Quilt Quotes

Much like a patchwork quilt, inspiration that stirs and motivates me is made of many things. ~ Robert Reynolds

...Not an elegant tapestry but a serviceable quilt. ~ Margaret Erhart

Alice had this magical look about her, like she would be at home in front of a hearth, wrapped in a large quilt, telling nursery rhymes to sweet-faced forest critters. ~ Alexandra Bracken

The eastward spurs tip backward from the sun.
Nights runs an obscure tide round cape and bay
and beats with boats of cloud up from the sea
against this sheer and limelit granite head.
Swallow the spine of range; be dark. O lonely air.
Make a cold quilt across the bone and skull
that screamed falling in flesh from the lipped cliff
and then were silent, waiting for the flies.

Here is the symbol, and climbing dark
a time for synthesis. Night buoys no warning
over the rocks that wait our keels; no bells
sound for the mariners. Now must we measure
our days by nights, our tropics by their poles,
love by its end and all our speech by silence.
See in the gulfs, how small the light of home.

Did we not know their blood channelled our rivers,
and the black dust our crops ate was their dust?
O all men are one man at last. We should have known
the night that tidied up the cliffs and hid them
had the same question on its tongue for us.
And there they lie that were ourselves writ strange.

Never from earth again the coolamon
or thin black children dancing like the shadows
of saplings in the wind. Night lips the harsh
scarp of the tableland and cools its granite.
Night floods us suddenly as history
that has sunk many islands in its good time. ~ Judith A. Wright

NIGHT SNOW

I was surprised my quilt and pillow were cold,
I see that now the window's bright again.
Deep in the night, I know the snow is thick,
I sometimes hear the sound as bamboo snaps. ~ Bai Juyi

They had been married for three days.
Lauren stirred, moving closer to him for warmth. Careful not to disturb her, he drew the satin quilt up around her shoulders. Reverently he touched her cheek, tracing its elegant curve. Lauren had brought joy to his life and laughter to his home.She thought he was beautiful. When she looked at him, he felt beautiful.
Somewhere in another part of the big house a clock began chiming the hour of midnight. Lauren's lashes slowly flickered open, and he looked into her enchanting blue eyes. "It's Christmas," he whispered.
His wife smiled up at him, and her answer made his throat tighten. "No," she said softly, laying her fingers against his jaw. "Christmas came three days ago. ~ Judith McNaught

Quilts are more than something to keep you warm. They give women a way to express themselves creatively.I like the way that you're using pieces of your children's outgrown clothing to make this quilt. It already has memories built in it that way, don't you think? ~ Barbara Cameron

The rough pitter-patter of rain against the tin roof caused me to stir in my sleep, but I struggled to fight it. I yearned to remain under the warmth of my thick quilt, wandering aimlessly through the dream world. But, alas, I knew reality would ease its way in and pull me out. ~ K.A. Poe

There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead. ~ Elizabeth Berg

I used to be a blanket -
without seams -
a silk cocoon of happy dreams.
Now I'm a quilt,
no square the same
a patchwork of pleasure and pain ~ Susan Polis Schutz

You know that quilt you are making at school? Each child makes a square, correct?"
"Yes," I said.
"And none of you knows what the other squares will look like. Perhaps that is the way God works. We are each like one of the squares. We choose how our own square will look, we choose the colour, the design, all of that. But when we are put in with the other squares we might be in the middle, at the edge, make the whole look one way or another. ... And it's when we interact with all the other squares that the unexpected can happen. And it can change the way our square is viewed. ... It's a mixture of our choices and God's choices. And it all makes a pattern, but only God can see the big pattern. ~ Carol Matas

Duiri Tal, a small lake, lies cradled on the hill above Okhimath, at a height of 8,000 feet. It was a favourite spot of one of Garhwal's earliest British Commissioners, J.H. Batten, whose administration continued for twenty years (1836-56). He wrote: The day I reached there, it was snowing and young trees were laid prostrate under the weight of snow; the lake was frozen over to a depth of about two inches. There was no human habitation, and the place looked a veritable wilderness. The next morning when the sun appeared, the Chaukhamba and many other peaks extending as far as Kedarnath seemed covered with a new quilt of snow, as if close at hand. The whole scene was so exquisite that one could not tire of gazing at it for hours. I think a person who has a subdued settled despair in his mind would all of a sudden feel a kind of bounding and exalting cheerfulness which will be imparted to his frame by the atmosphere of Duiri Tal. This ~ Ruskin Bond

So what?" I challenged, pulling the quilt tighter around myself. "All you're telling me is I won't betray my friends or family. If that's a weakness, it's one I want. ~ Julie Kagawa

Down the endless halls of quilt
My silver thread of tears is split.
My fingerbone the key that broke
My blood the oil that smooth the lock. ~ Catherine Fisher

As America slept, our constitutional quilt was slowly being unraveled by special interest... I hope you like the cold. ~ A.J. Garces

I'm speechless. But my dick has plenty to say. I'm already hard at the idea of Wes being prepped and ready for me. I drop my mouth onto his and he moans again. My tongue glides across his piercing and we're off to the horny dog races. We kiss as if there's a meteor heading straight for the Toronto metropolitan area. Wes's eager hands roam my ass while I suck on his tongue. His eagerness is like a drug, and I want hit after hit. I can feel how hard he is, even through all of our clothes. He wants me to fuck him, and he's all primed and ready? "Mmm," I moan into his mouth. Sexiest fucking thing I ever heard. That's when the doorbell rings. "Hold that thought," I say, pushing up on one arm. "Nooooo!" Wes lifts both his legs to trap me in them. "No." Kiss. "No." Kiss. "Don't even think about it." Pinning his hands to the quilt is easy, because he's horny to the point of distraction. "Stop it, baby. It's the couch delivery. We're paying seventy-five bucks for them to show up on a Saturday. ~ Sarina Bowen

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe. ~ Rick Riordan

That night, I took a while falling asleep and when I did, I had a strange dream. She was sitting in my rocking chair and rocking herself, her dead eyes fixed on me. I lay on my bed, paralysed with fear, unable to move, unable to scream, my limbs refusing to move to my command. The room was suddenly freezing cold, the heater had probably stopped working in the night because the electricity supply had been cut and the inverter too had run out. At one point, I was uncertain whether I was dreaming or awake, or in that strange space between dreaming and wakefulness, where the soul wanders out of the body and explores other dimensions. What I knew was that I was chilled to the bones, chilled in a way that made it impossible for me to move myself, to lever myself to a sitting position in order to switch the bedside lamp on and check whether this was really happening. I could hear her in my head. Her voice was faint, feathery, and sibilant, as if she was whispering through a curtain of rain. Her words were indistinct, she called my name, she said words that pierced through my ears, words that meshed into ice slivers in my brain and when I thought finally that I would freeze to death an ice cold tiny body climbed into the quilt with me, putting frigidly chilly arms around me, and whispered, 'Mother, I'm cold.' Icicles shot up my spine, and I sat up, bolt upright in my bed, feeling the covers fall from me and a small indent in the mattress where something had been, a moment ago. There ~ Kiran Manral

She sat still, I thought, and yet she traveled. And when one stitches, the mind travels, not the way men do, with ax and oxen through the wilderness, but surely our traveling counted too, as motion. And I thought of the patience of the stitches. Writing a book, I thought, which men often do, but women only rarely, has the posture of sewing. One hand leads, and the other hand helps. And books, like quilts, are made, one word at a time, one stitch at a time. ~ Sena Jeter Naslund

Kansas afternoons in late summer are peculiar and wondrous things. Often they are pregnant, if not over-ripe, with a pensive and latent energy that is utterly incapable of ever finding an adequate release for itself. This results in a palpable, almost frenetic tension that hangs in the air just below the clouds. By dusk, spread thin across the quilt-work farmlands by disparate prairie winds, this formless energy creates an abscess in the fabric of space and time that most individuals rarely take notice of. But in the soulish chambers of particularly sensitive observers, it elicits a familiar recognition - a vague remembrance - of something both dark and beautiful. Some understand it simply as an undefined tranquility tinged with despair over the loss of something now forgotten. For others, it signifies something far more sinister, and is therefore something to be feared. ~ P.S. Baber

He got up. It was too early to go to bed; at least, he was not in the mood for it. He pined for a bit of amusement - something cheap and easy. A seat in the pictures, cigarettes, beer. Useless! No money to pay for any of them. He would read KING LEAR and forget this filthy century. Finally, however, it was THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES that he took from the mantelpiece. SHERLOCK HOLMES was his favorite of all books, because he knew it by heart. The oil in the lamp was giving out and it was getting beastly cold. Gordon dragged the quilt from his bed, wrapped it round his legs and sat down to read. His right elbow on the table, his hands under his coat to keep them warm, he read through "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." The little gas-mantle sighed above, the circular flame of the oil-lamp burned low, a thin bracket of fire, giving out no more heat than a candle. ~ George Orwell

My first memory is of the brightness of light ... light all around. I was sitting among pillows on a quilt on the ground ... very large white pillows ... ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

I'm ordered to a week of bed rest and I don't object because I feel so lousy. Not just my heel and my tailbone. My whole body aches with exhaustion. So I let my mother doctor me and feed me breakfast in bed and tuck another quilt around me. Then I just lie there, staring out my window at the winter sky, pondering how on earth this will all turn out. ~ Suzanne Collins

Do you hear the snow against the windowpanes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, 'Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.' And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about - whenever the wind blows ... ~ Lewis Carroll

Love should feel like a hand sewn quilt made by grandma, wrapping you up on a cold winter morning. ~ Carroll Bryant

I can't listen to you. I can't listen to your voice. It's as though I'd drunk a bottle of anise and fallen asleep wrapped in a quilt of roses. It pulls me along – and I know I'm drowning – but I go on down. ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

I had no systematic way of learning but proceeded like a quilt maker, a patch of knowledge here a patch there but lovingly knitted. I would hungrily devour the intellectual scraps and leftovers of the learned. ~ Ishmael Reed

That's the real distinction between people: not between those who have secrets and those who don't, but between those who want to know everything and those who don't. This search is a sign of love, I maintain.
It's similar with books. Not quite the same, of course (it never is); but similar. If you quite enjoy a writer's work, if you turn the page approvingly yet
don't mind being interrupted, then you tend to like that author unthinkingly. Good chap, you assume. Sound fellow. They say he strangled an entire pack of Wolf Cubs and fed their bodies to a school of carp? Oh no, I'm sure he didn't; sound fellow, good chap. But if you love a writer, if you depend upon the drip-feed of his intelligence, if you want to pursue him and find him -- despite edicts to the contrary -- then it's impossible to know too much. You seek the vice as well. A pack of Wolf Cubs, eh? Was that twenty-seven or twenty-eight? And did he have their little scarves sewn up into a patchwork quilt? And is it true that as he ascended the scaffold he quoted from the Book of Jonah? And that he bequeathed his carp pond to the local Boy Scouts?
But here's the difference. With a lover, a wife, when you find the worst -- be it infidelity or lack of love, madness or the suicidal spark -- you are almost relieved. Life is as I thought it was; shall we now celebrate this disappointment? With a writer you love, the instinct is to defend. This is what I meant earlier: perhaps love for a writer is the purest ~ Julian Barnes

What's happening to me?" she whispers to the quilt. "I'm losing my mind."
Though that implies that I had one to begin with. ~ Nenia Campbell

My appearances are almost theatrical performances. I bring items for the children to see, such as photographs and actual piece of meteorite, a family quilt, sometimes spectacles, sometimes clothing, so that they can understand what I write about is family stories based in fact. ~ Patricia Polacco

I want to be able to do anything with words: handle slashing, flaming descriptions like Wells, and use the paradox with the clarity of Samuel Butler, the breadth of Bernard Shaw and the wit of Oscar Wilde, I want to do the wide sultry heavens of Conrad, the rolled-gold sundowns and crazy-quilt skies of Hitchens and Kipling as well as the pastel dawns and twilights of Chesterton. All that is by way of example. As a matter of fact I am a professed literary thief, hot after the best methods of every writer in my generation. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

They have one quilt and a piece of canvas for bedding. The sleeping arrangement is clever. Mother and father lie down together and two children lie between them. Then heading the other way, the other two children lie, the littler ones. If the mother and father sleep with their legs spread wide, there is room for the legs of the children. ~ John Steinbeck

I wondered vaguely if this was when it would end, whether I would pull up tonight's darkness like a quilt and be dead and at peace evermore. ~ William Manchester

and the frayed earth, crisscrossed like old bagasse, spring to a cushiony quilt of emerald grass, and who does sew and sow and patch the land? ~ Derek Walcott

The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt ~ Jesse Jackson

We should therefore, with grace and optimism, embrace NOMA's tough-minded demand: Acknowledge the personal character of these human struggles about morals and meanings, and stop looking for definite answers in nature's construction. But many people cannot bear to surrender nature as a "transitional object"
a baby's warm blanket for adult comfort. But when we do (for we must), nature can finally emerge in her true form: not as a distorted mirror of our needs, but as our most fascinating companion. Only then can we unite the patches built by our separate magisteria into a beautiful and coherent quilt called wisdom. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

In 1956, when I began doing theoretical physics, the study of elementary particles was like a patchwork quilt. Electrodynamics, weak interactions, and strong interactions were clearly separate disciplines, separately taught and separately studied. There was no coherent theory that described them all. ~ Sheldon Lee Glashow

What will be the legacy of your own quilt? How will you be remembered? These questions are potent measuring sticks for anyone who cares about making a difference, not just making a living. ~ Keith Ferrazzi

And what is this wild summons? What art is asked of us? The gift offered is different for each but all are equal in grandeur. To paint, draw, dance, compose. To write songs, poems, letters, diaries, prayers. To set a violet on the sill, stitch a quilt,; bake bread; plant marigolds, beans, apple trees. To follow the track of the forest elk, the neighborhood coyote, the cupboard mouse. To open the windows, air beds, sweep clean the corners. To hold the child's hand, listen to the vagrant's story, paint the elder friend's fingernails a delightful shade of pink while wrapped in a blanket she knit with deft young fingers of her past. To wander paths, nibble purslane, notice spiders. To be rained upon. To listen with changed ears and sing back what we hear. ~ Lyanda Lynn Haupt

No. I wanted nothing of that. I sank myself deeper into the stronger current where all such outreaching mingled into a vast joining. Sometimes I thought it the birthplace of dreams and intuitions. At other times I thought of it as a repository of all the folk who had gone before us, and perhaps even those to come after. It was a place where sorrows and joys were equal, where life and death were just the stitches on each side of a quilt. It was nepenthe."
p. 465 ~ Robin Hobb

Hardcore groups were singing songs about Ronald Reagan. I wasn't interested in this and preferred to sing about the darkness shimmering beneath the shiny quilt of American pop culture. I suppose you could say that Sonic Youth was always trying to defy people's expectations. ~ Kim Gordon

What good is a quilt if it's unused? The same as a life unused. They're meant to be wrung out and frayed around the edges. That's the way of things. Always has been. Always will be. ~ Amber Kizer

To the poet as a basement quilt, but perhaps
To some reader a latticework of regrets ... ~ John Ashbery

In the East, he then believed, a man went to college not for vocational training but in disciplined search for wisdom and beauty, and nobody over the age of twelve believed that those words were for sissies. In the East, wearing rumpled tweeds and flannels, he could have strolled for hours among ancient elms and clock towers, talking with his friends, and his friends would have been the cream of their generation. The girls of the East were marvelously slim and graceful; they moved with the authority of places like Bennington and Holyoke; they spoke intelligently in low, subtle voices, and they never giggled. On sharp winter evenings you could meet them for cocktails at the Biltmore and take them to the theater, and afterwards, warmed with brandy, they would come with you for a drive to a snowbound New England inn, where they'd slip happily into bed with you under an eiderdown quilt. In the East, when college was over, you could put off going seriously to work until you'd spent a few years in a book-lined bachelor flat, with intervals of European travel, and when you found your true vocation at last it was through a process of informed and unhurried selection; just as when you married at last it was to solemnize the last and best of your many long, sophisticated affairs. ~ Richard Yates

We are your shadow uncles, your angel godfathers, your mother's or your grandmother's best friend from college, the author of that book you found in the gay section of the library. We are characters in a Tony Kushner play, or names on a quilt that rarely gets taken out anymore. We are the ghosts of the remaining older generation. You know some of our songs. We do not want to haunt you too somberly. We don't want our legacy to be gravitas. You wouldn't want to live your life like that, and you won't want to be remembered like that, either. Your mistake would be to find our commonality in our dying. The living part mattered more. We taught you how to dance. ~ David Levithan

Each member of the family in his own cell of consciousness, each making his own patchwork quilt of reality - collecting fragments of experience here, pieces of information there. From the tiny impressions gleaned from one another, they created a sense of belonging and tried to make do with the way they found each other. ~ Toni Morrison

Something diseased and furry had crawled into her mouth and expired while she slept. That was the only possible explanation as to why Neve had a rancid taste in her mouth and a heavy, viscous paste coating her teeth and tongue.

'I think I'm dying,' she groaned. The wretched state of her mouth was the least of it. There was a pounding in her head, echoed in the roiling of her gut, and her bones ached, her vital organs ached, her throat ached, even her hair follicles ached.

'You're not dying,' said a voice in her ear, which sounded like nails scraping down a blackboard, even though Max's voice had barely risen above a whisper. 'You've got a hangover.'

Neve had had hangovers before and they just made her feel a tiny bit nauseous and grouchy. This felt like the bastard child of bubonic plague and the ebola virus.

'Dying,' she reiterated, and now she realised that she was in bed, which had been a very comfy bed the last time she'd slept in it, but now it felt as if she was lying on a pile of rocks, and even though she had the quilt and Max's arm tucked around her, she was still cold and clammy. Neve tried to raise her head but her gaze collided with the stripy wallpaper and as well as searing her retinas, it was making her stomach heave. 'Sick. Going to be sick.'

'Sweetheart, I don't think so,' Max said, stroking the back of her neck with feather-soft fingers. 'You've already thrown up just about everything you've eaten in the ~ Sarra Manning

Life is less a quest than a quilt. We find meaning, love, and prosperity through the process of stitching together our bold attempts to help others find their own way in their lives. The relationships we weave become an exquisite and endless pattern. ~ Keith Ferrazzi

I settled at Cold Mountain long ago Already it seems like ages Wandering free I roam the woods and streams Lingering to watch things be themselves Men don't come this far into the mountains Where white clouds gather and billow Dry grass makes a comfortable mattress The blue sky is a fine quilt Happy to pillow my head on the rock I leave heaven and earth to endless change ~ Hanshan

The shape she loved was a triangle. Always black. Mauma put black triangles on about every quilt she sewed. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! (The men laugh, the women look abashed.) ~ Susan Glaspell

He was becoming an effective human being. He had learned from his birth family how to snare rabbits, make stew, paint fingernails, glue wallpaper, conduct ceremonies, start outside fires in a driving rain, sew with a sewing machine, cut quilt squares, play Halo, gather, dry, and boil various medicine teas. He had learned from the old people how to move between worlds seen and unseen. Peter taught him how to use an ax, a chain saw, safely handle a .22, drive a riding lawn mower, drive a tractor, even a car. Nola taught him how to paint walls, keep animals, how to plant and grow things, how to fry meat, how to bake. Maggie taught him how to hide fear, fake pain, how to punch with a knuckle jutting. How to go for the eyes. How to hook your fingers in a person's nose from behind and threaten to rip the nose off your face. He hadn't done these things yet, and neither had Maggie, but she was always looking for a chance. When ~ Louise Erdrich

The waves were shadows, snakes under a quilt, creeping in almost unseen until they emerged in milky ripples at the water's edge. ~ Winston Graham

Finding a taxi, she felt like a child pressing her nose to the window of a candy store as she watched the changing vista pass by while the twilight descended and the capital became bathed in a translucent misty lavender glow. Entering the city from that airport was truly unique. Charles de Gaulle, built nineteen miles north of the bustling metropolis, ensured that the final point of destination was veiled from the eyes of the traveller as they descended. No doubt, the officials scrupulously planned the airport's location to prevent the incessant air traffic and roaring engines from visibly or audibly polluting the ambience of their beloved capital, and apparently, they succeeded. If one flew over during the summer months, the visitor would be visibly presented with beautifully managed quilt-like fields of alternating gold and green appearing as though they were tilled and clipped with the mathematical precision of a slide rule. The countryside was dotted with quaint villages and towns that were obviously under meticulous planning control. When the aircraft began to descend, this prevailing sense of exactitude and order made the visitor long for an aerial view of the capital city and its famous wonders, hoping they could see as many landmarks as they could before they touched ground, as was the usual case with other major international airports, but from this point of entry, one was denied a glimpse of the city below. Green fields, villages, more fields, the ground grew closer ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

She let the relaxing song waft over and through her as she lost herself in everything around her: the millions of stars glittering above, the soft quilt beneath her, the man whose hand slipped warmly into hers. And she began to understand something she hadn't only a few short minutes before; she began to feel a certain, undeniable truth seeping into her skin, her muscles, her very bones.

And when the song came to its sweet, peaceful conclusion, she continued peering up at the sky even as she leaned her head over to rest it on Lucky's shoulder. And she whispered, "You love me."

He kept gazing upward, too, his answer coming softly. "Yeah, I do."

And it sounded ... like it wasn't a surprise to him at all.

The new knowledge made Tessa's skin tingle even as her body filled with warmth. And she pulled back just slightly to peer over at him, this man who loved her. He hadn't put it into words, but he hadn't needed to---because he'd shown her, in so many sweet ways. ~ Toni Blake

White clouds gather and billow. Thin grass does for a mattress, The blue sky makes a good quilt. Happy with a stone underhead Let heaven and earth go about their changes. ~ Gary Snyder

Where are my clothes?"
He grinned unexpectedly, a perfect male smirk. "I got carried away and ripped your jeans. Just stay with me tonight, and I will get you new clothes tomorrow."
"It's nearly morning now," she pointed out, unwilling to lie down with him again. She couldn't lie beside him and not burn for him. "Besides, I want a shower."
Before Mikhail had a chance to protest, Raven slid off the bed, wrapped safely in the old-fashioned quilt, clearly thinking herself safe from him now that she'd put a little distance between them.

Mikhail kept his smile to himself. Let her feel safe--it cost him nothing. No way was she leaving his house, not with the assassins residing at her inn. ~ Christine Feehan

I am what became of your child. I found an old baby picture of me. And it was somebody else, not me. It was somebody pink and fat who never heard of sick or lonely, somebody who cried and got fed,, and reached up and got held and kicked but didn't hurt anybody, and slept whenever she wanted to, just by closing her eyes. Somebody who mainly just laid there and laughed at the colors waving around over her head and chewed on a polka-dot whale and woke up knowing some new trick nearly every day and rolled over and drooled on the sheet and felt your hand pulling my quilt back up over me. That's who I started out and this is who is left. That's what this is about. It's somebody I lost, all right, it's my own self. Who I never was. Or who I tried to be and never got there. Somebody I waited for who never came. And never will. So, see, it doesn't much matter what else happens in the world or in this house, even. I'm what was worth waiting for and I didn't make it. Me...who might have made a difference to me...I'm not going to show up, so there's no reason to stay, except to keep you company, and that's...not reason enough because I'm not...very good company. Am I. ~ Marsha Norman

The whole quilt is much more important than any single square. ~ Rohinton Mistry

window to check the weather because I'd hung my best quilt ~ Carrie Anne Noble

Kneeling in the keeping room where she usually went to talk-think it was clear why Baby Suggs was so starved for color. There was't any except for two orange squares in a quilt that made the absence shout. The walls of the room were slate-colored, the floor earth-brown, the wooden dresser the color of itself, curtains white, and the dominating feature, the quilt over an iron cot, was made up of scraps of blue serge, black, brown and gray wool–the full range of the dark and the muted that thrift and modesty allowed. In that sober field, two patches of orange looked wild–like life in the raw. ~ Toni Morrison

Since I was a small girl, I have lived inside this cottage, shelted by its roof and walls. I have known of people suffering - I have not been blind to them in the way that privilege allows, the way my own husband and now my daughter are blind. It is a statement of fact and not a judgement to say Charlie and Ella's minds aren't oriented in that direction; in a way, it absolves them, whereas the unlucky have knocked on the door of my consciousness, they have emerged from the forest and knocked many times over the course of my life, and I have only occasionally allowed them entry. I've done more than nothing and much less than I could have. I have laid inside, beneath a quilt on a comfortable couch, in a kind of reverie, and when I heard the unlucky outside my cottage, sometimes I passed them coins or scraps of food, and sometimes I ignored them altogether; if I ignored them, they had no choice but to walk back into the woods, and when they grew weak or got lost or were circled by wolves, I pretended I couldn't hear them calling my name. ~ Curtis Sittenfeld

Here is my room, in the yellow lamplight and the space heater rumbling: Indian rug red as Cochise's blood, a desk with seven mystic drawers, a chair covered in material as velvety blue-black as Batman's cape, an aquarium holding tiny fish so pale you could see their hearts beat, the aforementioned dresser covered with decals from Revell model airplane kits, a bed with a quilt sewn by a relative of Jefferson Davis's, a closet, and the shelves, oh, yes, the shelves. The troves of treasure. On those shelves are stacks of me: hundreds of comic books- Justice League, Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, the Spirit, Blackhawk, Sgt. Rock and Easy Company, Aquaman, and the Fantastic Four ... The shelves go on for miles and miles. My collection of marbles gleams in a mason jar. My dried cicada waits to sing again in the summer. My Duncan yo-yo that whistles except the string is broken and Dad's got to fix it. ~ Robert McCammon

Love isn't a quilt. Love isn't patient, love isn't kind. Love is a game, a chase, a thrill. Love is wild and war-like, and every man and woman must fight for themselves. ~ Lauren Blakely

When Mama leaned over to kiss me, I hugged her so tight she could hardly breathe. "I'll never forget you," I whispered.
Mama drew back. "What did you say?"
"Nothing," I mumbled. "I love you, Mama."
She smiled. "Well, for goodness sake, you little jackanapes, I love you too."
Smoothing the quilt over me, she turned to the others. "What Andrew needs is a good night's sleep. In the morning, he'll be himself again, just wait and see."
"I hope so," Andrew said.
Papa frowned. "No one will get any sleep, good or bad, with Buster making such a racket. I don't know what ails that animal."
While we'd been talking, Andrew had gone to the window and whistled for the dog. Though the Tylers hadn't heard the loud two-fingered blast, Buster definitely had. His howls made the hair on my neck prickle. Even Andrew looked frightened. He backed away from the window and sat quietly in the rocker.
"Edward told me a dog howls when somebody in the family is about to die," Theo said uneasily.
Papa shook his head. "That's superstitious nonsense, Theodore. Surely you know better than to believe someone as well known for mendacity as your cousin."
Muttering to himself, Papa left the room. Taking Theo with her, Mama followed, but Hannah lingered by the bed.
I reached out and grabbed her hand. "Don't leave yet," I begged. "Stay a while."
Hannah hesitated for a moment, her face solemn, her eyes worried. "Mama's right, Andrew," she said softly. "You ~ Mary Downing Hahn

There were probably all kinds of broken people. People who had lost a love. A home. A dream. And then there were also the wrecks, those who had gone through a loss more than once, their soul patched and torn and repatched until it resembled a quilt: each square a distinct color, proof that the heart would stay warm, ready for the next breakage. ~ Krassi Zourkova

Now they got to look into me loving Tea Cake and see whether it was done right or not! They don't know if life is a mess of corn-meal dumplings, and if love is a bed-quilt! ~ Zora Neale Hurston

Dear Lord...patch this work. Quilt us together, feather-stitching piece by piece our tag-ends of living, our individual scraps of love ~ Jane Wilson Joyce

If men can quilt and take over the kitchen, then women can pick up a wrench and fix a leaky pipe. ~ Hanna Rosin

That is a lovely quilt, recruit," he says.
"Thank you, sir."
"It's the envy of every little girl in Brisadulce. I saw them sitting on the wall today, staring at that blanket and asking their mothers if they could join the Guard so they could have one just like it. Is that what you want, recruit? You want a Guard full of girls?"
"If they can fight well enough to defend the King, sir. ~ Rae Carson

Tom lived by the sea. In a small blue house that was from another time. It was squeaky and drafty and held one of my favorite places in the entire world: a big old chair by a front window and a fireplace, from which could be seen a view of the North Sea while one lounged, under a quilt preferably, and read book after book. ~ Paige Shelton

Oh, Anyone can make a quilt,' she said modestly. 'It's just scraps, from the clothes you've sewn.'
'Yes, but the talent is in joining the pieces, the way you have.'
'Look,' Om pointed, 'look at that - the poplin from our very first job.'
'You remember,' said Dina, pleased. 'And how fast you finished those first dresses. I thought I had two geniuses.'
'Hungry stomachs were driving our fingers,' chuckled Ishvar.
'Then came that yellow calico with orange strips. And what a hard time this young fellow gave me. Fighting and arguing about everything.'
'Me?Argue?Never.'
...
He steeped back, pleased with himself, as though he had elucidated an intricate theorem. 'So that's the rule to remember, the whole quilt is much more important than the square'. ~ Rohinton Mistry

What is the verdict?"

"There is always hope." His face softened. "However, it's unlikely your brain damage will improve."

He'd given me the answer I'd expected and dreaded.

I shut my eyes and sagged into the pillows. I'd braced myself for this result, but I'd wanted a miracle so badly that it was painful to hear the truth.

Sunlight pressed in on me, trying to cheer me up. I would resist a moment longer. This room, the quilt, my closed eyes - they formed a serene barrier against the world, although it wasn't clear to me if I wanted to keep the scary stuff out or the scared me in. ~ Elizabeth Langston

Anyone who works on a quilt, who devotes her time, energy, creativity, and passion to that art, learns to value the work of her hands. And as any quilter will tell you, a quilter's quilting friends are some of the dearest, most generous, and most supportive people she knows. ~ Jennifer Chiaverini

That's how the grievin' becomes after a time. You've tossed off the black blanket, but scraps of it fall on you unexpected, your life always a quilt with a dark patch or two. The Good Lord uses those to show off the bright colors, I think. ~ Lisa Wingate

He felt awe as he looked up at those stars, but also a deep and abiding contentment, such as he had felt as a child, awakening in the night, safe and warm beneath his quilt, drowsing half in and half out of sleep, listening to the wind sing its lonely song of other places and other lives. ~ Stephen King

If each person in this world will simply take a small piece of this huge thing, this amazing quilt, and work it regardless of the color of the yarn, we will have harmony on this planet. ~ Cicely Tyson

Fear tugs at me and I'm falling.
I grab at the mattress, dig in with my fingers, flop onto my stomach, hold tight. Press my face into the pillow so hard it hurts. The quilt twists like it wants to smother me.
I can't scream out loud, but there has to be some release. I kick my feet against the mattress in a muffled frenzy, legs flying fast and hard enough to carry me miles away. And when it's done, nothing's changed. I'm still stuck right here. ~ Rachel M. Wilson

The eldest ones said that the laughter and tears are sewn right into the quilt, part and parcel, stitch by stitch. Emotions, experiences, heartbreak, mourning, pain and regret, stitched into the cloth, along with happiness, satisfaction, cheer, comfort, and love. The finished quilts were a living thing, a reflection of the spirits of its creators. ~ Arlene Stafford-Wilson

It's up to you. Everyone should get to choose their own way, and that's all I mean by yelling. But I shall choose to remember you, and it would be nice if it went both ways. That's how it generally goes in my country. But does it? September thought. If a body is hurt, they try to forget the person who hurt them and never think about the pain again. Remembering aches, like when I remember my father. It'd be so much easier to never wonder about him. I'm sure he remembers my face, but it's hard to remember his, when he's been gone so long! Perhaps memory is a thing that everyone involved has to work at, like stitching up a big quilt out of everything that ever happened to you. ~ Catherynne M Valente

This was the kind of kiss that couldn't really be called a kiss, the kind that involves arms and legs and necks and hair, the kind where the quilt finally slides down to the floor, and in this case, the windows unshatter themselves, the bureau rights itself, the clothes return to their hangers, and the freezing cold room is finally warm. ~ Kami Garcia

All day long you sit and sew,
Stitch life down for fear it grow,
Stitch life down for fear we guess
At the hidden ugliness.
Dusty voice that throbs with heat,
Hoping with your steel-thin beat
To put stitches in my mind,
Make it tidy, make it kind,
You shall not: I'll keep it free
Though you turn earth, sky and sea
To a patchwork quilt to keep
Your mind snug and warm in sleep! ~ Edith Sitwell

Today, the law is a crazy quilt of provisions and clauses that very often have little to do with securing general happiness but instead are designed to secure the particular happiness of various advocacy groups, politicians and bureaucrats. ~ Joel Miller

Lying on a feather mattress or quilt will not bring you renown. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

Any time women come together with a collective intention, it's a powerful thing. Whether it's sitting down making a quilt, in a kitchen preparing a meal, in a club reading the same book, or around the table playing cards, or planning a birthday party, when women come together with a collective intention, magic happens. ~ Phylicia Rashad

In winter when I put a quilt over myself its shadows on the wall seem to sway like an elephant. ~ Ismat Chugtai

Did they always pass out after shifting back to human?
It didn't seem very efficient.
Or had he been hurt?
Leaning to the side, she inspected the bronzed perfection spread over the quilt.
her mouth went dry as she tried to concentrate on searching him for injuries. She'd never seen a man so magnificently ... proportioned.
A broad, chiseled chest. Powerful shoulders. Washboard abs. Long, muscular legs. And a huge ...
Yeah. Magnificently proportioned. ~ Alexandra Ivy

Doc awakened very slowly and clumsily like a fat man getting out of a swimming pool. His mind broke the surface and fell back several times. There was red lipstick on his beard. He opened one eye, saw the brilliant colors of the quilt and closed his eye quickly. But after a while he looked again. His eye went past the quilt to the floor, to the broken plate in the corner, to the glasses standing on the table turned over on the floor, to the spilled wine and the books like heavy fallen butterflies. There were little bits of curled red paper all over the place and the sharp smell of firecrackers. He could see through the kitchen door to the steak plates stacked high and the skillets deep in grease. Hundreds of cigarette butts were stamped out on the floor. And under the firecracker smell was a fine combination of wine and whiskey perfume. His eye stopped for a moment on a little pile of hairpins in the middle of the floor.
He rolled over slowly and supporting himself on one elbow he looked out the broken window. Cannery Row was quiet and sunny. The boiler was open. The door of the Palace Flophouse was closed. A man slept peacefully among the weeds in the vacant lot. The Bear Flag was shut up tight. ~ John Steinbeck

Snuffy and the Bull is one of several short stories from a time in our history which has been woven into the quilt of America and found within the eclectic tapestry of our culture. ~ Regine' Ivory-Barlow

A fine memoir is to a fine novel as a well-wrought blanket is to a fancifully embroidered patchwork quilt. The memoir, a logical creation, dissects and dignifies reality. Fiction, wholly extravagant, magnifies it and gives it moral shape. Fiction has no practical purpose. Fiction, after all, is art. ~ Julia Glass

When I was a boy we were poor and we had to make do with what we had. So my grandma used to make us quits that we used for blankets. She couldn't afford to go to the store and buy a blanket
so she'd take scraps of cloth and sew them together. there'd be different colors and different patterns and different types of cloth
but they all went together to make that big quilt to keep us warm. ~ Jesse Jackson

The biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three on them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4, and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in a hurry to get on to the next things: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less. ~ Anna Quindlen

America is not like a blanket- one piece of unbroken cloth. America is more like a quilt- many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven together by a common thread. ~ Jesse Jackson

Neon lights, moonlight, flickering streetlamps, and shadow through the bedroom window blanket us in an ever-changing quilt. Pearl wraps her arms around my middle and lays her head on my chest. I drink from the bottle of whiskey, both uncomfortable and comforted at the same time. ~ Logan Ryan Smith

Take a good look at your fabric and intuit what it is saying to you. ~ Patricia Belyea

There was no bad luck in the world but whitepeople. 'They don't know when to stop,' she said, and returned to her bed, pulled up the quilt and left them to hold that thought forever. ~ Toni Morrison

We are a nation of immigrants, a quilt of many colors, and we've managed over more than two centuries to create a way of life that allows for a reasonable degree of upward mobility, that prizes individual liberty, promotes freedom of religion and genuinely values equal rights for all citizens. ~ Jay Parini

I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks. 'We spent one night together.'
'You had sex then?'
'No we crocheted a quilt.' I cocked my head to side and gave him my nastiest glare. Lorelei Preston to Agent Brody-The Wild Hunt ~ Ashley Jeffery

In your life, the people become like a patchwork quilt. Some leave with you a piece that is bigger than you wanted and others smaller than you thought you needed. Some are that annoying itchy square in the corner, and others that piece of worn flannel. You leave pieces with some and they leave their pieces with you. All the while each and every square makes up a part of what is you. Be okay with the squares people leave you. For life is too short to expect from people what they do not have to give, or were not called to give you. ~ Anna M. Aquino

So Ame stayed home like a good girl, and I snuck out like a bad one. I already longed for a good book and my quilt. ~ Gwen Hayes