Quotes about shoes (449 quotes, page 2)

“Often it isn't the mountains ahead that wear you out, it's the little pebble in your shoe.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Variant: It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.

Mountain

“when you're young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you're old
it's just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“Humans are divided between those who can still look through the eyes of youth and those who cannot. Though it causes me frequent pain, I find it very easy to place myself in the shoes of almost any boy, and can conjure my own youth with an ease that is troublesome.”

Dave Eggers book What Is the What

Source: What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (2006), Ch. 10, p. 110
Source: What Is the What

Pain , Youth , Boy

“I never wear flats. My shoes are so high that sometimes when I step out of them, people look around in confusion and ask, "Where'd she go?" and I have to say, "I'm down here.”

Marian Keyes (1963) Irish writer

People

“Apart from my heart, I feel everything grows old in me. Even my heart has something artificial. It has been sewn by the dancers in a soft, pink satin purse like their shoes.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote in Degas' letter to the sculptor Paul-Albert Bartolomé, January 1886; as cited in 'Performing Fine Arts: Dance as a Source of Inspiration in Impressionism, by Johannis Tsoumas http://rupkatha.com/dance-in-impressionism/
1876 - 1895

Feeling , Heart

“To be good or bad doesn't count: life out in this world doesn't depend on that. It depends on a relation of forces based on violence. And survival is violence. You'll wear leather shoes because someone has killed a cow and skinned it to make leather.”

Oriana Fallaci book Letter to a Child Never Born

Source: Letter to a Child Never Born

Life , World , Dependency

“You can't really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 31
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Variant: Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.

Personality

“I disobeyed Ra's wishes, and so he ordered my onw father, Shu-"
"Hang on," I said. "Shoe?"
"S-h-u," she said. "The god of the wind."
"On." I wished these gods had names that wearn't common household objects. "Go on, please.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

God

“I shall pray for your soul,' promised Nessarose.
I shall wait for your shoes,' Elphie answered.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Soul , Waiting

“As picky as a woman with her shoes,” Abraham grumbled.
“Hey,” I said. “That’s insulting.” I knew plenty of women who were pickier with their guns than they were with their shoes.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Firefight

Women

“What if we promoted, like, Adidas shoes?” Percy wondered. “Would that make Nike mad enough to show up?”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Madness

“Do you really have the ability to control all types of undead?" Magnus asked.
"Can you really make a hundred shoes in a single night?" I asked.
Magnus smiled. "Wrong kind of fairie.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bloody Bones

Source: Bloody Bones

Smile , Night

“I do not understand how you humans can walk in shoes that are that tall.”
“Its my motto,” said Isabelle, with a sultry smile. “Nothing less than seven inches.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Smile , Understanding

“He walked on water. Perhaps. But could he have *swum* on land? In matching knickers and dark glasses? With his Fountain in a Love-in-Tokyo? In pointy shoes and a puff? Would he have had the imagination?”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Love , Imagination , Water

“I wonder how Admat can be everywhere. Is he in my sandal? Or is he my sandal itself? Why would a god bother to be a sandal? Does he wear shoes or sandals himself, invisible ones?”

Gail Carson Levine (1947) American writer

Source: Ever

God

“I turned the pages so fast. And I suppose I was, in my mindless way, looking for a something, version of myself, a heroine I could slip inside as one might a pair of favourite shoes.”

Ian McEwan book Sweet Tooth

Source: Sweet Tooth

Way

“I had no shoes and I pitied myself. Then I met a man who had no feet,
so I took his shoes.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

“perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat”

Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Fear

“She could not complain about not having shoes when the person she was talking to had no legs.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book The Thing Around Your Neck

Source: The Thing Around Your Neck

Personality

“The Human Species could have been great but instead we became satisfied with lights on our tennis shoes.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Light

“Even a strong man can succumb to the wiles of a pretty girl with pointy shoes.”

Joseph Delaney (1945) British writer

Source: Attack of the Fiend

Girl , Strong

“I might look like a honey-eyed schoolgirl on the outside, in my skirt with its regulation four-inches-above-the-knee hem. But I'll rip those tassels off your shoes, old man. Just try Googling me.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

“Seem like a lot of people wear shoes they can't walk in.”

Alex Flinn (1966) American children's writer

Source: Cloaked

People

“Men are like shoes. Some fit better than others. And sometimes you go out shopping and there's nothing you like. And then, as luck would have it, the next week you find two that are perfect, but you don't have the money to buy both.”

Janet Evanovich Plum Lovin'

Source: Plum Lovin'

Men , Money , Perfection , Funny

“it wasn't the mountain ahead that wears you out, but the grain of sand in your shoe”

Karen White (1964) American writer

Source: The Beach Trees

Mountain

“And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in their stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

"The Truth the Dead Know"
All My Pretty Ones (1962)

Lie , Sea , Dead

“I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! I mean they're just shoes… let it go!”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“It's easier to put on a pair of shoes than to wrap the earth in leather.”

Chögyam Trungpa (1939–1987) Tibetan Buddhist lama and writer

“I gave him my best cryptic smile. He did not fall down to his feet, kiss my shoes, and promise me the world. I must be getting rusty.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

World , Smile , Kiss

“Magnus, remember what happened the last time you tried to tango. Your shoe flew off and nearly killed someone."

"It was a metaphor. He's a Shadowhunter, he's a Lightwood, and he's into blonds. He's a dating hazard.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Course of True Love [and First Dates]

Time

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

People , Nature , Silence , Clothes

“A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot."

[(, Vol. 33 No. 15, 28 July 2011)]”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

Personality , Clothes

“What was the self-sacrifice?"
I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes."
Why was that self-sacrifice?"
Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly.
I think we have different value systems."
Well mine's better.”

Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless

Source: Mostly Harmless

Love , Thinking

“Loneliness watches and sights, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over… himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He’s going to make me sleep with him again tonight, i just know it.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Sleep , Loneliness

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990)
Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Motivational , Inspirational , Wise , Deep

“Her sister's shoes. They sparkeled even in the darkening afternoon. They sparkeled like yellow diamonds, and embers of blood and thorny stars.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Star , Sister

“Shoes off in the whale! And don't try and make a break for the anus.”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

“I’m taking off my shoes.’’
‘‘Fine. Shoes off.’’
‘‘And my pants.’’
‘‘Don’t push it, Claire.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Feast of Fools

“There are women in my closet, hanging on the hangers. a different woman for each suit, each dress, each pair of shoes. I hoard clothes. My makeup spills from the bathroom drawers, and there are different women for different lipsticks.”

Marya Hornbacher (1974) American journalist

Women , Clothes

“An English gentleman never shines his shoes, but then nor does a lazy bastard.”

Will Self (1961) English writer and journalist

Source: Dorian

“But be careful; sand is already broken but glass breaks. The shoes are for dancing, not running away.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold

Dance

“Michael held me when I got inside, because I was shaking all over. That felt so good. Warm all the way down. Did I mention Michael’s feet? They’re all the way sexy, and he’s always barefoot – he hates shoes. I wish he hated pants and shirts, too.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

Hate , Way

“My life is like my shoes, worn out by service.”

Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Life

“No matter what you wear… to me, you will always have diamonds on the soles of your shoes.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Avenged

“Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.”

Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Canadian poet

Mountain

“I have wanted women whose very shoes are worth all I have ever possessed.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Source: Ask the Dust

Women

“Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Mathematics , Learning , Housing

“.. its not so much about the shoes, but the person wearing them”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

Source: Viola in Reel Life

Personality

“Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.”

Loren Eiseley (1907–1977) US philosopher (1907-1977)

Source: The Unexpected Universe

War , Time

“I believe every woman should own at least one pair of red shoes.”

Terry Tempest Williams book Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

Source: Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

“I find you irritating. (Kat)
I haven’t even begun to irritate you yet. Imagine what I could do if I applied myself? (Solin)
I can imagine. I can also imagine ripping your throat out and tying my shoes with your larynx. (Kat)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: The Dream Hunter

Imagination

“I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Dreams

“Ill-fitting grammar are like ill-fitting shoes. You can get used to it for a bit, but then one day your toes fall off and you can't walk to the bathroom.”

Jasper Fforde book One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

Source: One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

“Yet if a woman never lets herself go, how will she ever know how far she might have got? If she never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she could walk or how fast she could run?”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

“Women need food, water, and compliments
That's right.
And an occasional pair of shoes.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Women , Food , Water

“(Bartender Harry) How can you tell the male bird from the female bird? (Sylvia) He's the one with the furrowed brow; she's the happy-go-lucky one…. He's the one reading the sports page; she's the one with 12 pairs of tiny shoes. (Harry) I don't have time for this.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 9

Bird , Sport , Time , Reading

“Lee has been with the physio all week and hasn't trained. David Livermore has trained so the shoe is on the other foot there and he has thrown his hat into the ring.”

Phil Brown (footballer) (1959) English association football player and manager

06-May-2007, Hull City OWS
More hat-throwing, and poor shoe control.

Training

“Art, rightly applied, provided humanity with the symbols, insight, and vicarious experience necessary to help one person place him- or herself in the shoes of another, and by so doing come to appreciate the commonality of human experience.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(Love, Art, and Culture, p. 23).
Book Sources, The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (2003)

Art , Help , Personality

“Well I'm starvin' and freezin'
In this measly old bed
(Then I'll crawl across the salt flats
To stroke your sweet head)
Come across the desert,
with no shoes on?
(I love you truly,
or I love no-one)”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Only Skin
Ys (2006)

Love

“Women must be trained to fight in houses, prepare explosive belts and blow themselves up alongside enemy soldiers. Anyone with a car must prepare it and know how to install explosives and turn it into a car-bomb. We must train women to place explosives in cars and blow them up in the midst of enemies, and blow up houses so that they can collapse on enemy soldiers. Traps must be prepared. You have seen how the enemy checks baggage: we must fix these suitcases in order for them to explode when they open them. Women must be taught to place mines in cupboards, bags, shoes, children's toys so that they explode on enemy soldiers.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Speech to the women of Sabha, October 4 2003; cited in ilfoglio.it http://www.ilfoglio.it/zakor/82
Speeches
Variant: The woman must be trained to fight inside the houses, to prepare an explosive belt and to blow herself up with the enemy soldiers. Anyone with a car has to prepare it and know how to fix the explosive and turn it into a car bomb. We have to train women to dispose of explosives in cars and make them explode in the midst of the enemy, to blow up the houses to make them collapse on enemy soldiers. You have to prepare traps. You have seen how the enemy controls the baggage: you have to manipulate these suitcases to make them explode when they open them. Women must be taught to undermine the cabinets, bags, shoes, children's toys, so that they burst on enemy soldiers.

Women , Children , Cars , Fight

“A work-room should be like an old shoe; no matter how shabby, it's better than a new one.”

Willa Cather book The Professor's House

Book I, Ch. 4
The Professor's House (1925)

“Bob Hope will go to the opening of a phone booth in a gas station in Anaheim, providing they have a camera there and three people. He'll go to the opening of a market to receive an award. He'd get an award from Thom McCan for wearing their shoes. It's pathetic. It's a bottomless pit. A barrel that has no floor. He must be a man who has an ever-crumbling estimation of himself. He's constantly filling himself up. He's like a junkie – an applause junkie. What happens to those people when they can't get up and do their shtick, God only knows. Bob Hope, Christ, instead of growing old gracefully or doing something with his money, be helpful, all he does is he has an anniversary with the President looking on. It's sad. He gets on an airplane every two minutes always going someplace. It didn't bother him at all to work the Vietnam War. Oh, he took that in his stride. He did his World War II and Korean War act. "Our boys" and all that. He’s a pathetic guy.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

Money , God , War , People

“You're the outcast / You're the underclass / But you don't care / Because you're living fast
You're the uninvited guest that stays to the end.
I'll be scraping your life from the sole of my shoe tonight" Bring It On Down”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Definitely Maybe (1994)

Life

“Let the power of running be in my thighs, let me never grow tired! Let there be strength in my arms, let me stretch my arms wide, let my arms never become weak! Moving like the sunlight, like Inana, like the seven storms, those of Iškur, let me leap like a flame, blaze like lightning! Let me go wherever I look to, set foot wherever I cast my glance, reach wherever my heart desires and let me loosen my shoes in whatever place my heart has named to me! When Utu lets me reach Kulaba my city, let him who curses me have no joy thereof; let him who wishes to strive with me never say "Just let him come!" I shall have the woodcarvers fashion statues of you, and you will be breathtaking to look upon. Your name will be made famous thereby in Sumer and will redound to the credit of the temples of the great gods.”

Lugalbanda

To Anzud, in Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird, Ur III Period (21st century BCE). http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.8.2.2#

God , Fashion , Heart , Joy

“Does he really want to step into the ring with best fighter of this era and embarrass himself? Being the coward that he is, I doubt he'll get in the ring. We'll see what his excuse will be this time… When I retire, I'll get Ricky Hatton to wash my clothes and cut my lawn and buckle my shoes.”

Floyd Mayweather Jr. (1977) American boxer

About Ricky Hatton, as quoted in BBC http://news2.thdo.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/6328555.stm.

Time , Clothes

“Baseball people are generally allergic to new ideas; it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms, and it is the hardest thing in the world to get Major League Baseball to change anything—even spikes on a new pair of shoes—but they will eventually…they are bound to.”

Branch Rickey (1881–1965) American baseball player and coach

In 1954.
Source: http://www.northsidebaseball.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=45283&start=25&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

People , World , Idea , Change

“Calica keeps cursing the filth and, whenever he treads on one of the innumerable turds lining the streets, he looks at his dirty shoes instead of at the sky or a cathedral outlined in space. He does not smell the intangible and evocative matter of which Cuzco is made, but only the odor of stew and excrement. It's a question of temperament.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Letter to his mother from Cuzco, Peru (22 August 1953); as quoted in "Making of a Marxist" in The Guardian (16 June 2001) http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,507694,00.html

Question

“I helped my father who was a house painter and decorative painter. He made stage sets, he made glass paintings, he made everything. I was in the workshop and watched him. So as a child so-called art was not my view. That was, in my opinion, my father's job. But I liked to watch him; he comes, as my mother also, from a very craftsman's background. My father's parents were carpenters. They were also builders partly. They were painters. And several of them were very, active in the theater and all such nonsense, you know. On my mother's side there was much more heavy craft. They were blacksmiths. They made a specialty horse shoes and nails for them... So, as a child, my main fun was to watch others working. I loved to walk to the neighboring carpenter's place and up to the neighboring shoemaker in my home town.”

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

Homage to the square' (1964), Oral history interview with Josef Albers' (1968)

Love , Art , Home , Parent

“I said to Mauve: Do you approve of my coming here for a month or so and troubling you for some advice now and then, after that time I will have over come the first 'petites miseres' of painting... Well, Mauve at once set me down before a still life of a pair of old wooden shoes and some other objects, and so I could set to work.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

In his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands in December 1881; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 29 (letter 162)
1880s, 1881

Life , Time , Painting

“I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes,
And
I certainly haven't been spreading myself around.
I still only travel by foot, and by foot it's a slow climb.
But I'm good at being uncomfortable, so
I can't stop changing all the time.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Extraordinary Machine
Song lyrics, Extraordinary Machine (2005)

Travel , Change , Time

“Comics day came and went. Another shoes day came and went. And another comics day followed that — the typical production and consumption cycles that help us survice our dismal, meaningless little lives.”

Douglas Coupland book JPod

JPod (2006)

Help

“But your own vegetarianism, Mrs. Costello,” says President Garrard, pouring oil on troubled waters: “it comes out of moral conviction, does it not?”
“No, I don't think so,” says his mother. “It comes out of a desire to save my soul.”
Now there truly is a silence, broken only by the clink of plates as the waitresses set baked Alaskas before them.
“Well, I have a great respect for it,” says Garrard. “As a way of life.”
“I'm wearing leather shoes,” says his mother. “I'm carrying a leather purse. I wouldn't have overmuch respect if I were you.”
“Consistency,” murmurs Garrard. “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Surely one can draw a distinction between eating meat and wearing leather.”

J.M. Coetzee book The Lives of Animals

“Degrees of obscenity,” she replies.
Source: The Lives of Animals (1999), pp. 43-44

Life , Way , Soul , Thinking

“It is no hardship whatever,” said Aillas. “You have never strained at the deed. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and suddenly you find the idea incredible. Do you not sense a taint of unreality?”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 13, section 3 (p. 571)

Idea , Sense

“…I had no love for politics. I treasured the privacy of my family life. My mother respected both these sentiments. Then my brother, Sanjay was killed in the prime of his life. It broke a mother’s heart. It did not break a Prime Minister’s will. Without even a day’s break, she carried on her noble task single-minded in fulfilling her pledge to her people
There is a loneliness that only a bereaved mother can know…she called to me in her loneliness. I went to her side. At her instance, I left my love for flying at her instance I joined her as a political aide. From her I learned my first political lessons. It was she who urged me to respond to the insistent demand from the constituency and the part to take my brother’s place as Member of Parliament for Amethi. With her blessings I was made General Secretary of my party asking me to accept the challenge of stepping into her shoes.
In accepting this challenge I fulfilled a national duty and a filial duty of a son to a mother.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

In Memorable Quotes from Rajiv Gandhi and on Rajiv Gandhi (2009) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=L5bTCgLM1lYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false, Quote 37
Quote

Love , Life , People , Family

“People used to make records, as in the record of an event, the event of people playing music in a room, and now everything's cross-marketing, its about sunglasses and shoes, or guns and drugs that you choose.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Fuel
Song lyrics

People , Music

“Specialization, as has been noted, is the confining of human activity to a limited field. In industrial work this means the limitation of an enterprise to a portion of the field and to the production of a limited line of products. But even when the line of products is limited, there are usually many types that are possible in that line and an infinite number of sizes of any one type. Thus suppose a manufacturer specializes in the manufacture of men's shoes. Here there is no limit to the types that may be produced and no limit to the number of sizes of any type since no two feet are exactly alike. Again a manufacturer may specialize on the production of motors between the sizes, say, of one-half horse-power and twenty horse-power. Here again many types are possible and an infinite number of sizes for each type. But it has been shown that one of the essentials of cheap production is quantity, and for a given total output the greatest number of each element entering into the product is secured when the numbers of types and sizes are a minimum.”

Dexter S. Kimball (1865–1952) American engineer

Source: Principles of industrial organization, 1913, p. 41-42

Men , Horse

“Young, blond fags with powder-blue eyes and soft shoes skipped along arm-in-arm. Chinese girls with long hair and black stockings carried metal pots into Ernie’s Delicatessen for bean cake, barbequed duck, Chinese curds and steamed rice. Art students from the Art Institute, draftsmen from Heald’s College and law students from S. F. Law School walked by in carefree abandon, none of them in pain, all with beautiful girls in red slippers. They had leather, beads and books and pipes and scabs of hair on their interesting faces. Polk Street at night was always Christmas Eve for lonely men such as myself.”

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 51.

Men , Pain , Books , School

“I'd rather have Prada shoes than eat.”

Alice Evans (1971) British actress

"She may have lost a Picasso..." The Daily Express, 15 January 2001.

“"Maybe this isn't coffee at all," I said. "Maybe it's just water after they boiled your filthy shoes in it." I looked up to her black blazing eyes. "Maybe you don't know any better. Maybe you're just naturally careless. But if I were a girl I wouldn't be seen in a Main Street alley with those shoes."”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Girl , Coffee , Nature , Water

“These new means [in the modern film, 1920's] have given us a new mentality. We want to see clearly, we want to understand mechanisms, functions, motors, down to their subtlest details. Composite wholes are no longer enough for us – we want to feel and grasp the details of those wholes – and we realise that these details, these fragments, if seen in isolation, have a complete and particular life of their own... Close-ups in the cinema are a consecration of this new vision... A shoe as beautiful as a picture. A picture as beautiful as an X-ray machine.”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

Quote from: 'Actualités, Fernand Léger', in 'Varietés nr. 1', 1928, pp. 522-23
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1920's

Life , Beauty , Feeling , Understanding

“The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

“Mahomet himself, after all that can be said about him, was not a sensual man. We shall err widely if we consider this man as a common voluptuary, intent mainly on base enjoyments, — nay on enjoyments of any kind. His household was of the frugalest; his common diet barley-bread and water: sometimes for months there was not a fire once lighted on his hearth. They record with just pride that he would mend his own shoes, patch his own cloak. A poor, hard-toiling, ill-provided man; careless of what vulgar men toil for.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Men , Light , Water

“Slave food, even if monotonous, was plentiful. Corn bread and bacon were the mainstays, with plenty of fruit and vegetables in season. In hog-killing time, countenances were unusually greasy. Clothing also was on the par with that of the poorer white people and no less adequate in proportion to the climate than that of Northern laborers. If [negro children] ran naked it was generally from choice, and when the white boys had to put on shoes and go away to school they were likely to envy the freedom of their colored playmates. The color line began to appear at about that time.”

W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006) ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist

The Making of America (1986)

Children , People , School , Food

“If you're a twofisted, spineless progressive (a mighty fashionable stance nowadays) Offissa Pupp, who forcefully asserts the will of socalled society, becomes a cosmic angel; while Ignatz Mouse, who forcefully defies society's socalled will by asserting his authentic own, becomes a demon of anarchy and a fiend of chaos. But if—whisper it—you're a 100% hidebound reactionary, the foot's in the other shoe. Ignatz Mouse then stands forth as a hero, pluckily struggling to keep the flag of free will flying; while Offissa Pupp assumes the monstrous mien of a Goliath, satanically bullying a tiny but indomitable David. Well, let's flip the coin—so: and lo! Offissa Pupp comes up. That makes Ignatz Mouse "tails."”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Now we have a hero whose heart has gone to his head and a villain whose head has gone to his heart.
A Foreword to Krazy (1946)

Angels , Fashion , Heart , Flying

“A prostitute was forgiven by Allah, because, passing by a panting dog near a well and seeing that the dog was about to die of thirst, she took off her shoe, and tying it with her head-cover she drew out some water for it. So, Allah forgave her because of that.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Bukhari 4:538 http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/bukhari/bh4/bh4_541.htm This is an extraordinary hadith, because following the Sunnah of Muhammad (peace be upon him), prostitutes can be extremely despised figures among most Muslims, yet it expresses the idea that even someone working in one of the most despised of professions, in showing mercy to an animal, can merit the forgiveness of Allah, and the wise.
Sunni Hadith

Dogs , Water

“How does the Malay in the kampong find his way out into this modernised civil society? By becoming servants of the 0.3 per cent who would have the money to hire them to clean their shoe, open their motorcar doors?”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Lee Kuan Yew in the Parliament of Malaysia, 1965 http://maddruid.com/?p=645
1960s

Money , Way

“I went up to my room, up the dusty stairs of Bunker Hill, past the soot-covered frame buildings along that dark street, sand and oil and grease choking the futile palm trees standing like dying prisoners, chained to a little plot of ground with black pavement hiding their feet. Dust and old buildings and old people sitting at windows, old people tottering out of doors, old people moving painfully along the dark street. The old folk from Indiana and Iowa and Illinois, from Boston and Kansas City and Des Moines, they sold their homes and their stores, and they came here by train and by automobile to the land of sunshine, to die in the sun, with just enough money to live until the sun killed them, tore themselves out by the roots in their last days, deserted the smug prosperity of Kansas City and Chicago and Peoria to find a place in the sun. And when they got here they found that other and greater thieves had already taken possession, that even the sun belonged to the others; Smith and Jones and Parker, druggist, banker, baker, dust of Chicago and Cincinnati and Cleveland on their shoes, doomed to die in the sun, a few dollars in the bank, enough to subscribe to the Los Angeles Times, enough to keep alive the illusion that this was paradise, that their little papier-mâché homes were castles. The uprooted ones, the empty sad folks, the old and the young folks, the folks from back home. These were my countrymen, these were the new Californians. With their bright polo shirts and sunglasses, they were in paradise, they belonged.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Money , People , Sadness , Angels

“Shucks, for me there is no other
You're the only shoe that fits
I can't imagine I'll grow out of it.”

Sophie B. Hawkins (1967) American musician

Tongues and Tails (1992), Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

Imagination

“A man should have the right to choose his own shoes.”

Neamat Imam book The Black Coat

The Black Coat (2013)

“It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's all right to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)

God , Children , People , Angels

“It's hard to be creative and it's also hard not to think what you do is creative or hard not to be called creative because everybody is always talking about that and individuality. Everybody's always creative. And it is so funny when you say things aren't, like the shoe I would draw for an advertisement was called a 'creation', but the drawing of it was not... There are millions of actors. They're all pretty good. And how many painters are there? Millions of painters and all pretty good. How can you say one style is better then another. You ought to be able to be an Abstract-expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling you're given up something.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1963 - 1967, What Is Pop Art? Interviews with Eight Painters, Part 1 (1963), pp. 116-19

Feeling , Thinking , Drawing

“In my profession I have learned that women can bear more pain than men.'
'Are you a doctor, sir?”

Helen Garner (1942) Australian author

'No. A shoe repairer.'
Page 123.
Other Peoples Children (1980)

Women , Men , Pain , Learning

“Suolammen vettä (Swamp pond's water): Child, if it's of any consolation, my shoes, too, have in their time become wet and my socks received a strange colour.”

Pauli Hanhiniemi (1964) Finnish musician and composer

Water , Time

“I think I can pinpoint the one moment when the American style of dressing first appeared. It was in an appalling 1933 movie called Dancing Lady during an otherwise forgettable dance number. It also just happened to be Fred Astaire's first on-camera dance. But don't look at the steps. Look at the outfit: Astaire is wearing a single-breasted, soft flannel suit with two-tone spectator shoes and a turtleneck. You wish you could look that stylish! Later that year, in Flying Down to Rio, we get the full Astaire impact. The muted plaid suit is not all that striking, but Fred is wearing it with a soft button-down shirt, a pale woven tie, silk pocket square, bright horizontally striped hose and white bucks. Whoa! Now that's different. This melange of the classic and the sporty was an American innovation. As we approach the impeccable Astaire's 100th birthday on May 10, it's worth remembering that he remains the greatest exemplar of that style.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

G. Bruce Boyer in "Shall We Dress?" Forbes, May 3rd, 1999.

Birthday , Thinking , Appearance , Dance

“Beauty is a simple passion,
but, oh my friends, in the end
you will dance the fire dance in iron shoes.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
Transformations (1971)

Beauty , Passion , Dance

“Shoes. I like shoes a lot. My favorite are these Tory Burch boots that I have on. But my favorite shoes to buy are Converse shoes. I have probably every color of Converse shoes known to man.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

Inquirer.net http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/entertainment/entertainment/view/20081120-173424/Miley-Cyrus-lends-voice-to-animated-film (November 20, 2008)

Color

“There is no more unfortunate creature under the sun than a fetishist who yearns for a woman's shoe and has to settle for the whole woman.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

Sun

“You go out for a walk and the world opens up for you. And before you’ve even stretched your legs properly, it closes shut. For here to there it’s all just the farty sputter of lantern. And they call that having lived. It’s not worth the bother of putting on your shoes.”

Herta Müller book The Appointment

Michael Hulse and Philip Boehm translation, Picador 2002, p. 80
The Appointment (1997)

World

“Long into the night we were walking on the Piazza del Duomo.
He: That I was too politicized.
And I answered him more or less as follows:If you have a nail in your shoe, what then?
Do you love that nail? Same with me.
I am for the moon amid the vineyards
When you see high up the snow on the Alps.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"In Milan" (1955), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz and Robert Hass
King Popeil and Other Poems (1962)

Love , Night

“The fact that Fred and I were in no way similar - nor were we the best male dancers around never occurred to the public or the journalists who wrote about us…Fred and I got the cream of the publicity and naturally we were compared. And while I personally was proud of the comparison, because there was no-one to touch Fred when it came to "popular" dance, we felt that people, especially film critics at the time, should have made an attempt to differentiate between our two styles. Fred and I both got a bit edgy after our names were mentioned in the same breath. I was the Marlon Brando of dancers, and he the Cary Grant. My approach was completely different from his, and we wanted the world to realise this, and not lump us together like peas in a pod. If there was any resentment on our behalf, it certainly wasn't with each other, but with people who talked about two highly individual dancers as if they were one person. For a start, the sort of wardrobe I wore - blue jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers - Fred wouldn't have been caught dead in. Fred always looked immaculate in rehearsals, I was always in an old shirt. Fred's steps were small, neat, graceful and intimate - mine were ballet-oriented and very athletic. The two of us couldn't have been more different, yet the public insisted on thinking of us as rivals…I persuaded him to put on his dancing shoes again, and replace me in Easter Parade after I'd broken my ankle. If we'd been rivals, I certainly wouldn't have encouraged him to make a comeback.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Gene Kelly interviewed in Hirschhorn, Clive. Gene Kelly, A Biography. W.H Allen, London, 1984. p. 117. ISBN 0491031823.

People , World , Way , Nature

Quotes about shoes page 2

Quotes about shoes
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