Handkerchiefs Quotes

• In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.

  Frederick Buechner

  Flirting, Saint, World

  Frederick Buechner (1973). “Wishful thinking: a theological ABC.”, Harper San Francisco

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• The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed, and though the weather was uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them.

  Fanny Kemble

  Weather, People, Curiosity

  Fanny Kemble (1879). “Records of a Girlhood”

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• I'd rather break stones on the king's highway than hem a handkerchief.

  Anne Sullivan Macy

  Kings, Hem, Stones

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• A cat determined not to be found can fold itself up like a pocket handkerchief if it wants to.

  Louis J. Camuti

  Cat, Pockets, Want

  Dr. louis J. Camuti, Marilyn Frankel, Haskel Frankel (1985). “All My Patients are Under the Bed”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

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• A handkerchief can never be put in another pocket after it has been in one pocket. I don't walk under ladders. I have items of clothing that are lucky for me. That rotates, but I am luck-oriented.

  Rachel Maddow

  Luck, Pockets, Ladders

  "A Pundit in the Country". Interview with Edward Lewine, www.nytimes.com. October 17, 2008.

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• You have a handkerchief, put it in your pocket.

  Jude Law

  Pockets, Showy

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• He [George Orwell] would not blow his nose without moralising on conditions in the handkerchief industry.

  Cyril Connolly

  Art, Blow, Noses

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• Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief.

  Mark Twain

  Blood, Stranger, Intimate

  Mark Twain (2004). “Mark Twain’s Helpful Hints for Good Living: A Handbook for the Damned Human Race”, p.27, Univ of California Press

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• I sometimes shy away because I don't want to be too 'showy-offy' but the older I get I think, 'You have a handkerchief, put it in your pocket.'

  Jude Law

  Thinking, Pockets, Shy

  61 Copy quote

• Just two days in Manhattan and you find yourself looking for a place to wash your handkerchief after you wipe your forehead and it comes away black. Is there a dirtier or more fascinating city anywhere in the land? The answer to both parts of the question has to be positively negative.

  Herb Caen

  Land, Cities, Two

  54 Copy quote

• You are offered a piece of bread and butter that feels like a damp handkerchief and sometimes, when cucumber is added to it, like a wet one.

  Compton Mackenzie

  Food, Cooking, Pieces

  'Vestal Fire' (1927) bk. 1, ch. 3

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• The invention of basketball was not an accident. It was developed to meet a need.

  James Naismith

  Basketball, Needs, Invention

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• Lust: Which senator once reached for a handkerchief in his pocket and proceeded to wipe his brow with a pair of women's panties?

  Brad Meltzer

  Lust, Pockets, Underwear

  54 Copy quote

• Do not be afraid to love. Remember dear old Don Quixote, viewing the world with love. He saw many beautiful things no one else saw. Try being dear Don Quixote for a day. You'll see that love improves your vision and allows you to see more than your eye has ever seen before. But be forewarned: Those who look on the world with love will need a handkerchief, not to use as a blindfold, but to blow their nose and dry their tears.

  Bernie Siegel

  Love, Beautiful, Eye

  Bernie Siegel (2013). “Prescriptions For Living: Inspirational Lessons for a Joyful, Loving Life”, p.58, Random House

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• One judge is coughing his life out into bloody handkerchiefs and the other is burying his wife, and you think this is how God answers your prayers?

  Orson Scott Card

  Prayer, Thinking, Wife

  Orson Scott Card (2010). “Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker”, p.230, Macmillan

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• Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a stone; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Positive, Girl

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (191?). “Society and solitude, Letters and social aims”

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• I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never without a pocket-handkerchief.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Pockets, Genuine

  Edgar Allan Poe, Stuart Levine, Susan Levine (1976). “The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition”, p.221, University of Illinois Press

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• Take my handkerchief, Scarlett. Never, at any crisis of your life, have I known you to have a handkerchief.

  Margaret Mitchell

  Wind, Butlers, Crisis

  Margaret Mitchell (2016). “Gone with the Wind”, p.673, Hamilton Books

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• Once upon a time there were three little foxes
  Who didn't wear stockings, and they didn't wear sockses,
  But they all had handkerchiefs to blow their noses,
  And they kept their handkerchiefs in cardboard boxes.

  A. A. Milne

  Blow, Once Upon A Time, Foxes

  A. A. Milne (2011). “When We Were Very Young”, p.48, Egmont UK

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• They leave things behind sometimes, the guests. A bottle of scent. A crumpled handkerchief. A pearl button that fell off a dress and rolled under a bed. And sometimes they leave other sorts of things. Things you can't see. A sigh trapped in a corner. Memories tangled in the curtains. A sob fluttering against the windowpane like a bird that flew in and can't get back out. I can feel these things. They dart and crouch and whisper.

  Jennifer Donnelly

  Memories, Tangled, Bird

  Jennifer Donnelly (2015). “A Gathering Light”, p.82, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• The morning is full of storm in the heart of summer. The clouds travel like white handkerchiefs of goodbye, the wind, travelling, waving them in its hands. The numberless heart of the wind beating above our loving silence. Orchestral and divine, resounding among the trees like a language full of wars and songs.

  Pablo Neruda

  Summer, Goodbye, Song

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• I didn't cry much after I was 35, but staggered stony-faced into middle age, a handkerchief still in my bag just in case.

  Hilary Mantel

  Age, Bags, Cry

  "Author, Author: Unfreezing antique feeling" by Hilary Mantel, www.theguardian.com. August 14, 2009.

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• You might be a redneck if your handkerchief doubles as your shirt sleeve.

  Jeff Foxworthy

  Redneck, Might, Shirts

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• He produced a handkerchief—crisply folded—and handed it to her. She took it with silent astonishment. She’d never before known anyone who carried a handkerchief.

  Cassandra Clare

  Astonishment, Silent, Known

  Cassandra Clare (2010). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (3 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass”, p.75, Simon and Schuster

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• Walden is the only book I own, although there are some others unclaimed on my shelves. Every man, I think, reads one book in his life, and this is mine. It is not the best book I ever encountered, perhaps, but it is for me the handiest, and I keep it about me in much the same way one carries a handkerchief - for relief in moments of defluxion or despair.

  E. B. White

  Book, Men, Thinking

  "In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers".

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