Nylon Quotes

For my 23rd birthday, I received a nylon string guitar. I told myself that if I could play Eric Clapton's 'Tears In Heaven,' then I could play the guitar. I practised every chance I got, driving my housemates insane, until several weeks later I had a shaky version of the song down. I wrote my first song on the guitar a few weeks after that. ~ Neil Jackson

Joel arrived at Hemmant beach in a pair of white nylon shorts. He knew they'd be see-through once they were wet, and he deliberately didn't wear any underwear, because he wanted to be in the surf, practically naked, and have people looking at him. ~ Todd Young

An eye-jangling assortment of spurious clan tartans, adorning every conceivable object made of fabric, from caps, neckties, and serviettes down to a particularly horrid yellow "Buchanan" sett used to make men's nylon Y-front underpants. ~ Diana Gabaldon

He thinks he is a flower to be looked at And when he pulls his frilly nylon pants right up tight He feels a dedicated follower of fashion. When a waiter at Buckingham Palace spilled soup on her dress: Never darken my Dior again! ~ Ray Davies

There was someone sitting in his room, over on that chair -
"Are you kidding me?" He exhaled a curse and rubbed the back of his brain. "Really? Are you fucking kidding me?"
Across the way, like some fucked-up scarecrow, a pair of blue jeans, that Nirvana concert T-shirt of the angel's, the flannel bullshit, and a set of Nikes had been stuffed with God only knew what. The head of the "Lassiter" was made out of a nylon bag that had had potatoes in it, and the black and yellow hair was a collection of knee-high business socks - probably Butch's - and Swiffer cleaning rags that had been safety pinned in place.
Around its neck? A handwritten sign that read: the boss was here. ~ J.R. Ward

The building was crowded with men and women packing stuff into boxes and bags, leather stuff, nylon, canvas, and rubber stuff, with brass rings and silver chains, steel buckles and studded straps. Elephant stuff. ~ Richard Schmitt

Do you think that I have a problem?" Ignatius bellowed. "The only problem that those people have anyway is that they don't like new cars and hairsprays. That why they are put away. They make the other members of the society fearful. Every asylum in this nation is filled with poor souls who simply cannot stand lanolin, cellophane, plastic, television, and subdivisions."
"Ignatius, that ain't true. You remember old Mr. Becnel used to live down the block? They locked him up because he was running down the street naked."
"Of course he was running down the street naked. His skin could not bear any more of that Dacron and nylon clothing that was clogging his pores. I've always considered Mr Becnel one of the martyrs of our age. The poor man was badly victimized. Now run along to the front door and see if my taxi has arrived." p.306 ~ John Kennedy Toole

Sloanes aren't cafe society or NYLON hedge-funders with million-pound bonuses, or London Eurotrash wearing upgraded style anglais. Ann Barr's and my original picture of them in 'The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook,' published in 1982, was of an upper-middle-class world, conservative and fairly homogeneous, united by old attitudes and institutions. ~ Peter York

The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens, a polished
glass dome with a purplish optical coating. Whenever Hiro is using the machine,
this lens emerges and clicks into place, its base flush with the surface of the
computer. The neighborhood loglo is curved and foreshortened on its surface.
Hiro finds it erotic. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in
several weeks. But there's more to it. Hiro's father, who was stationed in
Japan for many years, was obsessed with cameras. He kept bringing them back
from his stints in the Far East, encased in many protective layers, so that when
he took them out to show Hiro, it was like watching an exquisite striptease as
they emerged from all that black leather and nylon, zippers and straps. And
once the lens was finally exposed, pure geometric equation made real, so
powerful and vulnerable at once, Hiro could only think it was like nuzzling
through skirts and lingerie and outer labia and inner labia. . . . It made
him feel naked and weak and brave.
The lens can see half of the universe -- the half that is above the computer,
which includes most of Hiro. In this way, it can generally keep track of where
Hiro is and what direction he's looking in.
Down inside the computer are three lasers -- a red one, a green one, and a blue
one. They are powerful enough to make a bright light but not powerful enough to
burn ~ Neal Stephenson

I really loved when Prada Sport came into fashion, which kind of created all the nylon which she had for quite some time. You also wanted a Prada bag, you wanted a Prada shoe, not that you don't today, but that craze for Prada accessories was really big. It was a really big deal. ~ Roopal Patel

I used to take my morning tea at her kiosk and I took an interest in what she was doing. I later learnt she was taking care of her grandchildren. Sadly, she was taken ill and had to close her nylon-walled smoky shack. But all the wit and cunning of the character came from her. ~ Stanley Gazemba

A sensual lifestyle defies the productivist logic, it has time.

I love this illustration by Anthony DeMello:

A rich entrepreneur from the North was horrified to find the southern fisherman lying lazily besides his boat, smoking pipe.

"Why aren't you out fishing?" said the entrepreneur. "Because I have caught enough fish for the day," said the fisherman.

"Why don't you catch some more?"
"What would I do with them?"
"You could earn more money," was the entrepreneur's reply. "With that you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish. Then you would make enough to buy nylon nets. These would bring you more fish and more money. Soon you would have more money to own two boats... maybe even a fleet of boats. Then you would be a rich man like me."

"What would I do then?" asked the fisherman.
"Then you could really enjoy life."
"What do you think I'm doing right now? ~ Lebo Grand

The world soon to be largely populated by men who would eat your children in front of your eyes and the cities themselves held by cores of blackened looters who tunneled among the ruins and crawled from the rubble white of tooth and eye carrying charred and anynymous tins of food in nylon nets like shoppers in the commissaries of hell. The soft black talc blew through the streets like squid ink uncoiling along a sea floor and the cold crept down and the dark came early and the scavengers passing down the steep canyons with their torches trod silky holes in the drifted ash that closed behind them silently as eyes. Out on the roads the pilgrims sank down and fell over and died and the bleak and shrouded earth went trundling past the sun and returned again as trackless and as unremarked as the path of any nameless sisterworld in the ancient dark beyond. ~ Cormac McCarthy

I have a deep connection with Mahatma Gandhi, partly because my mother was a very, very staunch Gandhian and brought us up that way. When I was six years old, and all the girls were getting nylon dresses, I was very keen to get a nylon frock for my birthday. My mother said, "I can get it for you, but would you rather-through how you live and what you wear and what you eat-ensure that food goes into the hands of the weaver or ensure that profits go into the bank of an industrialist?" That became such a checkstone for everything in life. ~ Vandana Shiva

We had an electronic head and arm for Threepio, and I manipulated the mechanism with a joystick. But it wasn't working. The propman said, 'Give me fifteen minutes.' We all went to get coffee, and when we came back, Threepio's head turned perfectly and his arm moved naturally. I looked up and realized that the prop man had a fishing pole with a fine nylon string attached to Threepio's arm. He had rigged another string around the head, which Chewbacca was holding. As Chewie moved his hands, Threepio's head turned! ~ Irvin Kershner

Tube

Three women opposite talk about the weather as if it's a friend they don't much like.
"And that's another thing," says one, leaning in. "My no-tights-till-October rule has gone straight out the window."
Her companions bob their heads, uncross and recross their nylon-clad legs. ~ Lisa Owens

...for a piece of famous fluffiness that doesn't just pretend about what real lives can be like, but moves on into one of the world's least convincing pretences about what people themselves are like, consider the teased and coiffed nylon monument that is 'Imagine': surely the My Little Pony of philosophical statements. John and Yoko all in white, John at the white piano, John drifting through the white rooms of a white mansion, and all the while the sweet drivel flowing. Imagine there's no heaven. Imagine there's no hell. Imagine all the people, living life in - hello? Excuse me? Take religion out of the picture, and everybody spontaneously starts living life in peace? I don't know about you, but in my experience peace is not the default state of human beings, any more than having an apartment the size of Joey and Chandler's is. Peace is not the state of being we return to, like water running downhill, whenever there's nothing external to perturb us. Peace between people is an achievement, a state of affairs we put together effortfully in the face of competing interests, and primate dominance dynamics, and our evolved tendency to cease our sympathies at the boundaries of our tribe. ~ Francis Spufford

I stared at Buddy while he unzipped his chino pants and took them off and laid them on a chair and then took off his underpants that were made of something like nylon fishnet.
"They're cool," he explained, "and my mother says they wash easily."
Then he just stood there in front of me and I kept on staring at him. The only thing I could think of was turkey neck and turkey gizzards and I felt very depressed. Buddy seemed hurt I didn't say anything. ~ Sylvia Plath

Have you seen a person recently so delicious-looking that, were you and this person to be scrambling for ice-cream change with your arms in the sofa and your faces laid on the cushions looking at each other as you felt for coins and the ice-cream truck dinged on by and your hands in there felt only the lint of the sofa scrofula and your faces were fairly close across a distance of that knobby nylon terrain, you might feel compelled to slide you face toward this delicious-looking person's and kiss him or her - have you seen anyone like this recently? ~ Padgett Powell

That transactions at the market, at the rice seller, in the narrow archways of the gold bazaar were belaboured exchanges of tuts and hisses, whispered offers with lowered eyes, counter-offers protested while patting empty wallets in pockets. That upon agreeing a suitable price, buyer and seller would shake hands three times, reach into stashes of tightly rolled banknotes tucked into nylon socks and secret compartments hand-sewn into underpants. ~ Jennifer Klinec

Human beings would split the atom and invent television, nylon, and instant coffee before they could figure out the age of their own planet. ~ Bill Bryson

Being part of 'Natural Nylon' is a great way to have an influence on the films that get out there. I love films and it gives me an input. ~ Jonny Lee Miller

These cities grew in approximately the same places as our cities do now, however different the shape of the continents was. There was even a New York that in some way resembled the New York familiar to all of you, but was much newer, or, rather, more awash with new products, new toothbrushes, a New York with its own Manhattan that stretched out dense with skyscrapers gleaming like the nylon bristles of a brand-new toothbrush. ~ Italo Calvino

Avery turned and smiled. "There's a huge party tonight, and you're invited. We're celebrating New Year's in style."
I looked down at my sling. "I don't know. Navy-blue nylon isn't exactly a trend. ~ Mara Purnhagen

I have some good books of Bach keyboard music transcribed for guitar, and there's always a nylon-string guitar hanging on the wall in my house and a bunch of classical guitar books to grab. I kind of do that just for fun. ~ Rivers Cuomo

A man in a nylon bikini, with that little knot sticking out in front, isn't half as interesting as a man in a good-looking business suit. Charlie ~ Sue Grafton

It's possible that you have been told a time or 10 that you don't appreciate how tough your elders had it. It's true that, if you had been coming of age back in, say, 1960, you would probably be feeling more restricted, if only because you were doomed to spend your days in a skirt, nylon stockings and girdle. ~ Gail Collins

Between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, I broke into a total of six offices, one penthouse suite and a small bank, and cursed them all. I cursed the stones they were built on, the bricks in their walls, the paint on their ceilings, the carpets on their floors. I cursed the nylon chairs to give their owners little electric shocks, I cursed the markers to squeak on the whiteboard, the hinges to rust, the glass to run, the windows to stick, the fans to whir, the chairs to break, the computers to crash, the papers to crease, the pens to smear; I cursed the pipes to leak, the coolers to drip, the pictures to sag, the phones to crackle and the wires to spark. And we enjoyed it. ~ Kate Griffin

One moment, she was wearing clothing, and the next moment, she was wearing a bikini. Fifty percent of the world was brown skin and fifty percent was orange nylon. From the Mona Lisa smile on Orla's lips, it was clear she was pleased to finally be allowed to demonstrate her true talents.
A tiny part of Gansey's brain said: You have been staring for too long.
The larger part of his brain said: ORANGE. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I dare say being a receptionist at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square gets you a reasonable salary and all the nylon stockings you can eat, ~ Hugh Laurie

She didn't drink a lot, but she drank me into wonderland where we spent the time giggling and laughing. However, know this if you are able or leave while you still can. Love is unstable when built on what must come and go with the wind and sand.
After awhile, I heard the increasing activity from the hall as the campus was starting to come alive and I said to Penny, "I think we need to get to the bistro" and she responded by slipping one brown shoe delicately over her white nylon socking. ~ Joseph Persia

He got a lovely pair of trainers given off his mum for Christmas, best pair he ever had, but it was the nylon laces that he couldn't take his eyes off. They found him hanging in his cell! ~ Stephen Richards

No one was a stranger in that crowd. We had all heard FDR's "Fireside Chats" and Edward R. Murrow's "This is London," listened to H.V. Kaltenborn for the evening news, and watched the newsreels before the movies. We'd read Ernie Pyle's columns, planted victory gardens, written V mails, sent care packages, gathered phonograph records for the USO, given up nylon for parachutes, saved bacon grease for explosives, and turned in tin foil, saved from gum wrappers, for ammunition. Most of all, we'd prayed that our loved ones would be safe. ~ Marjorie Hart

No matter how fine your suit and your shoes, you will remind everyone that you are not yet a grownup man by wearing them with your old college knapsack, in its nasty, nylon glory. ~ Russell Smith

The family which takes its mauve an cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered and power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, lighted buildings, billboards and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground. They pass on into countryside that has been rendered largely invisible by commercial art. (The goods which the latter advertise have an absolute priority in our value system. Such aesthetic considerations as a view of the countryside accordingly come second. On such matters we are consistent.) They picnic on exquisitely packaged food from a portable icebox by a polluted stream and go on to spend the night at a park which is a menace to public health and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress, beneath a nylon tent, amid the stench of decaying refuse, they may reflect vaguely on the curious unevenness of their blessings. Is this, indeed, the American genius? ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

I believe it to my soul that you're the devil in nylon hose, for the harder I worker the faster my money goes. ~ Big Joe Turner

By then all stores of food had given out and murder was everywhere upon the land. The world soon to be largely populated by men who would eat your children in front of your eyes and the cities themselves held by cores of blackened looters who tunneled among the ruins and crawled from the rubble white tooth and eye carrying charred and anonymous tins of food in nylon nets like shoppers in the commissaries of hell. The soft black talc blew through the streets like squid ink uncoiling along a sea floor... ~ Cormac McCarthy

As he sat up, he heard soft dripping sounds from the bathroom, little plips like water slipping over the edges of the tub and into the floor. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as he realized where he‟d last heard that sound. His muscles tight with strain from his earlier exertions, he stood and walked warily toward the half open bathroom door and the tub beyond it. Slipping quietly past the door, he saw that the curtain was drawn, and again the shadowed figure lay behind it. One long, slim, leg dangled from the end of the tub, beads of water gliding down its length and off the polished toes. At the other end he saw a mass of auburn curls, matted deep red near the porcelain of the tub. It was the dream and the vision again, more real now, too strong to deny. Shaking, he moved toward the curtain, gagging on the sickly smell of rust and roses, feeling the thin nylon glide between thumb and palm as he pulled it back to reveal his darkest nightmare and deepest regret. He could see the crimson water now, blood bubbles gliding over its surface and clinging to the legs dangling over the tub‟s edge. When he‟d pulled the curtain completely away from the tub and around to its opposite side, he saw her face. Her eyes were closed and he saw that her lids were bruised and purple against the translucent paleness of her face, drained completely dead white under the makeup she‟d brushed on before she‟d died. Staggering by the sight of her, he knelt by the tub and extended one shaking han ~ Amanda M. Lyons

What I saw had no solidity, it was all made of mist and nylon, with nothing behind. ~ Anna Kavan

I have loved you woman as surely as I have named you rust and sand and nylon. ~ Charles Bukowski

To say he had doubts about this excursion, which Wyoming State University hadn't even authorized, would easily qualify for the understatement of the year. But as he pondered his reason for doing this, Ellington bit his lip, swallowed a bolus of raw fear in his throat and continued to descend, allowing the nylon rope to slip through the carabiner underneath his posterior. ~ Byron Tucker