Menagerie Quotes

Thoughts of moonlight and silken hair evaporated in a black bolt of fury. Kaz saw Inej tug on the sleeve of her left forearm, where the Menagerie tattoo had once been. He had the barest inkling of what she'd endured there, but he knew what it was to feel helpless, and Van Eck had managed to make her feel that way again. Kaz was going to have to find a new language of suffering to teach that smug merch son of a bitch. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Jim lights a cigarette and leans indolently back on his elbow smiling at Laura with a warmth and charm which lights her inwardly with altar candles. ~ Tennessee Williams

Some people have family crests, lions, tigers, unicorns, elephants - a whole menagerie - and if my family had a crest, you know what would be on it? A blintze. I mean it. All the good things in my life are measured in blintzes because by us it's not a party if there isn't a blintze ... ~ Gertrude Berg

Winter was usually the slow season at the menagerie, with so many of the animals hibernating, but that year I was busier than a hen with a double set of chicks. ~ Patricia C. Wrede

We assured Phelan that we were more than happy to let him have you and your menagerie," Leo retorted. "After that, he said he needed to think." "About what?" Beatrix demanded. "What is there to think about? Why is it taking him so long to make a decision?" "He's a man, dear," Amelia explained kindly. "Sustained thinking is very difficult for them. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Ned: I figured it was time for a picnic by the menagerie.
Jenny: And you brought me? Why not take the woman you're marrying?
Ned: She's grown up with the Duke of Ware. Lions seem less ferocious. ~ Courtney Milan

For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura
and so goodbye ... ~ Tennessee Williams

Snorkel through our vibrant menagerie of fish and marine life, each one of which has been clearly tagged and labeled for your convenience. Do you think the jokers at Sandals would do that for you? We've stocked our ivory reef with disparate creatures from all over the world, creating a lavishly unbalanced ecosystem that you have to see to believe. Often the things that nature never intended are the most fun to look at. ~ Colin Nissan

Nothing shows a greater contempt for individuality than the train. Modern civilization uses every possible means to develop individuality, and having done so, tries everything in its power to stamp it out. It allots a few square yards to each person, and tells them that they are free to lead their life as they please within that area. At the same time it erects railings around them, and threatens them with all sorts of dire consequences if they should dare to take but one step beyond their compass. It is only natural that the person who has freedom within the confines of their allocated plot, should desire to have freedom to do as they wish outside it too. Civilization's pitiable subjects are forever snapping and snarling at imprisoning bars, for they have been made as fierce as tigers by the gift of liberty, but have been thrown into a cage to preserve universal peace. This, however, is not a true peace. It is the peace of the tiger in a menagerie who lies glowering at those who have come to look at it. ~ Natsume Sōseki

Once upon a time, a girl went to see a monster menagerie where all the exhibits were dead. ~ Laini Taylor

Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion. ~ Tennessee Williams

People go to the movies instead of moving. ~ Tennessee Williams

How absurd it would be if the further development of the menagerie itself would be held back by self-inflicted wounds! ~ Anonymous

I grew up with a menagerie of dogs, cats, gerbils - not to mention three younger siblings. ~ K.A. Applegate

'The Glass Menagerie' by Tennessee Williams is a great play. I had to read it for school when I was younger, but I started writing scripts after that. That's what got me into writing. ~ Jake T. Austin

Whenever elephants met men, elephants fared badly. Syria's final elephants were exterminated by twenty-five hundred years ago. Elephants were gone from much of China literally before the year 1 and much of Africa by the year 1000. Meanwhile, in India and southern Asia, elephants became the mounts of kings; tanks against forts, prisoners' executioners, and pincushions of arrows, driven mad in battle; elephants became logging trucks and bulldozers, and, as with other slaves, their forced labor requires beatings and abuse. Since Roman times, humans have reduced Africa's elephant population by perhaps 99 percent. African elephants are gone from 90 percent of the lands they roamed as recently as 1800, when, despite earlier losses, an estimated twenty-six million elephants still trod the continent. Now they number perhaps four hundred thousand. (The diminishment of Asian elephants over historic times is far worse.) The planet's menagerie has become like shards of broken glass; we're grinding the shards smaller and smaller. ~ Carl Safina

'Angels in America' - which is composed of two three-hour plays, 'Millennium Approaches' and 'Perestroika' - proved to be a watershed drama, the most lyrical and ambitious augury of an era since Tennessee Williams's 'The Glass Menagerie.' ~ John Lahr

There's an I in menagerie. - Black Annis ~ Derek Landy

In the year 1257, an elephant died in the Tower menagerie and was buried in a pit near the chapel. But the following year he was dug up and his remains sent to Westminster Abbey. Now, what did they want at Westminster Abbey, with the remains of an elephant? If not to carve a ton of relics out of him, and make his animal bones into the bones of saints? ~ Hilary Mantel

I'm an avid animal lover. When I was 16, I wanted to be a vet or a zookeeper. I grew up with animals. At one time we had between five and eight dogs in the house, with four cats. We're menagerie people. ~ Misty May-Treanor

A tender smile softened his face. "That would be Esme. She's nine and a delight. I haven't seen much of her these past few years, but she writes me letters. Sends me drawings as well. I have a likeliness of every cat, hound, and horse she's ever met, and considering the menagerie she keeps in the country at Clybourne, that's a great many indeed. ~ Tracy Anne Warren

Is enjoyment the goal of life? Were it so, it would be a tremendous mistake to become a man at all. What man can enjoy a meal with more gusto than the dog or the cat ? Go to a menagerie and see the [wild animals] tearing the flesh from the bone. Go back and become a bird! ... What a mistake then to become a man! Vain have been my years - hundreds of years - of struggle only to become the man of sense-enjoyments. ~ Swami Vivekananda

The context for music is varied and profound. If their fantasy is to be awakened-so that their sounds may be incisive or ravishing-then the menagerie of saints and dragons must be faithfully recalled. ~ Russell Sherman

Incendiary

That one small boy with a face like pallid cheese
And burnt-out little eyes could make a blaze
As brazen, fierce and huge, as red and gold
And zany yellow as the one that spoiled
Three thousand guineas' worth of property
And crops at Godwin's Farm on Saturday
Is frightening---as fact and metaphor:
An ordinary match intended for
The lighting of a pipe or kitchen fire
Misused may set a whole menagerie
Of flame-fanged tigers roaring hungrily.
And frightening, too, that one small boy should set
The sky on fire and choke the stars to heat
Such skinny limbs and such a little heart
Which would have been content with one warm kiss
Had there been anyone to offer this. ~ Vernon Scannell

His rage fed my reckless euphoria. He couldn't stand having his authority challenged, and that made him easy to manipulate.

I was in chains, but he was losing control. ~ Rachel Vincent

Each man's soul is a menagerie where Conscience, the animal-tamer, lives with a collection of wild beasts. ~ Austin O'Malley

When I want to go to sleep, I must first get a whole menagerie of voices to shut up. You wouldn't believe what a racket they make in my room. ~ Karl Kraus

Clavain looked around the room, taking in the gruesome menagerie of wraithlike seniors, wizened elders and obscene glass-bottled end-state Conjoiners. They were all hanging on his answer, even the visible brains seeming to hesitate in their wheezing pulsations. ~ Alastair Reynolds

Just as I was turning fifteen, in the spring of 1946, my parents took me to see 'The Glass Menagerie,' well into its year-long run. I had seen a number of shows on Broadway by then, but nothing like this - because there was nothing like this on Broadway. ~ Robert Gottlieb

In 1255, Louis IX of France presented an elephant to Henry III of England to add to the menagerie of exotic animals he kept in the Tower of London. ~ Karen Maitland

It was the first smile of my life. Of course, that is a ridiculous thing to say; I had been smiled at often, the big man had smiled at me not a minute since. And yet I say: it was the first smile, because it was the first that ever went straight into me like a needle too thin to be seen. ~ Carol Birch

If you cut off my hands, I'll write with my feet, and if you cut off my feet, I'll write with my nose, and if you cut that off, you may as well cut my whole head off, because no matter how you slice and dice me, you can't control what I think, or what I feel. You can keep me locked up for the rest of my life, however brief that may be. But you will never, ever own me. ~ Rachel Vincent

He saw her draw closer in the mirror. Her black hair was an ink splash against the white tile walls. She paused behind him. "You protected me, Kaz."
"The fact that you're bleeding through your bandages tells me otherwise."
She glanced down. A red blossom of blood had spread on the bandage tied around her shoulder. She tugged awkwardly at the strip of towel. "I need Nina to fix this one."
He didn't mean to say it. He meant to let her go. "I can help you."
Her gaze snapped to his in the mirror, wary as if gauging an opponent. I can help you. They were the first words she'd spoken to him, standing in the parlor of the Menagerie, draped in purple silk, eyes lined in kohl. She had helped him. And she'd nearly destroyed him. Maybe he should let her finish the job. ~ Leigh Bardugo

As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If a am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself. ~ Henry Miller

Evan chuckled and shook his head. "I should have known it would be another owl. What is it with you and owls? I'm surrounded by the bloody things. There's more of them than the spider plants."
"Don't listen to him," Rai said, standing and swivelling around to take in all his menagerie. Owlery? I made a mental note to Google the collective noun for owls later. "You're all precious snowflakes, my lovelies. ~ Josephine Myles

I'm surprised you even remember that day. You were so into Kavinsky, I don't think you even noticed who else was there."
I push him in the shoulder. "I was not 'so into Kavinsky'!"
"Yes you were. You kept your eyes on that bottle the whole game, like this." John picks up the bottle and lasers his eyes at it. "Waiting for your moment."
I'm bright red, I know I am. "Oh, be quiet."
Laughing, he says, "Like a hawk on its prey."
"Shut up!" Now I'm laughing too. "How do you even remember that?"
"Because I was doing the same thing," he says.
"You were staring at Peter too?" I say it like a joke, to tease, because this is fun. For the first time in days I'm having fun.
He looks right at me, navy-blue eyes sure and steady, and my breath catches in my chest. "No. I was looking at you."
There's a humming in my ears, and it's the sound of my heart beating in triple measure. In memory, everything seems to happen to music. One of my favorite lines from The Glass Menagerie. If I close my eyes I can almost hear it, that day in John Ambrose McClaren's basement. Years from now, when I look back on this moment, what music will I hear then?
His eyes hold mine, and I feel a flutter that starts in my throat and moves across my collarbone and chest. "I like you, Lara Jean. I liked you then and I like you even more now. I know you and Kavinsky just broke up, and you're still sad, but I just want to make it unequivocally clear."
"Um…okay," I whis ~ Jenny Han

Larry King's show got to be an increasingly lonely outpost of humane civility in a mephitic menagerie of hotheads, saber rattlers, cretins and crackpots. ~ Tom Shales

William!" I turned smiling. "Did they send you over?"
William shook his head. "They're still arguing, and it's spreading. Your professor has opinions."
I rolled my eyes, because it was William. "She's from Vinland. As far as she's concerned, wildlife is something you shoot first and study later. She's been complaining about the menagerie animals since the day she got to Mill City, especially this one. ~ Patricia C. Wrede

Needless to say, that meant that the Braekbills student body was quite the psychological menagerie. Carrying that much onboard cognitive processing power had a way of distorting your personality. And to actually want to work that hard, you had to be at least a little bit screwed up. ~ Lev Grossman

The platypus, as it turns out, derives its DNA from a menagerie of creatures. When its genome was fully decoded, it was found only to be 80% mammalian, and had genes found previously only in reptilian, bird, amphibian, and fish DNA. ~ B.C. Chase

I'd like to one day play Amanda, the mother, in The Glass Menagerie. ~ Bernadette Peters

Perhaps because my background is theatrical, I have a great affinity with the classics. Hamlet has always been a character of great interest to me and a character I would really love to play. Or a character in a Tennessee Williams play, maybe Tom in 'The Glass Menagerie.' ~ Adhir Kalyan

...There was a menagerie in which hideous clowns, dressed in rags and come from who knows where, were in 1823 exhibiting to the peasants of Montfermeil one of those hideous Brazilian vultures. ~ Victor Hugo

The human imagination may be the most elastic thing in the universe, stretching to encompass the millions of dreams that in centuries of relectless struggle built modern civilization, to entertain the endless doubts that hamper every human enterprise, and to conceive the vast menagerie of boogeymen that trouble every human heart. ~ Dean Koontz

When I was 18 I worked with the Ringling Brothers circus, taking care of menagerie animals. I used to rather deliberately risk my life with the big cats. ~ Edward Hoagland

What is the importance of human lives? Is it their continuing alive for so many years like animals in a menagerie? The value of a man cannot be judged by the number of diseases from which he escapes. The value of a man is in his human qualities: in his character, in his conscience, in the nobility and magnanimity, of his soul. Torturing animals to prolong human life has separated science from the most important thing that life has produced - the human conscience. ~ John Cowper Powys

It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:
"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!"
"What is it?" cried Fred.
"It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!"
Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a bear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way. ~ Charles Dickens

Over the years, my church gave me passage into a menagerie of exotic words unknown in the South: "introit," "offertory," "liturgy," "movable feast," "the minor elevation," "the lavabo," "the apparition of Lourdes," and hundreds more. Latin deposited the dark minerals of its rhythms on the shelves of my spoken language. You may find the harmonics of the Common of the Mass in every book I've ever written. Because I was raised Roman Catholic, I never feared taking any unchaperoned walks through the fields of language. Words lifted me up and filled me with pleasure. ~ Pat Conroy

Devlin was as sleek and muscular as the black-and-gold tiger she had seen on exhibition at the park menagerie. Divested of his clothes, he seemed even larger, his broad shoulders and long torso looming before her. The texture of his flesh was heavy and tough, covered with skin that seemed hard but silken at the same time. His midriff was scored with rows of muscle. She had seen statues and illustrations of the male body, but nothing had ever conveyed this sense of warm, living strength, this potent virility. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The problem with growing up in a cafe was the cafe never closed, my parents worked every day of the year from morning to night. So it was a big menagerie of kids, business and cooking! ~ Anthony Minghella

In memory, everything seems to happen to music. ~ Tennessee Williams

I don't believe every cryptid should be allowed to roam free, just like I don't believe every human should be allowed to roam free. We have psychos, too. People kill their coworkers. Kids kill their classmates. Parents kill their own children. Those people are every bit as monstrous as the worst cryptid predator you can ever point to, yet they're human, just like we are. ~ Rachel Vincent

Sometimes on flat boring afternoons, he'd squatted on the curb of St. Deval Street and daydreamed silent pearly snowclouds into sifting coldly through the boughs of the dry, dirty trees. Snow falling in August and silvering the glassy pavement, the ghostly flakes icing his hair, coating rooftops, changing the grimy old neighborhood into a hushed frozen white wasteland uninhabited except for himself and a menagerie of wonder-beasts: albino antelopes, and ivory-breasted snowbirds; and occasionally there were humans, such fantastic folk as Mr Mystery, the vaudeville hypnotist, and Lucky Rogers, the movie star, and Madame Veronica, who read fortunes in a Vieux Carré tearoom. ~ Truman Capote

If one were to include one-tenth of the remarkable people one knows, in one's fiction, no one would accept it. Real life remains one's private menagerie. ~ Sylvia Townsend Warner

When I was a boy, I had a baseball team of my own. We played on a vacant lot between Ninetieth and Ninety-second streets. I had a little menagerie of my own, some pigeons, guinea pigs, and so on. On Saturday mornings, I had to take my music lesson. Then the members of my team used to come see my menagerie. ~ Jacob Ruppert

The process by which the idea for a play comes to me has always been something I really couldn't pinpoint. A play just seems to materialize; like an apparition, it gets clearer and clearer and clearer. It's very vague at first, as in the case of Streetcar, which came after Menagerie. I simply had the vision of a woman in her late youth. She was sitting in a chair all alone by a window with the moonlight streaming in on her desolate face, and she'd been stood up by the man she planned to marry. ~ Tennessee Williams

An expense of ends to means is fate;Morganization tyrannizing over character. The menagerie, or forms and powers of the spine, is a book of fate: the bill of the bird, the skull of the snake, determines tyrannically its limits. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

In 20 years I want to look back and see a collection of crazy characters that I made - a menagerie. ~ Dan Fogler

The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. ~ Tennessee Williams

Every man carries a menagerie in himself; and, by stirring him up all around, you will find every sort of animal represented there. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

It was piecework, and she was apt to have a family to keep alive; and stern and ruthless economic laws had arranged it that she could only do this by working just as she did, with all her soul upon her work, and with never an instant for a glance at the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who came to stare at her, as at some wild beast in a menagerie. ~ Upton Sinclair

Profit is the sole criterion used by the establishment to evaluate economic activity. From the rat race to lame ducks. The vocabulary in vogue is a give-away. It's more reminiscent of a human menagerie than human society. ~ Jimmy Reid

This is a madhouse!" said Horace. Deirdre laughed. "No, doveling. It's a menagerie. ~ Ransom Riggs

You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it. ~ Tennessee Williams

With his buzz-cut black hair, muscles and menagerie of tattoos, the man looked like he lived in a cave and sanded timber with his head and flung innocent young women down on beds and had his wicked way with them. ~ Cari Silverwood