Quotes about boot (227 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“To the well-fed it seems cowardly to complain of tight boots, because the well-fed live in a different world-a world where, if your boots are tight, you can change them; their minds are not warped by petty discomfort. But below a certain income the petty crowds the large out of existence; one's preoccupation is not with art or religion, but with bad food, hard beds, drudgery and the sack. Serenity is impossible to a poor man in a cold country and even his active thoughts will go in more or less sterile complaint.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: Review of Hunger and Love by Lionel Britton, in The Adelphi (April 1931)

Religion , Food , Country , Bad luck

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever.”

George Orwell book 1984

Variant: If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.
Source: 1984

Imagination , Future

“Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Heart

“Chiefly I remember the horsy smells, the quavering bugle-calls (all our buglers were amateurs--I first learned the Spanish bugle-calls by listening to them outside the Fascist lines), the tramp-tramp of hobnailed boots in the barrack yard, the long morning parades in the wintry sunshine, the wild games of football, fifty a side, in the gravelled riding--school.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

School , Game , Learning , Football

“The revolutionary atmosphere remained as I had first known it. General and private, peasant and militiaman, still met as equals; everyone drew the same pay, wore the same clothes, ate the same food, and called everyone else 'thou' and 'comrade'; there was no boss-class, no menial-class, no beggars, no prostitutes, no lawyers, no priests, no boot-licking, no cap-touching. I was breathing the air of equality, and I was simple enough to imagine that it existed all over Spain. I did not realize that more or less by chance I was isolated among the most revolutionary section of the Spanish working class.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Source: Homage to Catalonia (1938)

Food , Imagination , Chance , Clothes

“A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

Terry Pratchett book The Truth

Source: The Truth

Truth , Lie , World

“Lie on the bridge and watch the water flowing past. Or run, or wade through the swamp in your red boots. Or roll yourself up and listen to the rain falling on the roof. It's very easy to enjoy yourself.”

Tove Jansson book Moominvalley in November

Source: Moominvalley in November

Lie , Water , Past

“More than any other nation, the United States has been almost constantly involved in armed conflict and, through military alliances, has used war as a means of resolving international and local disputes. Since the birth of the United Nations, we have seen American forces involved in combat in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, Somalia, and Vietnam, and more recently with lethal attacks in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and other sovereign nations. There were no “boots on the ground” in some of these countries; instead we have used high-altitude bombers or remote-control drones. In these cases we rarely acknowledge the tremendous loss of life and prolonged suffering among people in the combat zones, even after our involvement in the conflict is ended.”

Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Source: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Life , War , People , Birth

“I'll never wake up in a good mood again.
I'm tired of these stinky boots”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Source: An American Prayer

Mood

“An Assassin, a real Assassin, had to look like one - black clothes, hood, boots, and all. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

Clothes

“The very stone one kicks with one's boot will outlast Shakespeare.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

“Just once in my life a man tried to embrace me. It was horrible! He had big boots, a heavy belt, huge gloves. Faugh! Oh, let's not talk about men.”

Renée Vivien (1877–1909) British poet who wrote in the French language

Quoted in Mercure de France, I-XII (1953), trans. Jeannette H. Foster (1977)

Life , Men

“[While working beneath the cliff at Manneport, Normandy] I didn't see a huge wave coming; it threw me against the cliff and I was tossed about in its wake along with all my materials! My immediate thought was that I was done for, as the water dragged me down, but in the end I managed to clamber out on all fours, but Lord, what a state I was in! My boots, my thick stockings and my coat were soaked through. The palette which I had kept a grip on had been knocked over my face and my beard was covered in blue, yellow etc. But anyway, now the excitement is passed and no harm's done, the worst of it was that I lost my painting which was very soon broken up, along with my easel, bag etc. Impossible to fish anything out. Besides, everything was torn to shreds by the sea, that "old hag" as you sister calls her.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in a letter from Etretat to Alice Hoschedé, 1884; as quoted in: Howard F. Isham (2004) Image of the Sea: Oceanic Consciousness in the Romantic Century. p. 337
1870 - 1890

Fish , Sister , Water , Painting

“Boot-faced cats aren't born but made, often because they've tried to outstare or occasionally rape a speeding car and have been repaired by a vet who just pulled all the bits together and stuck the stitches in where there was room.”

Terry Pratchett book The Unadulterated Cat

The Unadulterated Cat (1989)

Cars , Cats , Speed

“It's no more of that 12 bar ditty wavy hair in the breeze platform boots flap your flare nonsense. It's not a packaged image of third-rate idiots. It's not a pose. We just do our stuff. Hate it as it usually is, you know I was very shocked by the reviews of the last album. I believe none of them. They liked us for the wrong reasons, trendy reasons.”

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder (27th June 1980)

Hate

“The world that America seeks is not one we can build on our own. For human rights to reach those who suffer the boot of oppression, we need your voices to speak out. In particular, I appeal to those nations who emerged from tyranny and inspired the world in the second half of the last century, from South Africa to South Asia, from Eastern Europe to South America. Don't stand idly by, don't be silent when dissidents elsewhere are imprisoned and protesters are beaten. Recall your own history, because part of the price of our own freedom is standing up for the freedom of others.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

"Remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City," September 23, 2010. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88483&st=&st1=
2010

World , History , Freedom , Suffering

“Everybody's shaking in his boots, so don't be bluffed.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 22 (p. 219)

“It is a great deal easier to set a story afloat than to stop it. If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on." Nevertheless, it does not injure us; for if light as feather it travels as fast, its effect is just about as tremendous as the effect of down, when it is blown against the walls of a castle; it produces no damage whatever, on account of its lightness and littleness. Fear not, Christian. Let slander fly, let envy send forth its forked tongue, let it hiss at you, your bow shall abide in strength. Oh! shielded warrior, remain quiet, fear no ill; but, like the eagle in its lofty eyrie, look thou down upon the fowlers in the plain, turn thy bold eye upon them and say, "Shoot ye may, but your shots will not reach half-way to the pinnacle where I stand. Waste your powder upon me if ye will; I am beyond your reach."”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Then clap your wings, mount to heaven, and there laugh them to scorn, for ye have made your refuge God, and shall find a most secure abode.
"No. 17: Joseph Attacked by the Archers (Genesis 49:23–24, delivered on Sunday 1855-04-01)" pp.130
Sermons delivered in Exeter Hall, Strand, during the enlargement of New Park Street Chapel, Southmark (1855)

God , Truth , Lie , World

“For a while I gave myself up entirely to the intense enjoyment of picturing machines and devising new forms. It was a mental state of happiness about as complete as I have ever known in life. … When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven−league boots. In less than two months I evolved virtually all the types of motors and modifications of the system which are now identified with my name, and which are used under many other names all over the world. It was, perhaps, providential that the necessities of existence commanded a temporary halt to this consuming activity of the mind.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The last line is about having to take up a job
My Inventions (1919)

Life , World , Nature , Passion

“If I'd been born in Germany, I suppose I would have been a Nazi, bopping Jews and gypsies and Poles around, leaving boots sticking out of snowbanks, warming myself with my secretly virtuous insides. So it goes.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Mother Night

Introduction (1966)
Mother Night (1961)

“As to the having and possessing of things, teach them to part with what they have, easily and freely to their friends, and let them find by experience that the most liberal has always the most plenty, with esteem and commendation to boot, and they will quickly learn to practise it.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 110
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Learning , Parting

“"Regression testing"? What's that? If it compiles, it is good; if it boots up, it is perfect.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

1990s, 1995-99

Perfection

“Ah, what a cesspool of folly and foolishness, what preposterous fantasies, what corrupt police tactics, what inquisitorial, tyrannical practices! What petty whims of a few higher-ups trampling the nation under their boots, ramming back down their throats the people's cries for truth and justice, with the travesty of state security as a pretext.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

People , Truth , Justice

“Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant.”

Mikhail Bakunin book God and the State

But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do not content myself with consulting authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.
God and the State (1871; publ. 1882)

Housing

“A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth!”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

John Proctor
The Crucible (1953)
Context: A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this be fraud — God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!

“My father always said that government is like watching another man piss in your boot. Someone feels better but it certainly isn’t you.”

Orson Scott Card book Heartfire

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 1.

Feeling

“I'm steel-toed boots in a ballet-slipper world.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Sandman Slim

World

“I didn't understand why I needed help, because it seemed to me that youwear heavy boots when your dad dies, and if youwearing heavy boots, you need help.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Understanding , Help

“I read the first chapter ofwhen Dad was still alive, and I got incredibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn't even matter if I existed at all.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Life , Universe , Time , Reading

“The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with those three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Expanded Universe

Source: "The Happy Days Ahead" in Expanded Universe (1980)
Context: I started clipping and filing by categories on trends as early as 1930 and my "youngest" file was started in 1945.
Span of time is important; the 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots.

History , Mathematics , Understanding , Learning

“Why did I follow her? If you must know, Sir, it was easy. Pound for pound, Puss-in-Boots was the best commander I ever served under.”

L.A. Meyer (1942–2014) American writer

“My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Positive , Optimism

“I’m not attached to anything.
I’m attached to what it feels it's my duty, to do my duty.
I think that I will die with the boots on.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Feeling , Thinking

“Her hair is smoldering. Her face was smudged with soot. She had a cut on her arms, her dress was torn, and she was missing a boot. Beautiful.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Beauty

“People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

People

“A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“He was obviously a very arrogant ragamuffin, and younger than she was, to boot. And he was wearing a necromancer's bells! Apart from that, he was quite handsome, which was another black mark as far as she was concerned.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

“Why do you think there's only a single stairway to heaven, but an entire highway to hell? Because it's a lot easier to slide down then climb up, and it takes a whole lot less energy to boot.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Inferno

Hell , Thinking

“As she turned to concentrate on the portal, Eve tugged on Claire's shirt. "What?"
"Ask him where he got the boots."
"You ask." Personally, Claire wanted the vampire bunny slippers.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Fade Out

Personality

“Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkly clothes, and cowboy boots. I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I've worn black clothes ever since.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Clothes

“Isabelle with her whip and boots and knives would chop anyone who tried to pen her up in a tower into pieces, build a bridge out of the remains, and walk carelessly to freedom, her hair looking fabulous the entire time.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Clary, pg. 149
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Freedom , Time

“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

“My sister, with her ratty red-highlighted hair and her linen pajamas and her combat boots—how could she possibly worry about being possessed by a goddess? What goddess would want her, except the goddess of chewing gum?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Sister

“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean
But I shall be good health to you nonetheless
And filter and fibre your blood.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Love , Health , Grass

“You suck, surprising no one!!!! If bad was a boot, you'd fit it!!!! You're a stupid poo-poo head! I had sexual relations with your mother! Your mother was not that good in bed! You, sir, are a wretched soul! I am rubber, you are glue!”

Bryan Lee O'Malley (1979) Artist

Source: Scott Pilgrim, Volume 2: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Stupidity , Soul

“I guess after tonight Boots won't think the whole world is her friend," thought Gregor. She had to find out sometime, but it still made him sad.”

Suzanne Collins book Gregor the Overlander

Source: Gregor the Overlander

World , Sadness , Thinking

“I didn't even think about suggesting he take the boots off. There'd probably be a apocalypse or something.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Abandon

Thinking

“Jace told me once you’d walk all over my heart in high-heeled boots, and it hasn’t stopped me.
Isabelle gave a little gasp of startled laughter. “He said that? And you stuck around?”
He leaned in toward her … “I would consider it an honor.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Laughter , Heart

“I thought for a minute, and then I got heavy, heavy boots.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious--or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.”

Naomi Wolf (1962) American writer

For women

“It'll be your damnation, boy. You'll wear out a hundred pairs of boots on your way to hell.”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

Way , Boy , Hell

“I don't see why its taking so long," Maryse was saying to Magnus "is that normal?"
"What's not normal is the discount I'm giving you."Magnus tapped the heel of his boot against the wall. "Normally I charge twice this much”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“It was the kind of sword that would make a lifelong pacifist look for tall boots and a hat with feathers.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

“Death is impatient and thoughtless. It barges into your room when you are right in the middle of something, and it doesn't bother to wipe its boots.”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

Source: Jitterbug Perfume

Death

“Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid that lack of civilisation in high boots.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Albert Einstein in a letter to his cousin and second wife Elsa, during a visit to the University of Oxford, in collection donated to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel by Einstein's stepdaughter Margot, as quoted in "Einstein in no-sock shock" http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9555&feedId=online-news_rss20, New Scientist (15 July 2006)
Attributed in posthumous publications

“If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Hurtful

“No one wears buckles anymore, and I decided to get him some real boots next winter solstice.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Black Magic Sanction

Winter

“You really are a scary man, no really! If I had boots I would be quaking in them.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

“If you want the law to leave you alone, keep your hair trimmed and your boots shined.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Man Called Noon

Law

“I need to talk to Clarisse," Annabeth said.
I stared at her as if she'd just said "I need to eat a large, smelly boot."
"What for?”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

“Fortunately, we did most of our athletic stuff inside, so we didn't have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of boot-camp hippie children.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Children

“He could do this. He'd survived boot camp. He'd survived combat and the harsh weather of Afghanistan. He could survive broccoli. Probably.”

Shannon Stacey (1972) american writer

Source: Yours to Keep

Weather

“It wasn't money or love that I was looking for. I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and a visionary to boot. My mind was strong like a trap and I didn't need any guarantee of validity.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Source: Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 9

Love , Money , Way , Sense

““So, his Slavonic Majesty hires thieves to spy for him. Spying is such a foul business that I am surprised that even a good Angevin thief would stoop to it.” He turned to Lord Peter with a sudden realization. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply—”
”That’s all right, Your Highness,” Lord Peter said. “It’s a common reaction. Their spies are dirty, filthy scum, not fit to wipe your boots on, while our spies are noble gentlemen doing dangerous work for the love of King and Country. Would that it were so, Your Highness, but I’m afraid that sometimes the desired image is at fault—in both directions.””

Michael Kurland book Ten Little Wizards

Source: Ten Little Wizards (1988), Chapter 4 (p. 33)

Love , Business , Country

“[Describing her visit to a slaughter facility in Pennsylvania] The floor was very slippery and the walls and everything else were covered with blood. Dried blood had formed a crust on the chains. I surely didn't want to fall down in all that blood and guts. The workers wore non-slip boots, yellow aprons, and helmets. It was a scene of controlled, mechanized chaos.”

Sue Coe (1951) British artist

Dead Meat, as quoted in A Plea for the Animals by Matthieu Ricard (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2016), p. 78 https://books.google.it/books?id=bTLuDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA78.

“You cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor by social ostracism. But I will tell you what you can do by these, and what you have done. You can make hypocrites by the million. You can make a man say that he has changed his mind; but he remains of the same opinion still. Put fetters all over him; crush his feet in iron boots; stretch him to the last gasp upon the holy rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes will be of the same opinion still.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)

Change

“The stars of death stood over us.
And Russia, guiltless, beloved, writhed
under the crunch of bloodstained boots,
under the wheels of Black Marias.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Stars of death stood
Above us, and innocent Russia
Writhed under bloodstained boots, and
Under the tyres of Black Marias.
Translated by D. M. Thomas
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), Prologue

Death , Star

“Who dares this pair of boots displace,
Must meet Bombastes face to face.”

William Barnes Rhodes (1772–1826) British dramatist

Bombastes Furioso (1810), Act i, scene 4, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Let none but he these arms displace, Who dares Orlando's fury face", Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, part ii, chapter lxvi; Ray, Proverbs; Thomas, English Prose Romance, page 85.

“You moralistic dog—admitting a hierarchy in which you are subordinate, purely that you may have subordinates; licking the boots of a superior, that you may have yours in turn licked by an underling.”

Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) American philosopher

Source: Towards a Better Life (1966), p. 9

Dogs

“A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Though widely quoted from his speech in the House of Commons, (1 November 1976) published in Hansard, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 918, col. 976.; this is actually a very old paraphrase of a statement of the 19th century minister Charles Spurgeon: "A lie travels round the world while truth is putting on her boots." Even in the paraphrased form Callaghan used, it was in widely familiar, many years prior to his use of it, and is evidenced to have been published in that form at least as early as 1939.
Misattributed

Truth , Lie , World

“Wearing silver boots and a hat, armbands and a smile, he whipped out his paintbrush, so to speak, and in 20 minutes painted pictures of his customers with a flourish - while a fascinated crowd gathered, some gaping in disbelief.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

[Barbara Cole, Putting fun back into sex, Daily News, South Africa, 8 February 2008, 5, Independent Online]
About

Smile , Painting

“We're all a bunch of badminton birdies who just got batted from the Republican side of the court to the Democrat side. We'll eventually get batted back again, of course, unless libertarians can manage to do something about it. If your principal concern, like mine, is freedom, there's absolutely no discernable difference between the two 'majors,' and for all practical purposes, they're one big party — the Boot On Your Neck party — pretending to be two.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

Interview, Ari Armstrong, "Catching Up with L. Neil Smith".

Freedom

“Birkenstock desert boots have been a part of pop culture since the beatniks. I made such a fuzz about them being discontinued that the company send me an "lifetime supply", which initially turned out to be seven pairs at two years apiece. They weren’t giving me very long. I think that’s why I gave up smoking.”

Johnny Marr (1963) musician

from "Pieces of me", The Guardian (June 2007).

Thinking , Parting

“Nick swore he’d die with this boots on, on some exotic safari, but he found his Kilimanjaro in a hospital on Earth, where they’d cured everything that was bothering him, except for the galloping pneumonia he’d picked up in the hospital. That had been, roughly, two hundred and fifty years ago. I’d been a pallbearer.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 2 (pp. 58-59)

“Say, Candy and Ronnie, have you seen them yet?
But they're so spaced out, Bennie and the Jets.
Oh but they're weird and they're wonderful,
Oh Bennie she's really keen.
She's got electric boots, a mohair suit.
You know I read it in a magazine.
Bennie and the Jets.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Bennie and the Jets
Song lyrics, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)

Reading

“Behind her chair, from a wall covered in a very expensive velvet-flock paper, a portrait of her grandfather looked down. He had been an Episcopalian bishop, but the picture showed him in the costume of a New England gentleman keeping up the Old English custom of riding to hounds: red coat, brown boots, distinguished with a white dog-collar and black silk front.
Hugh referred to him as being dressed to kill.
The salad was replaced—though Hugh had sampled only a mouthful of his—by a dish of cold fish with mayonnaise. He didn’t even touch this course. He was suddenly afraid of it because it had come from the sea.”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

February “DISGRACE”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Dogs , Fish , Sea

“"You mean he's dead too?" asked Suzy.
"Yes," said Dusk. "This morning, in his cell. The guards outside were also slain, and only Sir Thursday's boots remained."
"Sounds more like he escaped," Suzy said.
"His feet were still in the boots," said Dusk.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Lord Sunday (2010), p. 143.

Dead

“The momentous meaning of this occasion impressed me deeply. I resolved to mark it by some token of recognition, which could be no other than a salute of arms. Well aware of the responsibility assumed, and of the criticisms that would follow, as the sequel proved, nothing of that kind could move me in the least. The act could be defended, if needful, by the suggestion that such a salute was not to the cause for which the flag of the Confederacy stood, but to its going down before the flag of the Union. My main reason, however, was one for which I sought no authority nor asked forgiveness. Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond;—was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured? Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier's salutation, from the "order arms" to the old "carry"—the marching salute. Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual, honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!”

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828–1914) Union Army general and Medal of Honor recipient

The Passing of the Armies: An account of the Army of the Potomac, based upon personal reminiscences of the Fifth Army Corps (1915), p. 260

Death , Men , Forgiveness , Suffering

“He’s engaged to be married to Stiffy Byng, and his long years of football should prove an excellent preparation for setting up house with her. The way I look at it is that when a fellow has had plug-uglies in cleated boots doing a Shuffle-off-to-Buffalo on his face Saturday after Saturday since he was a slip of a boy, he must get to fear nothing, not even marriage with a girl like Stiffy, who from early childhood has seldom let the sun go down without starting some loony enterprise calculated to bleach the hair of one and all.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)

Marriage , Fear , Way , Girl

“I'll say this about nuclear weapons. You know I'm not sitting on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I'm not in on the planning. I'll take it at face value that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff successfully eliminated nuclear weapons in the first phase of the operation.But keep in mind this. That the Bush Administration has built a new generation of nuclear weapons that we call 'usable nukes.' And they have a nuclear posture now, which permits the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons in a non-nuclear environment, if the Commander in Chief deems U. S. forces to be in significant risk.If we start bombing Iran, I'm telling you right now, it's not going to work. We're not going to achieve decapitation, regime change, all that. What will happen is the Iranians will respond, and we will feel the pain instantaneously, which will prompt the Bush administration to phase two, which will have to be boots on the ground. And we will put boots on the ground, we will surge a couple of divisions in, probably through Azerbaijan, down the Caspian Sea coast, in an effort to push the regime over. And when they don't push over, we now have 40,000 troops trapped. We have now reached the definition of significant numbers of U. S. troops in harm's way, and there is no reserve to pull them out! There's no more cavalry to come riding to the rescue. And at that point in time, my concern is that we will use nuclear weapons to break the backbone of Iranian resistance, and it may not work.But what it will do is this: it will unleash the nuclear genie. And so for all those Americans out there tonight who say, 'You know what - taking on Iran is a good thing.' I just told you if we take on Iran, we're gonna use nuclear weapons. And if we use nuclear weapons, the genie ain't going back in the bottle, until an American city is taken out by an Islamic weapon in retaliation. So, tell me, you want to go to war with Iran. Pick your city. Pick your city. Tell me which one you want gone. Seattle? L. A.? Boston? New York? Miami. Pick one. Cause at least one's going. And that's something we should all think about before we march down this path of insanity that George Bush has us headed on.</p”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

October 16, 2006
2006

Pain , War , Way , Feeling

“War is time that has marched through the mind, and is later presented in
such a way that boots are the be-all and end-all.
Thus it is important to teach the soldier exactly how to treat the ghosts, how
to address the fog, or
how time and space appear on paper to describe absolutely everything.
Do not say that was true in antiquity, as there the same sentence changed
many times, petrified into mountains,
precisely where it was open…”

Paavo Haavikko (1931–2008) Finnish poet and writer from 20th century

Paavo Haavikko, in: John Taylor (2010), Into the Heart of European Poetry. p. 329

War , Way , Mountain , Appearance

“By a man’s boots, by his trouser knee, by his cuffs, by his coat tails, by all of these things a man’s calling is plainly revealed.’ Words spoken there by Sherlock Holmes, I believe… although it may have been Westlife.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Other TV and web appearances, E4 Mind Control Night

“To make you cry I’ll tell you about the twelve young impure men I saw executed at Dacca at the end of the Bangladesh war. They executed them on the field of Dacca stadium, with bayonet blows to the torso or abdomen, in the presence of twenty thousand faithful who applauded in the name of God from the bleachers. They thundered "Allah akbar, Allah akbar." Yes, I know: the ancient Romans, those ancient Romans of whom my culture is so proud, entertained themselves in the Coliseum by watching the deaths of Christians fed to the lions. I know, I know: in every country of Europe the Christians, those Christians whose contribution to the History of Thought I recognize despite my atheism, entertained themselves by watching the burning of heretics. But a lot of time has passed since then, we have become a little more civilized, and even the sons of Allah ought to have figured out by now that certain things are just not done. After the twelve impure young men they killed a little boy who had thrown himself at the executioners to save his brother who had been condemned to death. They smashed his head with their combat boots. And if you don’t believe it, well, reread my report or the reports of the French and German journalists who, horrified as I was, were there with me. Or better: look at the photographs that one of them took. Anyway this isn’t even what I want to underline. It’s that, at the conclusion of the slaughter, the twenty thousand faithful (many of whom were women) left the bleachers and went down on the field. Not as a disorganized mob, no. In an orderly manner, with solemnity. They slowly formed a line and, again in the name of God, walked over the cadavers. All the while thundering Allah–akbar, Allah–akbar. They destroyed them like the Twin Towers of New York. They reduced them to a bleeding carpet of smashed bones.”

Oriana Fallaci (1929–2006) Italian writer

Rage and the Pride">

Death , Women , Men , God

“He is the last of that old guard defending Cattle Land,
Those knights who jousted for the cause — blood brothers of the brand;
But now they’ve fenced the water-hole, they’re harrowing the plain,
They’re changing all the sagebrush flats to fields of waving grain;
The cowmen will be gone, they say, and there are no recruits —
Good-bye, brave cattle-puncher in the high-heeled boots!”

Arthur Chapman (poet) (1873–1935) American poet and newspaper columnist

The High-Heeled Boots http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#HIGH, st. 3.
Out Where the West Begins and Other Western Verses http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#outbk (1917)

Water , Change

“Now reigneth pride in prize
and covetousness is held wise,
and lechery without shame
and gluttony without blame.
Envy reigneth with treason
and sloth is taken in great season.
God do boot, for now is time. Amen.”

John Ball (priest) (1338–1381) English rebel and priest

Letter to the people, quoted in Annals, or a General Chronicle of England by John Stow. "Boot" here means "amends," as in the ancient Anglo-Saxon laws

God , Time , Envy , Season

“If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

Love , Women , Winter , Summer

“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 , Shoe

“When we erected banners some smart people appeared and started pointing at miniskirts. Our women have been wearing miniskirts since 1950s, and they never thought about wearing an explosive belt. You can wear even tarpaulin boots on your head, but do not organise bombings. This is not religion. Let them wear even miniskirts but there must not be any blasts.”

Almazbek Atambayev (1956) President of Kyrgyzstan

Women , People , Religion , Appearance

“Davis was winning a position as a leader in the Senate. Successor to Calhoun, he had become the spokesman for southern nationalism… not independence but domination from within the Union. This movement had been given impetus by the Mexican War. Up til then the future of the country pointed north and west, but now the needle trembled and suddenly swung south. The treaty signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo brought into the Union a new southwestern domain, seemingly ripe for slavery and the southern way of life: not only Texas down to the Rio Grande, the original strip of contention, but also the vast sun-cooked area that was to become Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, part of Colorado, and California with its new-found gold. Here was room for expansion indeed, with more to follow; for the nationalists looked forward to taking what was left of Mexico, all of Central America down to Panama, and Yucatan and Cuba by extension. Yet the North… had no intention of yielding the reigns. The South would have to fight for this… using States Rights for a spear and the Constitution for a shield. Jefferson Davis, who had formed his troops in a V at Buena Vista and continued the fight with a boot full of blood, took a position, now as then, at the apex of the wedge.”

Shelby Foote book The Civil War: A Narrative

The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville (1958)

Life , War , Way , Sun

“The Liberation Ladies will lead to generations of women willing to support a tired husband, and provide for his old age. He can be snug-abed in the morning while she pounds off in her thick boots to her job or carries a briefcase to her office. And when she comes home at night - she can cook his dinner, too, and wash and iron his shirts. She can do the housework, while he watches TV and complains of the pain in his back - which she will eventually rub away at bedtime. Women wanted careers, didn't they? They can do a man’s work, can't they? Well, let 'em do it, and be glad they were able to get a husband besides, even if they have to take care of him! Men, in short, are licking their lips and, for the first time in history, are readying themselves to be the exploiters in their turn…. Mom's out there, plugging and 'fulfilling' herself, and why should Pop worry? He's had it coming to him since Eve….”

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

"They're Spoiling Eve's Great Con Game" in American Opinion (September 1970), p. 6
1970s-

Women , Men , Pain , Age

“I suspect that in the beginning Maurice hoped that Rosy would calm down. Yet mere inspection suggested that she would not easily bend. By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents. So it was quite easy to imagine her the product of an unsatisfied mother who unduly stressed the desirability of professional careers that could save bright girls from marriages to dull men. But this was not the case. Her dedicated austere life could not be thus explained — she was the daughter of a solidly comfortable, erudite banking family.
Clearly Rosy had to go or be put in her place. The former was obviously preferable because, given her belligerent moods, it would be very difficult for Maurice to maintain a dominant position that would allow him to think unhindered about DNA. Not that at times he'd didn't see some reason for her complaints — King's had two combination rooms, one for men, the other for women, certainly a thing of the past. But he was not responsible, and it was no pleasure to bear the cross for the added barb that the women's combination room remained dingily pokey whereas money had been spent to make life agreeable for him and his friends when they had their morning coffee.
Unfortunately, Maurice could not see any decent way to give Rosy the boot. To start with, she had been given to think that she had a position for several years. Also there was no denying that she had a good brain. If she could keep her emotions under control, there was a good chance she could really help him. But merely wishing for relations to improve was taking something of a gamble, for Cal Tech's fabulous chemist Linus Pauling was not subject to the confines of British fair play. Sooner or later Linus, who had just turned fifty, was bound to try for the most important of all scientific prizes. There was no doubt he was interested. … The thought could not be avoided that the best home for a feminist was in another person's lab.”

James D. Watson book The Double Helix

Description of Rosalind Franklin, whose data and research were actually key factors in determining the structure of DNA, but who died in 1958 of ovarian cancer, before the importance of her work could be widely recognized and acknowledged. In response to these remarks her mother stated "I would rather she were forgotten than remembered in this way." As quoted in "Rosalind Franklin" at Strange Science : The Rocky Road to Modern Paleontology and Biology by Michon Scott http://www.strangescience.net/rfranklin.htm
The Double Helix (1968)

Life , Women , Men , Money

“Toadvine sat with his boots crossed before the fire. No man can acquaint himself with everything on this earth, he said.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian (1985)

“I'd like to start off by telling you some great news. I got approved for a new reality show—it's an extreme makeover show for middle-aged lesbians, called "This Old Bull-Dyke". We already have a sponsor, too- Wolverine steel-toed boots has picked it up. We had another title, but the censors nixed it; it was originally going to be called, "Pimp My Muff!"”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

Behavioral Problems

Age , Reality

“…[Bob Kane] had an idea for a character called "Batman", and he'd like me to see the drawings. I went over to Kane's, and he had drawn a character who looked very much like Superman with kind of … reddish tights, I believe, with boots … no gloves, no gauntlets … with a small domino mask, swinging on a rope. He had two stiff wings that were sticking out, looking like bat wings. And under it was a big sign … BATMAN.”

Bill Finger (1914–1974) American comic strip and comic book writer

[Jim Steranko, The Steranko History of Comics, Supergraphics, Reading, Pa., 1970, ISBN 0-517-50188-0, p.44]

Idea , Drawing

“Robert E. Lee paused to dip his pen once more in the inkwell. Despite flannel shirt, uniform coat, and heavy winter boots, he shivered a little. The headquarters tent was cold. The winter had been harsh, and showed no signs of growing any milder. New England weather, he thought, and wondered why God had chosen to visit it upon his Virginia.”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 3

God , Winter , Weather

“The technological landscape of the present day has enfranchised its own electorates — the inhabitants of the marketing zones in the consumer society, television audiences and news magazine readerships, who vote with money at the cash counter rather than with ballot paper at the polling boot. These huge and passive electorates are wide open to any opportunist using the psychological weaponry of fear and anxiety, elements that are carefully blanched out of the world of domestic products and consumer software.”

J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer

"The Consumer Consumed", originally published in Ink (1971)
A User's Guide to the Millennium (1996)

Money , World , Fear

“Then there is the final possibility, my favorite.
—Yes?
—The final possibility is that I’m God.
—You’re God?
—Just a theory, but the data are provocative. I mean, look at me. Faceless, shapeless, holey, undifferentiated, Jewish, inscrutable…and a hermaphrodite to boot. Years ago, I told you sponges cannot be fatally dismembered, for each part quickly becomes the whole. To wit, I am both immortal and infinite.
—You’re God? You’re God herself? You?
—The data are provocative.
—God is a sponge? A sponge? There’s not much comfort in that.
—Agreed.
—Sponges can’t help us.
—Neither can God, as far as I can tell. I’d be happy to see some contrary data.”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 18 (p. 312)

God , Help , Parting , Happiness

“Fetch me my seven-league boots so I can catch the children.”

Charles Perrault (1628–1703) French author

Tales of Mother Goose, 1727, "Little Thumb"

Children

“In this country, Fox News has gotten a big, big audience that appreciates its independence. There's passion there, and it's pushed. … It has taken a long boot time, but it has now changed CNN because it has challenged them — they've become more centrist in their choice of stories. They're trying to become, using our phrase, more fair and balanced.”

Rupert Murdoch (1931) Australian-American media mogul

citation needed

Passion , Change , Time , Country

“I leapt into my boots, trousers and jacket, tumbled all my gear, lying ready laid out, into my bag, donned helmet and goggles, seized charts and rushed to the upper deck…. the sea was calm under a heaving swell. Engadine towered above my cockle-shell.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

"Written aboard HMS Engadine in 1916, cited in " The Riddle Of Erskine Childers " By Andrew Boyle , Hutchinson, London, (1977), pg. 205.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918)

Lying , Sea