shirt?' ~ Rob Lowe

Homecomer, hitcher, phantom rider,
White lady wants what's been denied her,
Gather-grim knows what you fear the most,
But best keep away from the crossroads ghost.

Talk to the poltergeist, talk to the haunt,
Talk to the routewitch if it's what you want.
Reaper's in the parlor, seizer's in a host,
But you'd best keep away from the crossroads ghost.

- common clapping rhyme among the ever-lasters of the twilight ~ Seanan McGuire

At the Minsk tractor factory I was looking for a woman who had served in the army as a sniper. She had been a famous sniper. The newspapers from the front had written about her more than once. Her Moscow girlfriends gave me her home phone number, but it was old. And the last name I had noted down was her maiden name. I went to the factory where I knew she worked in the personnel department, and I heard from the men (the director of the factory and the head of the personnel department): "Aren't there enough men? What do you need these women's stories for? Women's fantasies…" The men were afraid that women would tell about some wrong sort of war. I visited a family…Both husband and wife had fought. They met at the front and got married there: "We celebrated our wedding in the trench. Before the battle. I made a white dress for myself out of a German parachute." He had been a machine gunner, she a radio operator. The man immediately sent his wife to the kitchen: "Prepare something for us." The kettle was already boiling, and the sandwiches were served, she sat down with us, but the husband immediately got her to her feet again: "Where are the strawberries? Where are our treats from the country?" After my repeated requests, he reluctantly relinquished his place, saying: "Tell it the way I taught you. Without tears and women's trifles: how you wanted to be beautiful, how you wept when they cut off your braid." Later she whispered to me: "He studied The History of the Great Patriot ~ Svetlana Alexievich

He grinned: he'd turned in time to witness her delicate white shoulders dip below the water's surface. Thankfully, she quickly completed her morning's ablutions and made a shooing motion with her hands. Back turned again, he waited for her to dress, all the while telling his privy counselor to cease its repeated suggestions. ~ Angela Quarles

Anecdote: The extent of Michael Jackson's fame at its height, and his eagerness to exploit it is shown by an incident in 1984 when invited to a White House reception hosted by then President and First Lady Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Jackson had been assured that the only people there, besides the presidential couple, would be a few staff members' children. Aghast to find around 75 adults and no children, Jackson locked himself in an upstairs bathroom, refusing to emerge until assured that all non-essential adults had been replaced by a number of children. ~ Michael Jackson

It's about Diana,' sobbed Anne luxuriously. 'I love Diana so, Marilla. I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall I do? I hate her husband - I just hate him furiously. I've been imagining it all out - the wedding and everything - Diana dressed in snowy white garments, and a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the bridesmaid, with a lovely dress, too, and puffed sleeves, but with a breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Diana good-bye-e-e - ' Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with increasing bitterness. Marilla turned quickly away to hide her twitching face, but it was no use; she collapsed on the nearest chair and burst into such a hearty and unusual peal of laughter ... ~ L.M. Montgomery

A modest, godly woman will dress modestly ... The one who is simple and unpretending in her dress and in her manners shows that she understands that a true woman is characterized by moral worth. ~ Ellen G. White

Marlys was a sturdy woman in her fifties, white curls clinging to her scalp like vanilla frosting. She wore rimless glasses, a homemade red-checked gingham dress, and low-topped Nikes. Short-nosed and pale, she had a small pink mouth that habitually pursed in thought, or disapproval. ~ John Sandford

The thing about old friends is not that they love you, but that they know you. They remember that disastrous New Year's Eve when you mixed White Russians and champagne, and how you wore that red maternity dress until everyone was sick of seeing the blaze of it in the office, and the uncomfortable couch in your first apartment and the smoky stove in your beach rental. They look at you and don't really think you look older because they've grown old along with you, and, like the faded paint in a beloved room, they're used to the look. And then one of them is gone, and you've lost a chunk of yourself. The stories of the terrorist attacks of 2001, the tsunami, the Japanese earthquake always used numbers, the deaths of thousands a measure of how great the disaster. Catastrophe is numerical. Loss is singular, one beloved at a time. ~ Anna Quindlen