Quotes about hair

A collection of quotes on the topic of hair, likeness, herring, eye.

Quotes about hair

“Percy, let me go" she croaked. "You can't pull me up."
His face was white with effort. She could see in his eyes that he knew it was hopeless.
"Never," he said. He looked up at Nico, fifteen feet above.
"The other side, Nico! We'll see you there. Understand?"
Nico's eyes widened. "But-"
"Lead them!" Percy shouted. "Promise me!"
"I-I will."
Below them, the voice laughed in the darkness. Sacrifices. Beautiful sacrifices to wake the goddess.
Percy tightened his grip on Annabeth's wrist. His face was gaunt, scraped and bloody, his hair dusted with cobwebs, but when he locked eyes with her, she thought he had never looked more handsome.
"We're staying together," he promised. "You're not getting away from me. Never again."
Only then did she understand what would happen. A one-way trip. A very hard fall.
"As long as we're together," she said.
She heard Nico and Hazel still screaming for help. She saw sunlight far, far above- maybe the last sunlight she would ever see.
Then Percy let go of his ledge, and together, holding hands, he and Annabeth fell into the endless darkness.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Beauty, Way, Understanding, Effort

“If even a single hair of my beard learns my secret, I will cut my beard from the root.”

Mehmed II (1432–1481) Ottoman sultan

Source: Freely, John (The Grand Turk)

Secret, Learning

“Percy smiled at her - that sarcastic troublemaker smile that had annoyed her for years but eventually had become endearing. His sea-green eyes were as gorgeous as she remembered. His dark hair was swept to one side, like he'd just come from a walk on the beach. He looked even better than he had six months ago - tanner and taller, leaner and more muscular.

Percy threw his arms around her. They kissed and for a moment nothing else mattered. An asteroid could have hit the planet and wiped out all life, and Annabeth wouldn't have cared.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Life, Smile, Kiss, Sea

“Interviewer: 'So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?'
Frank Zappa: 'You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum

Hell, Fight, Money

“Every day People straighten up the hair, why not the heart?”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

People, Heart

“When a human being takes his life in depression, this is a natural death of spiritual causes. The modern barbarity of 'saving' the suicidal is based on a hair-raising misapprehension of the nature of existence.”

Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899–1990) Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer, and author

The Last Messiah [Den sidste Messias] (1933)

Life, Death, Nature, Suicide

“I think you can love a person too much.

You put someone up on a pedestal, and all of a sudden, from that perspective, you notice what's wrong - a hair out of place, a run in a stocking, a broken bone. You spend all your time and energy making it right, and all the while, you are falling apart yourself. You don't even realize what you look like, how far you've deteriorated, because you only have eyes for someone else.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Love, Thinking, Time, Personality

“There is no normality in life. Having two houses means that we can get out of each other's hair - which, let's face it, we've both got a lot of”

Helena Bonham Carter (1966) British actress

Of her relationship with Tim Burton Guardian interview 3 Nov 2006 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/nov/03/1

Life, Housing

“Susan [Silver] was really busy with one of her bands, and there was about a month where I never left the house. I didn’t go out in public; I didn’t talk to anyone on the phone—I went a little psycho. If I hadn’t been alone so long, I would not have gone as far as I actually went. But one day, I went from wondering what I would look like with a shaved head to ‘That’s pretty cool.’ Then I put my hair in a big envelope and mailed it off to my wife. The funny thing was, I did this really silly, personal thing for no reason, and then all of a sudden it was on MTV News and in Newsweek, and I still hadn’t left the house. I thought it was strange, because I don’t know how anyone found out about my hair, and I don’t know why they cared.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

On why he shaved his head in 1993 ** Interview with Details Magazine, December 1996 https://pitchfork.com/features/article/10081-chris-cornell-searching-for-solitude/, Soundgarden Era

Business, Housing, Personality

“The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a physical necessity.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Feeling

“…'I thought the rule was that all monks were shaved.'

'Oh, Soto says he is bald under the hair,'said Lu Tze. 'He says the hair is a separate creature that just happens to live on him.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

“He knew that hair couldn't feel; he kissed her hair.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Source: The Favorite Game

Feeling, Kiss

“If you was bleach and I was hair, I wouldn't die (dye) fo' ya!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"That's All She Wrote"

“I've had enough, this is my prayer.
That I'll die living just as free as my hair.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Hair, written by Lady Gaga and RedOne
Song lyrics, Born This Way (2011)

“The green of my garden, my sweet sugar, my treasure, my love who cares for nothing in this world.
My master of Egypt, my Joseph, my everything, the queen of my heart's realm.
My Stanbul, my Karaman, my land of the Roman Caesers,
My Badahshan, my Kipcak, my Baghdad, and Khorasan.
O my love of black hair with bow-like eyebrows, with langourous perfidius eyes.
If I die you are my killer, O merciless, infidel woman.”

Suleiman (1494–1566) Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

Mansel, Philip, Constantinople: city of the world's desire 1453-1924 (1995), p. 84
Written to his wife - see the article Hurrem for another translation of this verse.
Poetry

Love, World, Heart

“I do not need your red sculpted lips,
Nor hair in loops like a serpent’s coils,
Nor a nape as graceful as a swan’s,
Nor narcissus eyes full of drunkenness,
Nor teeth as perfect as pearls of heaven,
Nor cheeks ruddy and full as pomegranates,
Nor a voice mellifluous as a sarinda,
Nor a figure as elegant as a poplar,
But show me just this one thing, my love,
I seek a heart stained like a poppy flower – Pearls by millions I would gladly cede,
For the sake of tears borne of love and grief.”

Ghani Khan (1914–1996) Pakistani poet

na may sta da nari shundi dy pakar
na da zulfi wal pa wal laka khamar
na da bati pashan danga ghari ghwaram
nargasay stargy na daki da khumar
na ghakhuna dy laluna da adan
na nangy dak sara sara laka anar
na pasti da sarindy pa shan khabari
na wajood laka da saar way mazadar
khu bas yow shai rata ra ukhaya dilbara
da lala pashan zargy ghawaram daghdar
yow dawa ukhaqi chi da ghum ao muhabat way
lakuno laluna dy karam zaar
Entreaty (1929)

Love, Flowers, Tear, Heart

“God the Father is a person separate from the Holy Ghost. Totally separate. …Do you know that the Holy Spirit has a soul and a body separate from that of Jesus and the Father? …God the Father then is a triune being within Himself. He's a person, He has a soul. …A soul is an intellect. …God thinks …separate from the Son and separate from the Holy Ghost. …God the Father is a separate individual from the Son and the Holy Ghost, who is a triune being who walks in a spirit body and He has hair…has eyes…has a mouth…has hands.”

Benny Hinn (1952) American-Canadian evangelist

Orlando Christian Centre, October 13 1990

God, Soul, Thinking, Personality

“He turned his head to look full at me, his hair fire-struck with the setting sun, face dark in silhouette. "Twenty-four years ago today, I married ye, Sassenach," he said softly. "I hope ye willna have cause yet to regret it." -Jamie Fraser”

Diana Gabaldon book Drums of Autumn

Source: Drums of Autumn

Hope, Sun

“He stood up straight and looked the world squarely in the fields and hills. To add weight to his words he stuck the rabbit bone in his hair. He spread his arm out wide. "I will go mad!" he annouced.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus

World, Madness

“You cannot keep birds from flying over your head
but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Bird, Flying

“Annabeth's face, her blond hair and gray eyes, the way she laughed, threw her arms around him, and gave him a kiss whenever he did something stupid.
She must have kissed me a lot, Percy thought.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Stupidity, Way, Kiss

“I'm awaiting a lover. I have to be rent and pulled apart and live according to the demons and the imagination in me. I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Imagination, Star, Lovers

“Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

Life magazine (December 1979) http://books.google.com/books?id=w5-GR-qtgXsC&pg=PA117&dq=%22Too+bad+that+all+the+people+who+know+how+to+run+the+country+are+busy+driving+taxicabs+and+cutting+hair.%22&sig=uj07kFeO7wja3cpTdX31dWR_pjs

People, Business, Country

“We weren't really interested in those bands; we were—because we came out of this subterranean scene. And then Nirvana breaks big, and it's just diametrically opposite: we have, like, facial hair, and just, kind of, logger shirts, but we're all, like, "sensitive" and "feminine"—you know what I mean?”

Krist Novoselic (1965) Croatian-American rock musician

36:00–36:19, about mainstream rockers of the 1980s "Nirvana's Krist Novoselic on Punk, Politics, & Why He Dumped the Dems" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4TPRH2uK9w

“If you hear of any incident about me - a fight, a change of clothes, a little extra gel in the hair, don't believe it till you talk to me.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

Change, Fight, Clothes

“I did, however, pass by one young girl, and she was like a goddess who came down from heaven. She was walking alone, in her bathing suit, with her luscious blonde hair blowing in the wind. I couldn’t help but slyly admire her beauty as we passed by each other. I was scared. I was scared that she might view me as nothing but an inferior insect who’s presence ruins her atmosphere. Her beauty was intoxicating! And then, just as we passed each other, she actually looked at me. She looked at me and smiled. Most girls never even deigned to look at me, and this one actually looked at me and smiled. I had never felt so euphoric in my life. One smile. One smile was all it took to brighten my entire day. The power that beautiful women have is unbelievable. They can temporarily turn a desperate boy’s whole world around just by smiling.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 19, Longing

Life, Women, World, Smile

“This year I am twenty-seven. My hair has become much greyer. Most people would take me for over forty.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

Final Setence
No Longer Human

People

“On my Youtube page there are so many haters. They just say crazy stuff. Like, I'm not mad. I'm 16 years old and I don't have chest hair and I'm not angry about it at the moment. That will come. People are like, "Look at him he puts helium in his voice before he sings."”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

You just have to laugh at yourself. It's funny.
Interview on The Ellen Show, "Ellen Chats With Justin Bieber", 3 November, 2010

People, Singing, Madness

“Let your beauty be not just the outward adorning of braiding the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on fine clothing; but in the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptible adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God very precious.”

Saint Peter (-1–67 BC) apostle and first pope

1 Peter 3:3-4 ( World English Bible http://biblehub.com/web/1_peter/3.htm) First Epistle of Peter

God, Beauty, Heart, Personality

“Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
and I eat men like air.”

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

"Lady Lazarus"
Ariel (1965)
Variant: p>Herr God, Herr Lucifer,
Beware.
Beware.Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.</p
Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Men

“You look at me, you look at me closely, each time closer and then we play cyclops, we look at each other closer each time and our eyes grow, they grow closer, they overlap and the cyclops look at each other, breathing confusion, their mouths find each other and fight warmly, biting with their lips, resting their tongues lightly on their teeth, playing in their caverns where the heavy air comes and goes with the scent of an old perfume and silence. Then my hands want to hide in your hair, slowly stroke the depth of your hair while we kiss with mouths full of flowers or fish, of living movements, of dark fragrance. And if we bite each other, the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a short and terrible surge of breath, that instant death is beauty. And there is a single saliva and a single flavour of ripe fruit, and I can feel you shiver against me like a moon on the water.”

Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) Argentinian writer

Death, Pain, Beauty, Feeling

“No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

“No matter what she did with her hair it took about three minutes for it to tangle itself up again, like a garden hosepipe in a shed [Which, no matter how carefully coiled, will always uncoil overnight and tie the lawnmower to the bicycles].”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

“This, I say. This and this. The way his hair looked in summer sun. His face when he ran. His eyes, solemn as an owl at lessons. This and this and this. So many moments of happiness, crowding forward.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Way, Sun, Summer, Happiness

“Pollution removed his helmet and shook out his long white hair. He had taken over when Pestilence, muttering about penicillin, had retired in 1936.”

Terry Pratchett book Good Omens

Source: Good Omens

“Gaea?” Leo shook his head. “Isn’t that Mother Nature? She’s supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and dear and rabbits doing her laundry.”
“Leo, that’s Snow White,” Piper said.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Flowers, Nature, Bird, Singing

“Most of the people are homesick anyway, and a little lonely, and they hide themselves in their hair and are turned into flowers.”

Tove Jansson (1914–2001) Finnish children's writer and illustrator

Source: Sculptor's Daughter

People, Flowers

“To have her here in bed with me, breathing on me, her hair in my mouth—I count that something of a miracle.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

“On the moon we wore feathers in our hair, and rubies on our hands. On the moon we had gold spoons.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Books, Hell

“Afterward she lies nestled against me, her hair tickling my face. I stroke her lightly, memorizing her body. I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin.”

Sara Gruen book Water for Elephants

Source: Water for Elephants

“There's a monster in our wood. She'll get you if you're not good. Drag you under leaves and sticks. Punish you for all your tricks. Anest of hair and gnawed bone. You are never, ever coming… home.”

Holly Black book The Darkest Part of the Forest

Source: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Home

“You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.”

Billie Holiday book Lady Sings the Blues

Source: Lady Sings the Blues (1956), Ch. 11.

“A celebrity is any well-known TV or movie star who looks like he spends more than two hours working on his hair.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Star

“He moved to run a hand through her cornrows, then pulled back remembering the one time he's tried that-Connie had lectured him on the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not touch thy black girlfriend's hair. Ever.”

Barry Lyga (1971) American writer

Source: I Hunt Killers

Time

“When is your birthday?” (…)
Wide silver-gold eyes swung to him. “You don’t know?”
“No.”
Pouting, she twirled a strand of her hair. “How can you not know?”
“Do you know mine?” he asked.
“Of course I do. It’s the day you met me.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Surrender

Birthday

“There is an alternative to war. It's staying in bed and growing your hair.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

War

“Relaxing your hair is like being in prison. You're caged in. Your hair rules you. You didn't go running with Curt today because you don't want to sweat out this straightness. You're always battling to make your hair do what it wasn't meant to do.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Americanah

Source: Americanah

“Ever since I was small I loved feeling somebody comb my hair. It made me go all sleepy and peaceful.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Love, Peace, Feeling

“There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart -
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge,
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.”

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

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Heart, Clothes

“You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.”

Sharon Creech Walk Two Moons

Source: Walk Two Moons

Sadness, Bird, Flying

“Red hair is great. It's rare, and therefore superior.”

Augusten Burroughs (1965) American writer

“I have always thought that if women's hair posed so many problems, God would certainly have made us bald.”

Marjane Satrapi (1969) Artist

Source: The Complete Persepolis

Women, God, Problem

“What is an elegant woman? An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and who has no hair under her arms.”

Salvador Dalí book The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí

In The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí - first publication in 1942
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1941 - 1950
Source: The Secret Life of Salvador Dali

“Someday you will name me,
then gently place those burning
holy roses in my hair.

[Songs of Longing]”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Source: Rainer Maria Rilke - Sämtliche Werke (Complete Works)

“Black hair and blue eyes are my favorite combination.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Now I remember why I hate eating sheep. Horrible, fluffy things that give me hair balls and indigestion. ( Saphira from the Eragon Series)”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

Hate

“When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

People

“People always ask me how long it takes to do my hair. I don’t know, I’m never there.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

People

“I hope you hair curls naturally, does it?
Yes, darling, with a little help from others.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Hope, Nature, Help

“Tessa is a perfectionist in all ways. For example, her hair always has to be perfect for an interview or competition, she makes me look goofy next to her.”

Tessa Virtue (1989) Canadian ice dancer

Scott Moir, Interview for Wdish (2013)
Partnership with Scott Moir, Scott Moir about Virtue

Way, Perfection

“It has varied. I don’t know if it’s good or bad but a dear friend of mine Aziz (Mirza) asked me not to do Don. I was also told to cut my hair and to change my name because someone said that there couldn’t be a movie star by the name of Shah Rukh Khan. (when asked the worst piece of professional advice that someone has given him)”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Rajeev Masand

Star, Change

“I was obviously floating in the atmosphere; companioned not only by the strange child and the radiant pair, but by a constantly increasing throng of half-luminous, vine-crowned youths and maidens with wind-blown hair and joyful countenance. We slowly ascended together, as if borne on a fragrant breeze which blew not from the earth but from the golden nebulae, and the child whispered in my ear that I must look always upward to the pathways of light, and never backward to the sphere I had just left.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Crawling Chaos (1921)

Youth, Light

“No, you don't wanna get me started. Jell-O with hair all in the mold. I'd be like, "Damn, man, how are you gonna mess up Jell-O?" Jell-O is so wholesome and family-like. It just ruins it for me. To have a hair in there, yeah. I mean, I'm like, "Come on, Bill Cosby pumps this, man!"”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

Family

“The time has come and fall has come so pretty…
The yellow leaves are flying over the city…
I am in love with you.
Your golden hair is flying so clear in the air.
I am in love with fall, which came with rain…
It brought the morning mists…
The days are waned…
I know the wintry wind will break her gown.
I say to fall: come back, don’t let me down.
The yellow leaves are whirling in the city.
I’ve met my love too late, it is a pity.
At last we are together and forever.
I know well that better late than never.
The time has come and fall has come so pretty…
The yellow leaves as dreams adorned the city…
I am in love with you.
Your golden hair is flying as a cobweb in the air…”

Volodymyr Melnykov (1951) Ukrainian writer, poet, composer

Kiev’s fall http://imirelnik.io.ua/s1954083/to_my_friends

Love, Dreams, Time, Flying

“Use a sweet tongue, courtesy, and gentleness, and thou mayst manage to guide an elephant with a hair.”

Saadi book Gulistan of Sa'di

Chapter 3, story 28 http://books.google.com/books?id=LDpbAAAAQAAJ&q=%22use+a+sweet+tongue+courtesy+and+gentleness+and+thou+mayst+manage+to+guide+an+elephant+with+a+hair%22&pg=PA292#v=onepage Gulistan (1258)

“"Our Second Experiment", the Professor announced, as Bruno returned to his place, still thoughtfully rubbing his elbows, "is the production of that seldom-seen-but-greatly-to-be-admired phenomenon, Black Light! You have seen White Light, Red Light, Green Light, and so on: but never, till this wonderful day, have any eyes but mine seen Black Light! This box", carefully lifting it upon the table, and covering it with a heap of blankets, "is quite full of it. The way I made it was this - I took a lighted candle into a dark cupboard and shut the door. Of course the cupboard was then full of Yellow Light. Then I took a bottle of Black ink, and poured it over the candle: and, to my delight, every atom of the Yellow Light turned Black! That was indeed the proudest moment of my life! Then I filled a box with it. And now - would anyone like to get under the blankets and see it?"Dead silence followed this appeal: but at last Bruno said "I'll get under, if it won't jingle my elbows."Satisfied on this point, Bruno crawled under the blankets, and, after a minute or two, crawled out again, very hot and dusty, and with his hair in the wildest confusion."What did you see in the box?" Sylvie eagerly enquired."I saw nuffin!" Bruno sadly replied. "It were too dark!""He has described the appearance of the thing exactly!"”

Lewis Carroll book Sylvie and Bruno

the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Black Light, and Nothing, look so extremely alike, at first sight, that I don't wonder he failed to distinguish them! We will now proceed to the Third Experiment."
Source: Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), Chapter 21: The Professor's Lecture

Life, Way, Light, Silence

“As a boy I had a clear image of the Almighty: He had a tail coat and pinstriped trousers, black, slicked-down hair and an aquiline nose.
On the whole, I was probably a rather strange child, and I wonder what my life might have been like if I'd met a decent theologian when I was nine.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

"I create gods all the time - now I think one might exist" (2008)

Life, Boy

“Star of descending night! fair is thy light in the west! thou liftest thy unshorn head from thy cloud: thy steps are stately on thy hill. What dost thou behold in the plain? The stormy winds are laid. The murmur of the torrent comes from afar. Roaring waves climb the distant rock. The flies of evening are on their feeble wings; the hum of their course is on the field. What dost thou behold, fair light? But thou dost smile and depart. The waves come with joy around thee: they bathe thy lovely hair. Farewell, thou silent beam! Let the light of Ossian's soul arise!”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"The Songs of Selma"
The Poems of Ossian

Love, Smile, Soul, Star

“In between these four whitewashed walls, on this tiled floor, notice the broken corners, how some tiles have been worn smooth, how many feet have passed this way, and look how interesting this trail of ants is, travelling along the joins as if they were valleys, while up above, projected against the white sky of the ceiling and the sun of the lamp, tall towers are moving, they are men, as the ants well know, having, for generations, experienced the weight of their feet and the long, hot spout of water that falls from a kind of pendulous external intestine, ants all over the world have been drowned or crushed by these, but it seems they will escape this fate now, for the men are occupied with other things. […]
Let's take this ant, or, rather, let's not, because that would involve picking it up, let us merely consider it, because it is one of the larger ones and because it raises its head like a dog, it's walking along very close to the wall, together with its fellow ants it will have time to complete its long journey ten times over between the ants' nest and whatever it is that it finds so interesting, curious or perhaps merely nourishing in this secret room […]. One of the men has fallen to the ground, he's on the same level as the ants now, we don't know if he can see them, but they see him, and he will fall so often that, in the end, they will know by heart his face, the color of his hair and eyes, the shape of his ear, the dark arc of his eyebrow, the faint shadow at the corner of his mouth, and later, back in the ants' nest, they will weave long stories for the enlightenment of future generations, because it is useful for the young to know what happens out there in the world. The man fell and the others dragged him to his feet again, shouting at him, asking two different questions at the same time, how could he possibly answer them even if he wanted to, which is not the case, because the man who fell and was dragged to his feet will die without saying a word. Only moans will issue from his mouth, and in the silence of his soul only deep sighs, and even when his teeth are broken and he has to spit them out, which will prompt the other two men to hit him again for soiling state property, even then the sound will be of spitting and nothing more, that unconscious reflex of the lips, and then the dribble of saliva thickened with blood that falls to the floor, thus stimulating the taste buds of the ants, who telegraph from one to the other news of this singularly red manna fallen from such a white heaven.
The man fell again. It's the same one, said the ants, the same ear shape, the same arc of eyebrow, the same shadow at the corner of the mouth, there's no mistaking him, why is it that it is always the same man who falls, why doesn't he defend himself, fight back. […] The ants are surprised, but only fleetingly. After all, they have their own duties, their own timetables to keep, it is quite enough that they raise their heads like dogs and fix their feeble vision on the fallen man to check that he is the same one and not some new variant in the story. The larger ant walked along the remaining stretch of wall, slipped under the door, and some time will pass before it reappears to find everything changed, well, that's just a manner of speaking, there are still three men there, but the two who do not fall never stop moving, it must be some kind of game, there's no other explanation […]. [T]hey grab him by the shoulders and propel him willy-nilly in the direction of the wall, so that sometimes he hits his back, sometimes his head, or else his poor bruised face smashes into the whitewash and leaves on it a trace of blood, not a lot, just whatever spurts forth from his mouth and right eyebrow. And if they leave him there, he, not his blood, slides down the wall and he ends up kneeling on the ground, beside the little trail of ants, who are startled by the sudden fall from on high of that great mass, which doesn't, in the end, even graze them. And when he stays there for some time, one ant attaches itself to his clothing, wanting to take a closer look, the fool, it will be the first ant to die, because the next blow falls on precisely that spot, the ant doesn't feel the second blow, but the man does.”

José Saramago book Raised from the Ground

Source: Raised from the Ground (1980), pp. 172–174

Men, Fate, Secret, World

“Cause maybe you're loveable.
Maybe you're my snowflake.
And your eyes turn from green to gray.
And in the winter I'll hold you in a cold place.
And you should never cut your hair,
'Cause I love the way you flick it off your shoulder.And you will never know
Just how beautiful you are to me.
But maybe I'm just in love
When you wake me up.”

Ed Sheeran (1991) English singer-songwriter and producer

Wake Me Up, written with Jake Gosling
Song lyrics, + (2011)

Love, Beauty, Way, Winter

“I cut my pubes last night. My hairs were getting longer than my penis.”

Howard Stern (1954) American radio personality

Stated at the beginning of his radio show on 13 September 2006.

Night

“He who is himself crossed in love is able from time to time to master his passion, for he is not the creature but the creator of his own misery; and if a lover is unable to control his passion, he at least knows that he is himself to blame for his sufferings. But he who is loved without reciprocating that love is lost beyond redemption, for it is not in his power to set a limit to that other's passion, to keep it within bounds, and the strongest will is reduced to impotence in the face of another's desire. Perhaps only a man can realize to the full the tragedy of such an undesired relationships; for him alone the necessity to resist t is at once martyrdom and guilt. For when a woman resists an unwelcome passion, she is obeying to the full the law of her sex; the initial gesture of refusal is, so to speak, a primordial instinct in every female, and even if she rejects the most ardent passion she cannot be called inhuman. But how disastrous it is when fate upsets the balance, when a woman so far overcomes her natural modesty as to disclose her passion to a man, when, without the certainty of its being reciprocated, she offers her love, and he, the wooed, remains cold and on the defensive! An insoluble tangle this, always; for not to return a woman's love is to shatter her pride, to violate her modesty. The man who rejects a woman's advances is bound to wound her in her noblest feelings. In vain, then, all the tenderness with which he extricates himself, useless all his polite, evasive phrases, insulting all his offers of mere friendship, once she has revealed her weakness! His resistance inevitably becomes cruelty, and in rejecting a woman's love he takes a load of guild upon his conscience, guiltless though he may be. Abominable fetters that can never be cast off! Only a moment ago you felt free, you belonged to yourself and were in debt to no one, and now suddenly you find yourself pursued, hemmed in, prey and object of the unwelcome desires of another. Shaken to the depths of your soul, you know that day and night someone is waiting for you, thinking of you, longing and sighing for you - a woman, a stranger. She wants, she demands, she desires you with every fibre of her being, with her body, with her blood. She wants your hands, your hair, your lips, your manhood, your night and your day, your emotions, your senses, and all your thought and dreams. She wants to share everything with you, to take everything from you, and to draw it in with her breath. Henceforth, day and night, whether you are awake or asleep, there is somewhere in the world a being who is feverish and wakeful and who waits for you, and you are the centre of her waking and her dreaming. It is in vain that you try not to think of her, of her who thinks always of you, in vain that you seek to escape, for you no longer dwell in yourself, but in her. Of a sudden a stranger bears your image within her as though she were a moving mirror - no, not a mirror, for that merely drinks in your image when you offer yourself willingly to it, whereas she, the woman, this stranger who loves you, she has absorbed you into her very blood. She carries you always within her, carries you about with her, no mater whither you may flee. Always you are imprisoned, held prisoner, somewhere else, in some other person, no longer yourself, no longer free and lighthearted and guiltless, but always hunted, always under an obligation, always conscious of this "thinking-of-you" as if it were a steady devouring flame. Full of hate, full of fear, you have to endure this yearning on the part of another, who suffers on your account; and I now know that it is the most senseless, the most inescapable, affliction that can befall a man to be loved against his will - torment of torments, and a burden of guilt where there is no guilt.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

Love, Hate, Friendship, Fate

“I know I've reached the stage where other artists would bleach their hair or buy a fancy costume, but, inexcusably, I can only be me, which is a full-time occupation and causes terrible backaches.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From "I’ll astonish you", interview by Len Brown, Details (March 1991).
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

Time

“O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave; but thou thyself movest alone. Who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven: but thou art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunder rolls and lightning flies, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams no more: whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art, perhaps, like me, for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O sun, in the strength of thy youth!”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"Carthon", pp. 163–164
The Poems of Ossian

Youth, World, Beauty, Art

“I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon, Act I
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

“Only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

For Anne Gregory http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1483/, st. 3 The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

Love, God

“You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.”

Taisen Deshimaru (1914–1982) Japanese Buddhist monk

As quoted in Just Before Dark : Collected Nonfiction (1999) by Jim Harrison, p. 39

Rage

“The pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the Hajj, is a religious obligation that every orthodox Muslim fulfills, if able, at least once in his or her lifetime.
The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97)

Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27).

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other….

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America,"white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Text of a letter written following his Hajj (1964)

Men, God, People, World

“These television shows that have 14 shots of somebody looking at each other with the wind blowing through their hair drive me insane.”

Amy Sherman-Palladino (1966) American television writer, director, and producer

NYTimes.com, "Job Title: The 'Gilmore' Noodge" http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/arts/television/23heff.html?ex=1121313600&en=6a20ddae804ec0a8&ei=5070&adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1106535613-AH4C904DjoUiEAdysK3Zow&oref=login.

“What they teach in these acting schools is incredible, hair-raising crap. The Actors Studio in America is supposed to be the worst. There the students learn how to be natural - that is, they flop around, pick their noses, scratch their balls. This bullshit is known as "method acting." How can you "teach" someone to be an actor? How can you teach someone how and what to feel and how to express it? How can someone teach me how to laugh or cry? How to be glad and how to be sad? What pain is, or despair or happiness? What poverty and hunger are? What hate and love are? What desire is, and fulfillment? No, I don't want to waste my time with these arrogant morons.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Source: Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996), p. 59

Love, Hunger, Pain, Hate

“Quite near, one face is looking sadly at me, as it lolls to one side. It is coming out of the bottom of the heap, as a wild animal might. Its hair falls back like nails. The nose is a triangular hole and a little of the whiteness of human marble dots it. There are no lips left, and the two rows of teeth show up like lettering. The cheeks are sprinkled with moldy traces of beard. This body is only mud and stones. This face, in front of my own, is only a consummate mirror.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XV - An Apparition

Animals

“Chons, on rhythm guitar, had long black hair and blue eyes and was the first person I ever met who said she never ate meat, and when she told me that, I never ate it again either. Best thing that ever happened to me. All it took was the mere suggestion. Nobody else was vegetarian that I knew of, but I started to think of meat-eating as a very weird practice and secretly regarded meat-eaters with distaste, almost contempt. Why would anyone kill an animal if they didn’t need to? I learned to live and associate with “the majority,” but never respected them. I got used to having this lack of regard for 97 percent of the population.”

Chrissie Hynde (1951) Rock singer-songwriter and founder of Pretenders

Reckless (2015)

Thinking, Learning, Animals, Personality

“The truth, first of all, about Dreyfus' trial and conviction: At the root of it all is one evil man, Lt. Colonel du Paty de Clam, who was at the time a mere Major. He is the entire Dreyfus case, and the entirety of it will only come to light when an honest enquiry firmly establishes his actions and responsibilities. … Nobody would ever believe the experiments to which he subjected the unfortunate Dreyfus, the traps he set for him, the wild investigations, the monstrous fantasies, the whole demented torture.
Ah, that first trial! What a nightmare it is for all who know it in its true details. Major du Paty de Clam had Dreyfus arrested and placed in solitary confinement. He ran to Mme Dreyfus, terrorised her, telling her that, if she talked, that was it for her husband. Meanwhile, the unfortunate Dreyfus was tearing his hair out and proclaiming his innocence.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

Truth, Tear, Light, Evil

“Hope had grown grey hairs,
Hope had mourning on,
Trenched with tears, carved with cares,
Hope was twelve hours gone.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins The Wreck of the Deutschland

"The Wreck of the Deutschland", lines 115-118
Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1918)

Hope, Tear

“Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors....
You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana.

We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude.

I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most.... I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming to gether as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God.... All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Text of a letter written following his Hajj (1964)

Life, God, People, Truth

“When he comes to me, I am ready.
I’ll wash his feet with my hair if he needs,
Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain.
Even after three times, he betrays me.
I’ll bring him down, bring him down, down,
A king with no crown, king with no crown.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Judas, written by Lady Gaga and RedOne
Song lyrics, Born This Way (2011)

Forgiveness, Time

“It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.”

Menander (-342–-291 BC) Athenian playwright of New Comedy

Unidentified fragment 639.

Wisdom

“Tonight my wife must watch alone
the full moon over Fu-zhou;
I think sadly of my sons and daughters far away,
too young to understand this separation
or remember our life in Chang'an.
In fragrant mist, her flowing hair is damp;
In clear moonlight, her jade-white arms are cold.
When will we lean at the open casement together
while the moonlight dries our shining tears?”

Du Fu (712–770) Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

"Moonlit Night" https://allpoetry.com/Moonlit-Night (trans. David Lunde)

Life, Understanding, Thinking, Tear

“The Urning is not by a hair’s breadth any more dangerous to immature boys than the genuine man is to immature girls. For the rest, I gladly leave the child molester to his deserved punishment by the law. Let the integrity of a will-less minor be sacred to every Urning.”

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895) German jurist, writer and pioneer of LGBT human rights

Forschungen über das Rätsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (Investigation of the Enigma of Homosexual Love) (1898); cited in: Citizens Allied for Civic Action (CAFCA), http://www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/anti/annotated.pink.swastika The Annotated Pink Swastika http://www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/anti/annotated.pink.swastika. p. 11

Law, Girl, Boy

“Religion was too vague. God was different. He was something real, something I could feel. But there were only certain times when I could feel it. I used to lie between cool, clean sheets at night after I'd had a bath, after I had washed my hair and scrubbed my knuckles and finger-nails and teeth. Then I could lie quite still in the dark with my face to the window with the trees in it, and talk to God. "I am clean, now. I've never been as clean. I'll never be cleaner."”

Frances Farmer (1913–1970) American actress

And somehow, it was God. I wasn't sure that it was… just something cool and dark and clean.
God Dies (1931)

God, Lie, Religion, Feeling

“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

“I was once asked for my autograph in the shower on one of my rare visits to the gym. I was washing my hair, facing the wall, when I was tapped on the shoulder so already it's quite inappropriate. I turned round and there was another naked man standing there with a piece of paper. And I think 'if you can't see how inappropriate this I am just going to have to play along' so I took the paper, which is slowly becoming mulch, and carved my name in it.”

David Tennant (1971) Scottish actor

David Tennant on fan obsession, The Graham Norton Show, 14 April 2011 Source: Graham Norton welcomes David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Josh Groban and Jon Richardson, BBC Press Office, 15 April 2011, 15 April 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/04_april/15/norton.shtml,

Thinking

“And you can't go, "There's a hair in my Jell-O. I'd like to send this back. Can I see the cook, please?" The cook is a big dude named Bubba Joe.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

Cooking

“I thought I should make something – I felt it would be so easy – it would take form under my hands like magic.
Then people would see!
A strong naked arm – a tanned powerful neck a young woman rests her head on the arching chest.
She closes her eyes and listens with open and quivering lips to the words he whispers into her long flowing hair.
I should paint that image just as I saw it – but in the blue haze.
Those two at that moment, no longer merely themselves, but simply a link in the chain binding generation to generation.
People should understand the significance, the power of it. They should remove their hats like they do in church.
There should be no more pictures of interiors, of people reading and women knitting.
There would be pictures of real people who breathed, suffered, felt, loved.
I felt impelled – it would be easy. The flesh would have volume – the colours would be alive.
There was an interval. The music stopped. I was a little sad. I remembered how many times I had had similar thoughts – and that once I had finished the painting – they had simply shaken their heads and smiled.
Once again I found myself out on the Boulevard des Italiens.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

written in Saint Cloud, 1889
Quotes from his text: 'Saint Cloud Manifesto', Munch (1889): as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 120 -121
1880 - 1895

Love, Women, People, Sadness