Quotes about skirt (89 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“A good speech should be like a woman's skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“Does a rake deserve to possess anything of worth, since he chases everything in skirts and then imagines he can successfully hide his shame by slandering [women in general]?”

Christine de Pizan (1365–1430) Italian French late medieval author

Source: Der Sendbrief vom Liebesgott / The Letter of the God of Love

Women , Imagination

“But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts.
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers,
Dreaming 'bout the day when you wake up and find
That what you're lookin' for has been here the whole time.If you could see that I'm the one who understands you,
Been here all along so why can't you see?
You belong with me;
You belong with me.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

You Belong with Me, written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose.
Song lyrics, Fearless (2008)

Dreams , Understanding

“Above all, we must forgive the unhappy souls who have elected to make the pilgrimage on foot, who skirt the shore and look uncomprehendingly upon the horror of the struggle, the joy of victory, the profound hopelessness of the vanquished.”

Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-British writer

Letter (March 1890), published in The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, edited by Frederick R. Karl and Laurence Davies, Vol. 1, p. 43 ISBN 0521242169

Soul , Forgiveness , Victory , Joy

“It would be less dangerous for a man to court every lady in an entire land than for a lady to remove a single besotted lover from her skirts, for he will immediately attempt to strike back.”

Marie de France Chaitivel

"Chaitivel", line 19; p. 105.
Lais

Lovers

“Just my vengeance complete,
The man sprang to his feet,
Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed!
So, I was afraid!”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Instans Tyrannus, vii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

God

“One might ask why Senhor José needs a hundred-yard-long piece of string if the length of the Central Registry, despite successive extensions, is no more than eighty. That is the question of a person who imagines that one can do everything in life simply by following a straight line, that it is always possible to proceed from one place to another by the shortest route, perhaps some people in the outside world believe that they have done so, but here, where the living and the dead share the same space, sometimes, in order to find one of them, you have to make a lot of twists and turns, you have to skirt round mountains of bundles, columns of files, piles of cards, thickets of ancient remains, you have to walk down dark gulleys, between walls of grubby paper which, up above, actually touch, yards and yards of string will have to be unravelled, left behind, like a sinuous, subtle trail traced in the dust, there is no other way of knowing where you have to go next, there is no other way of finding your way back.”

José Saramago book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), pp. 140–141

Life , People , World , Way

“Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)

World , Fear , Light , Passion

“Suppose two sisters who are twins and who are equally beautiful, walk down a street. One of them is wearing the Islamic Hijab i.e. the complete body is covered except for the face and the hands up to the wrists, and the other twin is wearing a mini skirt or shorts. Around the corner there is a hooligan who is waiting for an opportunity to tease a girl. Who will he tease? The girl wearing the Islamic Hijab or the girl wearing the mini skirt or shorts? Dresses that expose more than they conceal, are an indirect temptation to the opposite sex for teasing, molestation and rape. The Qur’an rightly says that the hijab prevents women from being molested.”

Zakir Naik (1965) Islamic televangelist

In Most Common Questions Asked by the non-Muslims https://www.amazon.com/Most-Common-Questions-Asked-Muslims/dp/9675699299 p: 46

Waiting , Girl , Beauty , Sex

“I could take you down on this sidewalk and be up that skirt of yours in a heartbeat. And you wouldn't fight me, would you? No, she probably wouldn't.

Wrath and Beth”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Fight

“Elizabeth lifted her skirt, disregarding modesty, and delivered a swift kick to the creature's head.”

Seth Grahame-Smith book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Source: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

“It's good to see you, little one." He (Uncle Eddie) scanned her short skirt. "I only wish I were not seeing quite so much of you.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

“My dream is to walk around the world. A smallish backpack, all essentials neatly in place. A camera. A notebook. A traveling paint set. A hat. Good shoes. A nice pleated (green?) skirt for the occasional seaside hotel afternoon dance.”

Maira Kalman (1949) Israeli American artist and creator of children's books

Source: The Principles of Uncertainty

World , Dreams , Shoe , Travel

“As far as I was concerned men were something you had around the place, not particularly interesting, but quite harmless. I had never shown the slightest feeling for them, and apart from my never wearing a skirt, saw nothing else in common between us.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Men , Feeling

“She wore a short skirt and a tight sweater and her figure described a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest in a yak.”

Woody Allen book Getting Even

Source: Getting Even

“That's beautiful,' Valkyrie said, looking at it.

Isn't it? This necklace has cost two very fine men their lives. At times, I wear it in tribute to their sacrifice. Other times, I wear it because it goes with this skirt.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Playing with Fire

Men , Beauty , Time

“A good speech is like a woman's skirt: short enough to hold your attention, long enough to cover the subject”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

“Hippo in a skirt: this was a comic reference to one of Solomon's principal wives, the one from Moab. Childish? Yes. But in the days before printing we had limited opportunities for satire.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Ring of Solomon

Source: The Ring of Solomon

“Then Octavia drops to her knees, rubs the hem of a skirt against her cheek, and burst into tears. "It's been so long," she gasps, "since I've seen anything pretty.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Tear

“Well, I would have struck him, but I would have had to get up. You have no notion how difficult it is to arrange skirts when sitting down; it took me five minutes together the first time.”

Naomi Novik book His Majesty's Dragon

Source: His Majesty's Dragon

Time

“Any asshole can chase a skirt, art takes discipline.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Art

“The road was frozen. The village lay quiet under the cold sky. Komako hitched up the skirt of her kimono and tucked it into her obi. The moon shone like a blade frozen in blue ice.”

Yasunari Kawabata book Snow Country

Source: Snow Country

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

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Shoe

“It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Hate , School

“Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase. Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself:. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor.”

Margaret Atwood book Alias Grace

Source: Alias Grace

Flowers , Strong , Night , Dead

“Me, I was still in the pygmy hippo in a skirt, singing lusty songs about Solomon's private life and a giant stone back and forth through the air as I climbed out of the quarry at the edge of the site.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Ring of Solomon

Source: The Ring of Solomon

Life , Singing

“If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“He laughs. And in his laugh I hear bliss. I hear feet dancing, the rush of skirts twirling. The sound of children.
Is that the first sign of love?
You hear in the person you're destined to love the sound of those yet to be born.”

Alyson Richman (1972) American writer

Source: The Lost Wife

Love , Children , Dance , Personality

“He put his hand on my waist, and my heart began to pound, a rougher rhythm than the music. I held my skirt. Our free hands met. His felt warm and comforting and unsettling and bewildering--all at once.”

Gail Carson Levine Ella Enchanted

Source: Ella Enchanted

Music , Heart

“Morely: You're trying to make me [i]Amelie[/i]
Oliver: Goodness, no. You'd look terrible in a skirt”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Kiss of Death

“For a woman, love is the highest dream, and if a man promises to build a ladder tall enough to reach it, she believes him, hikes up her skirt, and follows him to the stars.”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

Source: The Shoemaker's Wife

Love , Dreams , Star

“This is the first adventure I’ve survived without being kidnapped, attacked, knocked unconscious or possessed by evil spirits. A ripped blouse? Ruined skirt? Bad hair? I’d call this progress. ~Jaime Vegas”

Kelley Armstrong book No Humans Involved

Source: No Humans Involved

Evil

“The location was very difficult to get to. I recall rock-climbing a good deal of the way in that long skirt, and I felt terrible for the crew members who had to haul the heavy equipment. For some reason, they couldn't get there by helicopter.”

Madeleine Stowe (1958) American actress

On getting to the location of the last scene in the movie.
Mohican Press interview (2005)

Way

“I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Hymn to the Night, st. 1 (1839).

Light , Night

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)

Exercises , Girl , Wedding , Time

“Allah seeks you to thank Him and assigns to you His affairs. He has allowed time in the limited field (of life) so that you may vie with each other in seeking the reward (of Paradise). Therefore, tight up your girdles and wrap up the skirts. High courage and dinners do not go together. Sleep causes weakness in the big affairs of the day and (its) darkness obliterates the memories of courage.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Life , Courage , Sleep , Memory

“Everyone goes to the 'Grands-Boulevards' and let himself loose... Do not picture these in costume, they are not for the most part.... perhaps a clown with a big nose, or two girls with bare necks and short skirts.... the parade of the queens of the halls [Paris’ markets] is also one of the events.... Some are pretty but look awkward in their silk dresses and crowns, particularly as the broad sun displays their defects – perhaps a neck too thin or a painted face which shows ghastly white in the sunlight.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

In a letter to his mother, Paris, May 11, 1907; as quoted in Edward Hopper, Gail Levin, Bonfini Press, Switzerland 1984, p. 27
1905 - 1910

Girl , Sun , Parting , Painting

“How is it, Chloe, that your pretty skirt
Is torn so badly by the winds that hurt
Real people, you who, in eternity, sing
The hours, sun in your hair appearing
And disappearing? How is that your breasts
Are pierced by shrapnel, and the oak groves burn,
While you, charmed, caring not at all, turn
To run through forests of machinery and concrete
And haunt us with the echoes of your feet?”

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

"A Book in the Ruins" (1941)
Rescue (1945)

People , Appearance , Singing , Sun

“Pilgrim gets 1 hacked daughter,
And all we get are 40 hack reporters,
Uptown 100 skirts are bleeding,
And Mr. Evangilist says She's hit, ev'ry little bit.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Junkyard (1982), She's Hit

Daughters

“He reached his hand toward me. “You don’t mind my asking, do you?” “Of course not,” I say calmly as I reverse the lit end of the cigarette so that the flame is cupped in the palm. I reach for his handshake. He screams like a woman in distress with her skirt held high. I puff my meanness as he licks at the burn and whimpers, “You sonofagun. You’ve burned the dickens out of my hand.” “I know.” “But why? I didn’t do anything. I don’t even know you.” “I guess it’s my Samoan blood.” Sal rushes to my defense. He points his finger at the fag. “Out!” “But I didn’t do anything.” “Out, out!””

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

he shouts, his hands stiffly on the bar. The old fag picks himself up and begins to drag himself out.
Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 68.

“Man's secret horror of his foot is one of the explanations for the tendency to conceal its length and form as much as possible. Heels of greater or lesser height, depending on the sex, distract from the foot's low and flat character. Besides the uneasiness is often confused with a sexual uneasiness; this is especially striking among the Chinese who, after having atrophied the feet of women, situate them at the most excessive point of deviance. The husband himself must not see the nude feet of his wife, and it is incorrect and immoral in general to look at the feet of women. Catholic confessors, adapting themselves to this aberration, ask their Chinese penitents "if they have not looked at women's feet.
The same aberration is found among the Turks (Volga Turks, Turks of Central Asia), who consider it immortal to show their nude feet and whoe ven go to bed in stockings.
Nothing similar can be cited from classical antiquity (apart from the use of very high soles in tragedies). The most prudish Roman matrons constantly allowed their nude toes to be seen. On the other hand, modesty concerning feet developed excessively in the modern ea and only started to disappear in the nineteenth century. M. Salomon Reinarch has studied this development in detail in the article entitled Pieds pudiques [Modest Feet], insisting on the role of Spain, where women's feet have been the object of most dreaded anxiety and thus were the cause of crimes. The simple fact of allowing the shod foot to be seen, jutting up from under a skirt, was regarded as indecent. Under no circumstances was it possible to touch the foot of a woman.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, p.21-22

Women , Secret , Sex , Study

“These thirty years, and more, that I've spent among exotic, barbaric, indomitable gods and goddesses, nourished on myths, obsessed by symbols, nursed and bewitched by so many images which have come down to me from those submerged worlds, today seem to me to be the stages of a long initiation. Each one of these divine figures, each of these myths or symbols, is connected to a danger that was confronted and overcome. How many times I was almost lost, gone astray in this labyrinth where I risked being killed… These were not only bits of knowledge acquired slowly and leisurely in books, but so many encounters, confrontations, and temptations. I realize perfectly well now all the dangers I skirted during this long quest, and, in the first place, the risk of forgetting that I had a goal… that I wanted to reach a "center."”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

Journal entry (10 November 1959) published in No Souvenirs (1977) , 74-5. Journal II, 1957-1969 (1989).

God , Books , World , Knowledge

“She was an appetising woman with a full-cheeked smile, about thirty, a Nordic blonde but not icy, though ice was suggested in its tamed winter-sport aspects : the flush after skating, log-fires and hot rum and butter, fine heavy thighs, that would warm your hand like a muff, under a skirt that had swirled in a rink waltz. Her beaver lamb coat was thrust back from a green suit : solid charms, thoroughly wholesome, were indicated.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Right to an Answer (1960)

Smile , Sport , Winter

“Finally, she broke her silence and spelled it out to Dr. Burkley. Kneeling, John Kennedy's personal physician indicated her ghastly skirt with a trembling hand. "Another dress?", he suggested diffidently.
"No", she whispered fiercely, "Let them see the horror."”

William Manchester book The Death of a President

The Death of a President (1967)

Silence , Personality

“I leaned right over to kiss your stoney book
A little jealous of the ships with whom you flirt
A billion lovers with their cameras
Snap to look and in my fantasy
I sail beneath your skirt”

Andy Partridge (1953) British musician

"Statue of Liberty".
White Music (1978)

Books , Lovers , Kiss

“The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skits, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. There are tyrants, not Muslims. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what we are for but by what we are against. I would reverse that proposition, because in the present instance what we are against is a no brainer. Suicidist assassins ram wide-bodied aircraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and kill thousands of people: um, I'm against that. But what are we for? What will we risk our lives to defend? Can we unanimously concur that all the items in the preceding list — yes, even the short skirts and the dancing — are worth dying for? The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them. How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992–2002

Love , Life , Women , War

“Since 1914…I wait for the natural to return; for newspapers to report news with care for accuracy and grammar; for schools to teach and for pupils to study; for faces to be sane and intelligent, and even humorous; for American artists and poets and writers to be exuberant and optimistic…it is all gone with the music of Vienna and the gaiety of San Francisco. But I still see everything against that background, and really I see nothing funny anywhere. The Beatnik beard and the mini skirt and the topless waitress, they ARE funny, I know they are funny but they only make me tired, I don't laugh.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

letter to Roger MacBride (March 5, 1968).
reflecting her impressions of the world of 1968, at the age of 81.

School , Music , Intelligence , Nature

“Were I a cloud I'd gather
My skirts up in the air,
And fly I well know whither,
And rest I well know where.”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

Book I, No. 4, The Cliff-Top.
Shorter Poems (1879-1893)

Flying

“Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

"Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni" (1802)

Flowers

“The cows sit on the telegraph poles and play chess
The cockatoo under the skirts of the Spanish dancer
Sings as sadly as a headquarters bugler and the cannon lament all day…”

Richard Huelsenbeck (1892–1974) German poet

End of the World, Ende der Welt', 1919

Singing

“Thy skirts indeed the foe may part,
Thy robe be pierced with sword and dart,
They shall not touch thy noble heart,
Carolina!”

Henry Timrod (1828–1867) Poet from the American South

"Carolina", st. V, 3

Heart , Parting

“Not everybody likes to get really dressed up, but everybody wears shorts and T-shirts. … A dress and a skirt, you definitely won’t see me in. Other than that, I’m pretty much open.”

Antoine Bethea (1984) American football player, defensive back, safety

"Antoine Bethea sportswear makes a statement with inspirational sayings" https://www.sfchronicle.com/style/article/Antoine-Bethea-sportswear-makes-a-statement-with-6497263.php, interview with the San Francisco Chronicle (10 September 2015).

“At the beginning [of The X-Files] the pay disparity was massive. But that happens all the time in Hollywood. It's, 'Do this for me, I'll get you a job.' All the stuff in the papers today about people in entertainment who have abused their position… it's built into our society. It's easy to miss and it's easy to get used to it. There are things that are intolerable in today's world, in terms of the perception of women. Whether they're vamps or vixens, the expectation that, if a woman is wearing a short skirt, she's 'asking for it.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

About the wage gap in Hollywood and sexism — Red Online "Life Is Short, Follow your Heart" http://www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/interviews/interview-gillian-anderson-talks-jamie-dornan-pictures (November 10, 2014)
2010s

Women , People , World , Time

“On those shoulders of the garden, August’s unkempt and harridan luxuriance had expanded into silent hollows of enormous burdocks, holding sway with their flaps of shaggy, leafy tin plate, straggling tongues of fleshy green. Those distended rag dolls of burdocks bulged there like peasant women sitting around half-devoured by their own crazy skirts.”

Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) Polish novelist and painter

“August” http://www.schulzian.net/translation/shops/august1.htm
His father, Living things

Women

“Skirting the rocks at the forest edge
With a running flame from ledge to ledge,
Or swaying deeper in shadowy glooms,
A smoldering fire in her dusky blooms;
Bronzed and molded by wind and sun,
Maddening, gladdening every one
With a gypsy beauty full and fine,—
A health to the crimson columbine!”

Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863–1953) American novelist, poet

Columbine; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 124.

Health , Beauty , Sun

“It was like the game that young girls play beside a sandy beach, when they roll their skirts up to their waists on either side and toss a ball round to one another, throwing it high in the air so that it never touches the ground. Thus, though the water swirled and seethed around them, these sea-nymphs kept Argo from the Rocks.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book IV. Homeward Bound, Lines 948–955

Girl , Game , Water , Sea

“Lord, for sixty-so years I've surrendered my love,
to emblems of kindness, and not the kindness they were emblems of,
Trammels and rings, with the strength of old strings,
and some hobble skirt spring, by the old problem caught,
Children, sometimes I think all our thoughts are just things,
and then sometimes think things are just thoughts"
and the rabble rang.”

Aaron Weiss

Elephant in the Dock.
Ten Stories

Love , Children , Spring , Problem

“Perhaps the single most valuable contribution of feminism has been the way it has chipped away at men's fantasies about women. Today it is the destructive woman, consciously or unconsciously intent on controlling, manipulating and exploiting men, who feeds on his regressive, pathetic desire to see himself as the dominant superman. … This hostile attitude was well expressed by one woman who responded with the following comment to a survey on attitudes and experiences regarding the roles of men and women in our society. She wrote:"[If men learn that women are superior] we'll be stuck with a lot of sniveling little boys clinging to our skirts. It's better to let them think they're king of the castle, lean and depend on them, and continue to control and manipulate them as we always have."A man is in jeopardy if he fails to realize that the "fragile," "passive" women of today is not "feminine" but repressed, and may well emerge as the angry woman of tomorrow who will turn the tables on him at a time when he may hardly be prepared or equipped to adapt to the changes. Such is the price of refusing to recognize what is.”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

He and His Changes, pp. 188–189
The New Male (1979)

Women , Men , Hostility , Way

“I had a barbecue stain on my white T-shirt.
She was killin' me in that mini-skirt.
Skipping rocks on the river by the railroad tracks.
She had a suntan line and red lipstick.
I work so hard for that first kiss and a heart don't forget, something like that.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Something Like That
Song lyrics, A Place in the Sun (1999)

Kiss , Heart , Forgetting

“To the Kathakali Man these stories are his children and his childhood. He has grown up within them. They are the house he was raised in, the meadows he played in. They are his windows and his way of seeing. So when he tells a story, he handles it as he would a child of his own. He teases it. He punishes it. He sends it up like a bubble. He wrestles it to the ground and lets it go again. He laughs at it because he loves it. He can fly you across whole worlds in minutes, he can stop for hours to examine a wilting leaf. Or play with a sleeping monkey's tail. He can turn effortlessly from the carnage of war into the felicity of a woman washing her hair in a mountain stream. From the crafty ebullience of a rakshasa with a new idea into a gossipy Malayali with a scandal to spread. From the sensuousness of a woman with a baby at her breast into the seductive mischief of Krishna's smile. He can reveal the nugget of sorrow that happiness contains. The hidden fish of shame in a sea of glory.
He tells stories of the gods, but his yarn is spun from the ungodly, human heart.
The Kathakali Man is the most beautiful of men. Because his body is his soul. His only instrument. From the age of three he has been planed and polished, pared down, harnessed wholly to the task of story-telling. He has magic in him, this man within the painted mark and swirling skirts.
But these days he has become unviable. Unfeasible. Condemned goods. His children deride him. They long to be everything that he is not. He has watched them grow up to become clerks and bus conductors. Class IV non-gazetted officers. With unions of their own.
But he himself, left dangling somewhere between heaven and earth, cannot do what they do. He cannot slide down the aisles of buses, counting change and selling tickets. He cannot answer bells that summon him. He cannot stoop behind trays of tea and Marie biscuits.
In despair he turns to tourism. He enters the market. He hawks the only thing he owns. The stories that his body can tell.
He becomes a Regional Flavour.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

page 230-231.
The God of Small Things (1997)

Love , Men , God , War

“It’s no go the Yogi-Man, it’s no go Blavatsky,
All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi.”

Louis MacNeice (1907–1963) poet

"Bagpipe Music", line 9, from The Earth Compels (1938)

“Mexico is a nineteenth-century country arranged for gaslight. Once brought into the harsh light of the twentieth-century media, Mexico can only seem false. In its male, in its public, its city aspect, Mexico is an arch-tranvestite, a tragic buffoon. Dogs bark and babies cry when Mother Mexico walks abroad in the light of day. The policeman, the Marxist mayor — Mother Mexico doesn't even bother to shave her mustachios. Swords and rifles and spurs and bags of money chink and clatter beneath her skirts. A chain of martyred priests dangles from her waist, for she is an austere, pious lady. Ay, how much — clutching her jangling bosoms; spilling cigars — how much she has suffered.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

"Night and Day" in Frontiers (1990)

Money , Dogs , Light , Suffering

“Tommy started to play the guitar and sing. He and I had trekked more than once downtown to the Folk Center to hear a barefoot hillbilly woman in a long, faded skirt intone Elizabethan songs and pluck at a dulcimer or to listen, frightened and transported, to a big black Lesbian with a crew cut moan her way through the blues. The People — those brawny, smiling farmers, those plump, wholesome teens bursting out of bib overalls, those toothless ex-cons, those white-eyed dust bowel victims — the People, half-glimpsed in old photos, films and WPA murals, were about to reemerge, we trusted, into history and our lives.”

Edmund White book A Boy's Own Story

Source: A Boy's Own Story (1982), Chapter Five (p. 120).

People , Smile , Way , Photo

“So it is easily seen that the sexual insignes are nothing in themselves, for any of them, in another time and place, might belong to both sexes, the other sex, or neither. In other words, a skirt does not make the social entity, woman. It takes a skirt plus a social attitude to do it.
But all through history, in virtually every culture and country, there has indeed been a “woman’s province” and a “man’s province,” and in most cases the differences between them have been exploited to fantastic, sometimes sickening extremes.
Why?”

Theodore Sturgeon book Venus Plus X

Section 41 (p. 125)
Venus Plus X (1960)

Sex , History , Time , Country

“According to the current doctrines of mysticoscientism, we human animals are really and actually nothing but "organic patterns of nodular energy composed of collocations of infinitesimal points oscillating on the multi-dimensional coordinates of the space-time continuum." I'll have to think about that. Sometime. Meantime, I'm going to gnaw on this sparerib, drink my Blatz beer, and contemplate the a posteriori coordinates of that young blonde over yonder, the one in the tennis skirt, tying her shoelaces.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

Drink , Beer , Thinking , Time

“We were emerging from the period of war, of uniforms, of women-soldiers built like boxers. I drew women-flowers, soft shoulders, fine waists like liana and wide skirts like corolla.”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

Women , War , Flowers

“You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye,
And I got that red lip, classic thing that you like.
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time,
'Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style.
You've got that long hair slick back, white t-shirt
And I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt.
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time.
'Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Style, written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, Shellback, and Ali Payami
Song lyrics, 1989 (2014)

Faith , Girl , Time

“Those were the days of "Florodora" and of sextets, of pinched-in waists and blown-out sleeves, of almost bustles and absolute ballet skirts, but here, without doubt, disguised as she might be by the unaccustomed stiffness and old fashion of her costume, was a butterfly of butterflies. Here was the gayety of the period — the soft wine of eyes, the songs that flurried hearts, the toasts and tie bouquets, the dances and the dinners. Here was a Venus of the hansom, cab, the Gibson girl in her glorious prime. Here was…”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

"The Lees of Happiness"
Quoted, Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)

Girl , Fashion , Wine , Heart

“I've been the girl with her skirt pulled high,
Been the outcast never running with mascara eyes.
I see the world as a candy store
With a cigarette smile saying things you can't ignore.”

Pink (singer) (1979) American singer-songwriter

God Is a DJ, written by Pink, Billy Mann and Jonathan S. Davis
Song lyrics, Try This (2003)

World , Smile , Girl

“I like it in the city when the air is so thick and opaque
I love to see everybody in short skirts, shorts and shades
I like it in the city when two worlds collide
You get the people and the government
Everybody taking different sides.”

Adele (singer) (1988) British singer-songwriter

Hometown Glory.
Song lyrics, 19 (2008)

Love , People , World

“His body was now very close to hers, and he dared to bring his hand under her skirt.
“Where is your underwear?” he asked.
“I lost it.”
“Where?”
“In the garden. It fell off when I was spying. I didn’t have time to retrieve it.””

Amanda Filipacchi book Love Creeps

Love Creeps (2005)

Time

“Colour is what gives jewels their worth. They light up and enhance the face. Nothing is more elegant than a black skirt and sweater worn with a sparkling multi-stoned necklace.”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

Source: Maria Doulton Simply brilliant: Cher Dior lights up Paris http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/jewellery/2928/simply-brilliant-cher-dior-lights-up-paris.html. The Telegraph, 16 August 2011

Light

“In televisionland we are all sophisticated enough now to realize that every statistic has an equal and opposite statistic somewhere in the universe. It is not a candidate's favorite statistic per se that engages us, but the assurance with which he can use it.
We are testing the candidates for self-confidence, for "Presidentiality" in statistical bombardment. It doesn't really matter if their statistics be homemade. What settles the business is the cool with which they are dropped.
And so, as the second half hour treads the decimaled path toward the third hour, we become aware of being locked in a tacit conspiracy with the candidates. We know their statistics go to nothing of importance, and they know we know, and we know they know we know.
There is total but unspoken agreement that the "debate," the arguments which are being mustered here, are of only the slightest importance.
As in some primitive ritual, we all agree — candidates and onlookers — to pretend we are involved in a debate, although the real exercise is a test of style and manners. Which of the competitors can better execute the intricate maneuvers prescribed by a largely irrelevant ritual?
This accounts for the curious lack of passion in both performers. Even when Ford accuses Carter of inconsistency, it is done in a flat, emotionless, game-playing style. The delivery has the tuneless ring of an old press release from the Republican National Committee. Just so, when Carter has an opportunity to set pulses pounding by denouncing the Nixon pardon, he dances delicately around the invitation like a maiden skirting a bog.
We judge that both men judge us to be drained of desire for passion in public life, to be looking for Presidents who are cool and noninflammable. They present themselves as passionless technocrats using an English singularly devoid of poetry, metaphor and even coherent forthright declaration.
Caught up in the conspiracy, we watch their coolness with fine technical understanding and, in the final half hour, begin asking each other for technical judgments. How well is Carter exploiting the event to improve our image of him? Is Ford's television manner sufficiently self-confident to make us sense him as "Presidential"?
It is quite extraordinary. Here we are, fully aware that we are being manipulated by image projectionists, yet happily asking ourselves how obligingly we are submitting to the manipulation. It is as though a rat running a maze were more interested in the psychologist's charts on his behavior than in getting the cheese at the goal line.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"And All of Us So Cool" (p.340)
There's a Country in My Cellar (1990)

Life , Men , Behavior , Exercises

“Remember, [in the Bible] it's adultery only if the woman is already married. It doesn't matter if the man is married. If he is, she may just become another one of his wives, and a man can have sex with other women who aren't his wives, and that's not cheating either, as long as they live with him, because a man is also allowed to have concubines, and a concubine is a sort of sexual servant who serves no other purpose and has no claim to your estate. Your wife may not have a claim to your estate either, because when you die your wife may become your brother's sexual property. That's how the Bible defines marriage! The Bible does not prohibit multiple wives or incest either. In fact, both are promoted. However, when your father dies, your mother does not become your wife, and you can't inherit any of his other wives either, and the reason that the Bible gives for that is because that would be like looking up your father's skirt… So, a man can have multiple wives and a collection of personal harlots, but he can also have sex with his slaves, and that's not cheating either. You've heard of friends with benefits? You can call this your property rights. That's the only way that makes sense, because according to the Bible all women are property, and property doesn't have rights. Now, some people equate having sex with slaves to rape, because the slave doesn't have any choice. But, according to the Bible, women don't have any choice anyway, and rape can be a prelude to matrimony; if you're a Bronze Age Israelite and you see some young cutie walking unescorted, if you like her, you want her, you can have her, even if she doesn't want you. Now, if you rape a married woman, that's a death sentence for both of you (because the Bible is stupid like that). But if she's not promised to someone else, and you rape her and you get caught, you have to pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she's yours. He may not want her back after that, even his own child, because an unmarried woman who wasn't a virgin was considered damaged goods back then, so they had this rule that "if you pop it, you buy it." So your victim becomes your bride and you're stuck together forever, and can never get divorced (so be careful who you rape). There's actually a cheaper [and] easier way to get a bride; if a man takes a wife and decides he doesn't like her, if he can prove she wasn't a virgin (or if he can convince other people that was probably not a virgin), she she will be murdered on her father's doorstep because, according to the god of infinite mercy, that's the moral thing to do. But if she can prove that she was a virgin, then she must remain married forever to the man who hates her, because that's divine wisdom too. That unpleasant arrangement for both of you will also cost you a hundred shekels, whereas you can marry your rape victim for half the price. So, if you're a complete loser, and you can't get any woman who appeals to you by the normal way, just rape whoever you like and she's yours forever.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Biblical Family Values https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bldw8X5apnY (July 11, 2015)

Death , Wisdom , Women , God

“Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,
Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
With here and there a violet bestrewn,
Fast by a brook or fountain’s murmuring wave;
And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!”

James Beattie (1735–1803) Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher

Book ii. Stanza 17.
The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771)

Sun

“Stop, you idiot!" I bawled at her. Her face laughed over her shoulder at me. She walked without haste to the door, her short skirt of gray flannel shaping itself to the calf of each gray wool-stockinged leg as its mate stepped forward. Sweat greased the gun in my hand. When her right foot was on the doorsill, a little chuckling sound came from her throat. "Adieu!" she said softly.
And I put a bullet in the calf of her leg. She sat down--plump! Utter surprise stretched her white face. It was too soon for pain. I had never shot a woman before. I felt queer about it.
"You ought to have known I'd do it!”

Dashiell Hammett book The Gutting of Couffignal

My voice sounded harsh and savage and like a stranger's in my ears. "Didn't I steal a crutch from a cripple?"
final lines, The Gutting of Couffignal (published in Black Mask, December 1925)
Short Stories

Pain

“Back and forth the fantastic tableaux would spin, past his cruel plebe hazing, the self-discovery at the West Texas Military Academy, the patriarchal Judge MacArthur, all beard and cigar smoke, presiding over dynastic feats at Washington's 1201 N Street; the chimes of the drawing-room clock there telling off the quarters; the ceremonial changing of the guard at Leavenworth; his father's tales of Sherman's dauntless Boys in Blue; his mother's imperious commands to fight and fight and never lower his blade short of victory; the clean crack of Krag rifles and the warm prickling of desert sand as he played with his brother outside the fort stockade; the rumbling of the sunset gun and Pinky's face tilting downward, her lambent smile gilding the child's upturned features while he clutched at her cascading skirts; the yellow notes of the bugles as he stirred in his cradle; the chant of sergeants hawking cadence on the parade ground outside; and, snapping proudly in the overarching sky above him, the flag, and the flag, and the flag.”

William Manchester (1922–2004) (April 1, 1922 – June 1, 2004) American author, journalist and historian

Source: American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 (1978), p. 709

Smile , Boy , Change , Past

“I know very well the women. The short skirt was never a good fashion — very vulgar. The American women will accept the new fashions. You can never stop the fashions.”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

Source: Malcolm Perrine McNair, ‎Harry L. Hansen (1949) Problems in Marketing. p. 165

Women , Fashion

“Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Asimov's Guide to Science (1972), p. 15
General sources

“Dirty wind, I like the way you dey wind
And the way you dey do
You fit make Timaya go mad
So fine girl, pull down your skirt ah”

Slim Burna (1988) Nigerian singer and record producer

"Shokoto" (track 9)
I'm On Fire (2013)

Way , Girl , Madness

“And yet, gentlemen, you expect your wives, the creatures you say you respect and love, to wear the longest skirts and the highest necked clothing, in order to conceal the obscene human body. There is no society for the prevention of cruelty to women.”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

Sex Slavery (1890)
Context: Who thinks a dog is impure or obscene because its body is not covered with suffocating and annoying clothes? What would you think of the meanness of a man who would put a skirt upon his, horse and compel it to walk or run with such a thing impeding its limbs? Why, the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" would arrest him, take the beast from him, and he would be sent to a lunatic asylum for treatment on the score of an impure mind. And yet, gentlemen, you expect your wives, the creatures you say you respect and love, to wear the longest skirts and the highest necked clothing, in order to conceal the obscene human body. There is no society for the prevention of cruelty to women.

Love , Women , Clothes

“Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang upon the skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice that slavery no longer exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon their communities?”

Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) American politician, 23rd President of the United States (in office from 1889 to 1893)

Inaugural address (1889)
Context: Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang upon the skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice that slavery no longer exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon their communities? I look hopefully to the continuance of our protective system and to the consequent development of manufacturing and mining enterprises in the States hitherto wholly given to agriculture as a potent influence in the perfect unification of our people. The men who have invested their capital in these enterprises, the farmers who have felt the benefit of their neighborhood, and the men who work in shop or field will not fail to find and to defend a community of interest.

Communication

“I shall grasp the soul's skirt with my hand
and stamp on the world's head with my foot.”

Attar of Nishapur (1145–1230) Persian Sufi poet

As quoted in Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew Poems (2001) by Bernard Lewis, p. 119
Context: I shall grasp the soul's skirt with my hand
and stamp on the world's head with my foot.
I shall trample Matter and Space with my horse,
beyond all Being I shall utter a great shout,
and in that moment when I shall be alone with Him,
I shall whisper secrets to all mankind.
Since I have neither sign nor name
I shall speak only of things unnamed and without sign.

World , Soul

“Statistics are just like mini-skirts — they give you good ideas but hide the most important things.”

Эббе Сковдал (1945)

Idea

“I don’t dwell on the miserable. I skirt around that. Give it a wave. Wave goodbye and concentrate on the good things.”

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

“His greatest delight was in dreaming up a new costume, a talent he displayed early on... One year he transformed his sister into King Neptune with a bodice made of shells and raffia skirt …Never without a notebook, he scribbled down ideas as they occurred to him.”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

In p. 13
Christian Dior: The Man who Made the World Look New

Idea , Sister , Dreams

“I would never do something with just puppets... But I like the things puppets allow you to do. I had this puppet Dinah Donewell, and she had this hand puppet named Mr. Pleaser. He was her lap dog who was constantly under her skirt. Now if you did that with actors, people would be offended. But in this case, so what? It was a puppet with a puppet.”

Julie Taymor (1952) American film and theatre director

As quoted in "New York at Work; Puppeteer Creates Shows for Grown-Ups" by N. R. Kleinfield The New York Times (2 July 1991)

Dogs , People

“Who told me to, stay true to the story. Told me not to lose my femininity, because I am directing. So if I want to go to work in a skirt and lipstick, I should. I don't have to be male, to be the boss. And to never hook up with the actors. Best piece of Advise.”

Zoya Akhtar (1974) Indian film director

as an answer to the question: Whats the most useful advise you ever got from a fellow director?

From Mira Nair.

On the Sets, at 25 Min 06 Sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3deXjh9X0_U
Panel interview at MAMI(Mumbai Academy of Moving Image) Film Festival

“Mother Nature doesn’t want power-tripping greedheads looking up her skirts.”

Rudy Rucker book Mathematicians in Love

Source: Mathematicians in Love (2006), Chapter 2, “Cone Shell Aliens” (p. 59)

Nature