Tails Quotes - Page 15

• How come it can’t fly no better than a chicken?’ Milkman asked. Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that [stuff]. Wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down.’ The peacock jumped onto the hood of the Buick and once more spread its tail, sending the flashy Buick into oblivion.

  Toni Morrison

  Giving Up, Vanity, Stuff

  Toni Morrison (1987). “Sula”

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• Because hate's just the flip side of love. Like heads and tails on a dime. If you don't know what it feels like to love someone, how would you know what hate is? One can't exist without the other.

  Jodi Picoult

  Hate, Dimes, Flip

  Jodi Picoult (2012). “Lone Wolf: A Novel”, p.414, Simon and Schuster

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• Why, did you know that if a beaver two feet long with a tail a foot and a half long can build a dam twelve feet high and six feet wide in two days, all you would need to build Boulder Dam is a beaver sixty-eight feet long with a fifty-one-foot tail?" "Where would you find a beaver that big?" grumbled the Humbug as his pencil point snapped. "I'm sure I don't know," he replied, "but if you did, you'd certainly know what to do with him.

  Norton Juster

  Eight, Two, Feet

  Norton Juster (2011). “The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.175, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal. But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart.

  Philip Pullman

  Mean, Two, Doe

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• She’s really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail, the one who needed help reaching the dishes, and who begged to see the frosted cakes in the bakery window. Time and tragedy have forced her to grow too quickly, at least for my taste, into a young woman who stitches bleeding wounds and knows our mother can hear only so much.

  Suzanne Collins

  Girl, Mother, Cake

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• He would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.

  George Orwell

  Given

  George Orwell (2016). “Animal Farm”, p.1, Hamilton Books

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• Tuck in your tail, little duck.

  Suzanne Collins

  Ducks, Littles

  Suzanne Collins (2009). “The Hunger Games”, p.17, Scholastic Inc.

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• That was the thing to remember about all monsters, They love to frighten people, but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run.

  Jeannette Walls

  Running, People, Monsters

  Jeannette Walls (2009). “The Glass Castle: A Memoir”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

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• All great fighting is the same, Eragon, even as all great warriors are the same. Past a certain point, it does not matter whether you wield a sword, a claw, a tooth or a tail. It is true, you must be capable with your weapon, but anyone with the time, and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness, and it is those qualities that the best warriors share, even if, on the surface, they appear completely different.

  Christopher Paolini

  Fighting, Warrior, Past

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• Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry. Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting. Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out. Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies. Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail. Katherine: In his tongue. Petruchio: Whose tongue? Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell. Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.

  William Shakespeare

  Lying, Farewell, Gentleman

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• He loves me, and I reward his love by forcing on him something he hates. In the evening, after we dance, he rarely returns to the throne; he dances with others or moves from place to place through the room. The court thinks he is trying to be gracious, sharing his attention. Only I see that he moves always to the empty spot and the court always moves after him. He is like a dog trying to escape his own tail. He indulged himself in one brief moment of privacy, and almost died of it. Relius, he hates being king.

  Megan Whalen Turner

  Dog, Kings, Hate

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• In the distance a wolf howls. Let it come, I think. Beast will most likely simply howl back, and the creature will either turn tail and run or fall into line behind him, like the rest of us have.

  R.L. LaFevers

  Running, Distance, Fall

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• A pharaoh's profile, a Krishna's grace, tail like a question mark.

  Louis MacNeice

  Cat, Grace, Pharaohs

  Louis MacNeice (2015). “Collected Poems”, p.425, Faber & Faber

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• The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.

  Mark Twain

  Learning, Cat, Men

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• The more you rub a cat on the rump, the higher she sets her tail.

  John Ray

  Cat, Higher

  John Ray, John Belfour (1813). “A complete collection of English proverbs: also, the most celebrated proverbs of the Scotch, Italian, French, Spanish, and other languages”, p.88

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• To call him a dog hardly seems to do him justice, though inasmuch as he had four legs, a tail, and barked, I admit he was, to all outward appearances. But to those who knew him well, he was a perfect gentleman.

  Hermione Gingold

  Dog, Loss, Perfect

  Hermione Gingold (1958). “The world is square”

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• Oh the saddest of sights in a world of sin Is the little lost pup with his tail tucked in.

  Arthur Guiterman

  Dog, Loss, Sight

  Arthur Guiterman (1915). “The Laughing Muse”

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• Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Drama, Character, Cat

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.489, Library of America

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• A mere index hunter, who held the eel of science by the tail.

  Tobias Smollett

  Science, Eels, Hunters

  Tobias George Smollett, Tobias Smollett (1831). “The adventures of Peregrine Pickle: In which are included, Memoirs of a lady of quality. In four volumes. ...”, p.246

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• Index-learning turns no student pale,
  Yet holds the eel of Science by the tail.
  Index-learning is a term used to mock pretenders who acquire superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes.

  Alexander Pope

  Learning, Science, Superficial Knowledge

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• I have said I have met Satan, and this is true. But it is not tangible. It no more has horns, hooves and a forked tail than God has a long white beard. Even the name, Satan, is just a name we have given to something basically nameless.

  M. Scott Peck

  Fear, Names, White

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• "All right", said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

  Lewis Carroll

  Cat, Gone, Grinning

  1865 The disappearance of the Cheshire Cat. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, ch.6,'Pig and Pepper'.

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• And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory; and grasp the tail that like a monstrous asp coils round your heavy velvet paws.

  Oscar Wilde

  Cat, Ivory, Yellow

  Oscar Wilde (2014). “Poems”, p.105, Simon and Schuster

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• Your rat tail is all the fashion now. I prefer a bushy plume, carried straight up. You are Siamese and your ancestors lived in trees. Mine lived in palaces. It has been suggested to me that I am a bit of a snob. How true! I prefer to be.

  Raymond Chandler

  Fashion, Cat, Tree

  Raymond Chandler (1987). “Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler”, Delta

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• My mother always told me not to handle a buffalo by its tail, but always catch it by its horns. And I have used that lesson in everything in my life, including the Railways.

  Lalu Prasad Yadav

  Life, Mother, Horny

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