The Gilded Cuff Quotes

As long as you don't tell your father that I seduced you, tied you to my bed and made love to you, then treated you like my personal sex slave, I'll probably make it through the meeting alive. Explaining dominant behavior isn't exactly easy. I'll be lucky if he doesn't kill me. ~ Lauren Smith

Stay, Sophie. Looking at you makes me feel better." Cody shot a more energetic grin at his employer and friend.

"Why?" she asked.

"You're hot, babe." Cody shot a wicked smirk at his boss.

"Cody, find your own hot woman to drool over." A war of looks began between the two men, half sneers and mockingly threatening scowls.

"Can't. Stuck in this damn bed. So I'll borrow yours. ~ Lauren Smith

Be not with honor's gilded baits beguil'd,
Nor think ambition wise, because 'tis brave;
For though we like it, as a forward child,
'Tis so unsound, her cradle is the grave. ~ William Davenant

The gilded confines of the Beauty Hall were not my preferred habitat; like the chicken that had laid the eggs for my sandwich, I was more of a free-range creature. ~ Gail Honeyman

Here in the city she had gilded her nails. They shone. And she had put on a velvet dress, this soft red one, which was heavy. The buttons were in the form of seashells. ~ Saul Bellow

This was, after all, New Orleans in 1890- the Crescent City of the Gilded Age, where aliases of convenience and unconventional living arrangements were anything but out of the ordinary, at least in certain parts of town. Identities were fluid here, and names and appearances weren't always the best guide to telling who was who. ~ Gary Krist

It was a relief to see his father, who'd always been an unfailing source of reassurance and comfort. They clasped hands in a firm shake, and used their free arms to pull close for a moment. Such demonstrations of affection weren't common among fathers and sons of their rank, but then, they'd never been a conventional family.
After a few hearty thumps on the back, Sebastian drew back and glanced over him with the attentive concern that hearkened to Gabriel's earliest memories. Not missing the traces of weariness on his face, his father lightly tousled his hair the way he had when he was a boy. "You haven't been sleeping."
"I went carousing with friends for most of last night," Gabriel admitted. "It ended when we were all too drunk to see a hole through a ladder."
Sebastian grinned and removed his coat, tossing the exquisitely tailored garment to a nearby chair. "Reveling in the waning days of bachelorhood, are we?"
"It would be more accurate to say I'm thrashing like a drowning rat."
"Same thing." Sebastian unfastened his cuffs and began to roll up his shirtsleeves. An active life at Heron's Point, the family estate in Sussex, had kept him as fit and limber as a man half his age. Frequent exposure to the sunlight had gilded his hair and darkened his complexion, making his pale blue eyes startling in their brightness.
While other men of his generation had become staid and settled, the duke was more vigorous than ever, in part because his youngest s ~ Lisa Kleypas

We fly into our own gilded cages and then bemoan the bars. ~ Angela Darling

Every man carries within him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.

A parlor game for a wet afternoon – imaging the mirrors of one's friends. A has a huge pier glass, gilded and baroque, B a discreet little pocket mirror in a pigskin case with his initials stamped on the back; whenever one looks at C, he is in the act of throwing his mirror away but, if one looks in his pocket or up his sleeve, one always finds another, like an extra ace. ~ W.H. Auden

It's quite ironic that by being a romantic asexual, you are eternally screwed. See, it's extremely difficult to meet somebody who wants a romantic relationship without any sex. Wanting a romantic relationship without sex is like offering non-alcoholic beer at a house party. They'll laugh at you, call you a socially-awkward dork, they'll ask you why you don't just go with soft drinks... people generally don't drink booze for the colour or flavour (although I suppose you could count those hipsters who hang out at craft breweries debating over the nutty undertaste of it or whatever hipsters debate about). I've come to the conclusion that I am probably better off alone. Lonely at times maybe, but that's what friends are for. Solitude can be wonderfully liberating, anyway. Not having to share belongings or property, having your own time and privacy... and in any case, if you ever feel the need to be anchored by something or someone, material items and hobbies and states of being, those all last indefinitely. They won't go away until you do. It's a kind of freedom that most people don't have access to unless they become divorced or widowed, or if they choose to remain single on purpose. The gilded wings of solitude that probably look ugly and tarnished to everyone standing below them as they gaze up to the sky. The sun shining down on them, wind through silken feathers, that's always brilliant. There are bouts of rain and darkness, but you get that on the ground just as much as you ~ Rebecca McNutt

It is only after a person surrenders achieving "The American Dream," and annihilates any personal thought of living exclusively for material gain that a person commences a journey worthy of a spiritual warrior, a glorious destiny of self-realization in lieu of pursing the opulence of a gilded life. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Swift flies our time on pinions fleet, Like vapours on the breeze; The transient bliss we now call sweet, The passing moments seize. The gilded joy, the present hour, Soon wing themselves away; Departing like the fading flower That pleas'd us Yesterday. ~ William Muir

He didn't understand that sometimes the only way to take down what had destroyed you was to disguise yourself as part of it. ~ Roshani Chokshi

First the slender Spear Tower, a hundred-and-a-half feet tall and crowned with a spear of gilded steel that added another thirty feet to its height; then the mighty Tower of the Sun, with its dome of gold and leaded glass; last the dun-colored Sandship, looking like some monstrous dromond that had washed ashore and turned to stone. ~ George R R Martin

When I return to that house it will be with my son in my arms. I shall have a red coat on him and red-flowered trousers and on his head a hat with a small gilded Buddha sewn on the front and on his feet tiger-faced shoes. And I will wear new shoes and a new coat of black sateen and I will go into the kitchen where I spent my days and I will go into the great hall where the Old One sits with her opium, and I will show myself and my son to all of them. ~ Pearl S. Buck

I couldn't stop picturing you naked and wet."
"If you knew the things you've done in my imagination..."
"I touched myself while thinking of you."
He groaned against her lips. "Jesus Christ, that's one of them."
She whimpered in protest as his fingers withdrew from her body. He slid his hands to her bottom and lifted her off her feet, carrying her across the room, to where a floor-length mirror in a thick gilded frame stood propped against the wall. It must have been too heavy to move.
He spun her to face it, positioning himself behind her. Their gazes locked in the mirrored reflection. His eyes were dark, fierce, demanding.
"Show me." He yanked her skirts to her waist- frock, petticoat, chemise, and all- exposing her completely. "Show me how you touched yourself."
Penny's heartbeat stalled. The gruff command both scandalized and excited her.
With a rough flex of his arms, he hauled her to him. His erection throbbed against the small of her back.
"Show me."
Penny stared into the mirror. A bolder, naughtier version of herself gazed back. She placed a hand on her belly and eased it downward, until her fingertips disappeared into a thatch of amber curls. She hesitated, holding her breath.
"More," he demanded. "I want to see you."
His gruffness aroused her, but she wasn't intimidated. With him, she knew she was safe.
She raised her free arm above her head, clasping his neck for balance and resting her head against h ~ Tessa Dare

I saw it in the girls, in their loud laughter, in their gilded bamboo earrings that announced their names thrice over. And I saw it in their brutal language and hard gaze, how they would cut you with their eyes and destroy you with their words for the sin of playing too much. "Keep my name out your mouth," they would say. I would watch them after school, how they squared off like boxers, vaselined up, earrings off, Reeboks on, and leaped at each other. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Poor-country surf communities can be complex and, to some extent, leveling. The fisherman's kid is competing head to head with the plutocrat's gilded son. Your father can't buy you a good frontside hack. ~ William Finnegan

O Spirit of the Summertime! Bring back the roses to the dells; The swallow from her distant clime, The honey-bee from drowsy cells. Bring back the friendship of the sun; The gilded evenings, calm and late, When merry children homeward run, And peeping stars bid lovers wait. Bring back the singing; and the scent Of meadowlands at dewy prime;- Oh, bring again my heart's content, Thou Spirit of the Summertime! ~ William Allingham

The ceaseless rain is falling fast,
And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,
Points to the misty main,
It drives me in upon myself
And to the fireside gleams,
To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,
And still more pleasant dreams,
I read whatever bards have sung
Of lands beyond the sea,
And the bright days when I was young
Come thronging back to me.
In fancy I can hear again
The Alpine torrent's roar,
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
The sea at Elsinore.
I see the convent's gleaming wall
Rise from its groves of pine,
And towers of old cathedrals tall,
And castles by the Rhine.
I journey on by park and spire,
Beneath centennial trees,
Through fields with poppies all on fire,
And gleams of distant seas.
I fear no more the dust and heat,
No more I feel fatigue,
While journeying with another's feet
O'er many a lengthening league.
Let others traverse sea and land,
And toil through various climes,
I turn the world round with my hand
Reading these poets' rhymes.
From them I learn whatever lies
Beneath each changing zone,
And see, when looking with their eyes,
Better than with mine own. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The American elite ... is almost beyond redemption. Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush
sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. ~ Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

There are only three motives for all crimes. Tibbs: money, power, and love. Sometimes those things get muddled together, of course, and you could argue that hunger is a bloody good motivator as well, but one might lump that in with love of self or love of others or love of food, and---well, never mind all that. Pass the pickled radishes. - Inspector Percival Pensive, The Case of the Gilded Guardian ~ Jessica Lawson

So as we buried Warlord Tal in silence while the rest of the nation celebrated the Dragonlord's ascent, let them bury me in scandal; let them carry the sound of my name with distaste. Let them speak ill of the bitch queen who brought ruin to the land with the same gilded tongue they praised the uncrowned king who was just as responsible. ~ K.S. Villoso

What worked yesterday is the gilded cage of tomorrow. ~ Peter Block

I know her by her angry air,
Her brightblack eyes, her brightblack hair,
Her rapid laughters wild and shrill,
As laughter of the woodpecker
From the bosom of a hill.
'Tis Kate--she sayeth what she will;
For Kate hath an unbridled tongue,
Clear as the twanging of a harp.
Her heart is like a throbbing star.
Kate hath a spirit ever strung
Like a new bow, and bright and sharp
As edges of the scymetar.
Whence shall she take a fitting mate?
For Kate no common love will feel;
My woman-soldier, gallant Kate,
As pure and true as blades of steel.
Kate saith "the world is void of might".
Kate saith "the men are gilded flies".
Kate snaps her fingers at my vows;
Kate will not hear of lover's sighs.
I would I were an armèd knight,
Far famed for wellwon enterprise,
And wearing on my swarthy brows
The garland of new-wreathed emprise:
For in a moment I would pierce
The blackest files of clanging fight,
And strongly strike to left and right,
In dreaming of my lady's eyes.
Oh! Kate loves well the bold and fierce;
But none are bold enough for Kate,
She cannot find a fitting mate. ~ Alfred Tennyson

If Livingston won her, he'd keep Elizabeth in a cage like a gilded bird and never let her blossom into the vibrant person she really was. Nick shook his head in disbelief. How could that man want to clip her wings? Elizabeth had glowed with pride at her achievement. Her blue eyes had sparkled with pleasure. Beneath the dusting of flour, her cheeks had been pink. For the first time she'd been totally relaxed with him. Despite her disheveled appearance, Nick had never seen her look happier, nor more beautiful. ~ Debra Holland

When I saw this Broken Kilometer, it reminded me of these 1,000 Buddhas. That piece is 1,000 one-meter gold rods, and this is 1,000 pieces of gold gilded wooden sculpture. In terms of design, it's up to the space's character. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto

I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her. ~ Oscar Wilde

The master and mistress of the house and the rest of the Blood -even the Crux himself- brought our food, poured the wine, did our bidding. The centerpiece was a roasted stag. crowned with gilded antlers and stuffed with songbirds; they had hunted well. We were forbidden to kill the deer that fattened on our coleworts and stole our grain, and the venison tasted all the better for the salt of revenge. ~ Sarah Micklem

But the end is there, transforming everything. For us, the man is already the hero of the story. His moroseness, his money troubles are much more precious than ours, they are all gilded by the light of future passions. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Where's my life gone? Where's it going? Looking across the grassy marshland to Flint and up the coast to Point Of Air, I start to wonder what all those poor fuckers in Wales are doing with their lives. Screwing? Sleeping in? Debating whether to take breakfast in bed to their broken fathers? Unlikely. They're probably doing what the gilded folk of Hollywood are doing, or Kowloon or Port Elizabeth. Worrying. Worrying about getting old, or about work, or about money, or about their boyfriend, mistress, lover, house, health, future. Life is shit. There is no fucking point to any of it. Not now that we've evolved past the survival stage. Maybe we used to live to hunt to kill to eat to live another day. Now we just kill time in as many sophisticated ways as possible. Pointless jobs. Pointless lives. Work. Television. Football. ~ Kevin Sampson

Prosperity's Curse {Couplet}
Prosperity's a gilded curse,
misdirecting our poor souls
from the higher purpose of life's fire,
to mindlessly rake over old coals. ~ Beryl Dov

The sunlight gilded the balcony as Asterin whispered, so softly that only Manon could hear, "Bring my body back to the cabin."

Something in Manon's chest broke - broke so violently that she wondered if it was possible for no one to have heard it. ~ Sarah J. Maas

It was as if the sensory overload that is American life had somehow led to sensory deprivation, a gilded weariness, where everything is permitted and nothing appreciated. ~ J. Maarten Troost

Richard rubbed his temples. He had a headache from lack of sleep. "Don't you understand? This isn't about conquering lands and taking things from others; this is about fighting oppression."
The general rested a boot on the gilded rung of a chair and hooked a thumb behind his wide belt. "I don't see much difference. From my experience, the Master Rahl always thinks he knows best, and always wants to rule the world. You are your father's son. War is war. Reasons make no difference to us; we fight because we are told to, same as those on the other side. Reasons mean little to a man swinging his sword, trying to keep his head. ~ Terry Goodkind

But everything changes when you tell about life; it's a change no one notices: the proof is that people talk about true stories. As if there could possibly be true stories; things happen one way and we tell about them in the opposite sense. You seem to start at the beginning: "It was a fine autumn evening in 1922. I was a notary's clerk in Marommes." And in reality you have started at the end. It was there, invisible and present, it is the one which gives to words the pomp and value of a beginning. "I was out walking, I had left the town without realizing it, I was thinking about my money troubles." This sentence, taken simply for what it is, means that the man was absorbed, morose, a hundred leagues from an adventure, exactly in the mood to let things happen without noticing them. But the end is there, transforming everything. For us, the man is already the hero of the story. His moroseness, his money troubles are much more precious than ours, they are all gilded by the light of future passions. And the story goes on in the reverse: instants have stopped piling themselves in lighthearted way one on top of the other, they are snapped up by the end of the story which draws them and each of them in turn, draws out the preceding instant. "it was night, the street was deserted." The phrase is cast out negligently, it seems superfluous; but we do not let ourselves be caught and we put it aside: this a piece of information whose value we shall subsequently appreciate. And we feel t ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Each spring for a period of weeks the imperial gardens were filled with prize tulips (Turkish, Dutch, Iranian), all of them shown to their best advantage. Tulips whose petals had flexed wide were held shut with fine threads hand-tied. Most of the bulbs had been grown in place, but these were supplemented by thousands of cut stems held in glass bottles; the scale of the display was further compounded by mirrors placed strategically around the garden. Each variety was marked with a label made from silver filigree. In place of every fourth flower a candle, its wick trimmed to tulip height, was set into the ground. Songbirds in gilded cages supplied the music, and hundreds of giant tortoises carrying candles on their backs lumbered through the gardens, further illuminating the display. All the guests were required to dress in colors that flattered those of the tulips. At the appointed moment a cannon sounded, the doors to the harem were flung open, and the sultan's mistresses stepped into the garden led by eunuchs bearing torches. The whole scene was repeated every night for as long as the tulips were in bloom, for as long as Sultan Ahmed managed to cling to his throne. ~ Michael Pollan

Luca doesn't care what I think about science or religion or vampires. He accepts me as I am. With you, I always felt like you wanted to change me. We spoke so long ago of Michel de Montaigne, of how marriage was like a gilded cage. But Montaigne was wrong. Marriage can set you free of the cage if you find the right person." She looked pleadingly at Falco, praying he would understand. "Luca da Peraga is the right man for me. ~ Fiona Paul

Holland is a dream, Monsieur, a dream of gold and smoke-smokier by day, more gilded by night. And night and day that dream is peopled with Lohengrins like these, dreamily riding their black bicycles with high handle-bars, funereal swans constantly drifting throughout the whole country, around the seas, along the canals. ~ Albert Camus

The town of Lunenburg was built on a hill running down to a sheltered harbour. On one of the upper streets stands a Presbyterian church with a huge gilded cod on its weather vane. Along the waterfront, the wooden-shingled houses are brick red, a color that originally came from mixing clay with cod-liver oil to protect the wood against the salt of the waterfront. It is the look of Nova Scotia - brick red wood, dark green pine, charcoal sea. ~ Mark Kurlansky

Over this year, familiarity had done its usual work, picking off the gilded paint one scratch at a time. ~ Frances Hardinge

We saw also an autograph letter of Lucrezia Borgia, a lady for whom I have always entertained the highest respect, on account of her rare histrionic capabilities, her opulence in solid gold goblets made of gilded wood, her high distinction as an operatic screamer, and the facility with which she could order a sextuple funeral and get the corpses ready for it. ~ Mark Twain

It was astonishing how loudly one laughed at tales of gruesome things, of war's brutality-I with the rest of them. I think at the bottom of it was a sense of the ironical contrast between the normal ways of civilian life and this hark-back to the caveman code. It made all our old philosophy of life monstrously ridiculous. It played the "hat trick" with the gentility of modern manners. Men who had been brought up to Christian virtues, who had prattled their little prayers at mothers' knees, who had grown up to a love of poetry, painting, music, the gentle arts, over-sensitized to the subtleties of half-tones, delicate scales of emotion, fastidious in their choice of words, in their sense of beauty, found themselves compelled to live and act like ape-men; and it was abominably funny. They laughed at the most frightful episodes, which revealed this contrast between civilized ethics and the old beast law. The more revolting it was the more, sometimes, they shouted with laughter, especially in reminiscence, when the tale was told in the gilded salon of a French chateau, or at a mess-table.

It was, I think, the laughter of mortals at the trick which had been played on them by an ironical fate. They had been taught to believe that the whole object of life was to reach out to beauty and love, and that mankind, in its progress to perfection, had killed the beast instinct, cruelty, blood-lust, the primitive, savage law of survival by tooth and claw and club and ax. All poetr ~ Phillip Gibbs

Kings and governors that do exult in strength and beauty and lustihood and rich apparel, showing themselves for awhile upon the stage of the world and open dominion of high heaven, what are they but the gilded summer fly that decayeth with the dying day? ~ E.R. Eddison