Napkins Quotes

• Nothing is more pleasant than to see a pretty woman, her napkin well placed under her arms, one of her hands on the table, while the other carries to her mouth, the choice piece so elegantly carved.

  Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

  Hands, Choices, Pretty Woman

  Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (2012). “The Physiology of Taste: Or, Transcendental Gastronomy”, p.75, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• I've been in more laps than a napkin.

  Mae West

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  "The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said" by Robert Byrne, #685, 2006.

  36 Copy quote

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• Luxury lives in the finer details. It's a cloth napkin at a dinner table. It's a mint on your pillow before bed.

  Iggy Azalea

  Fashion, Luxury, Bed

  "Ten Questions: Iggy Azalea". Interview with Yale Breslin, www.elle.com. December 18, 2012.

  15 Copy quote

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• She's been on more laps than a napkin.

  Walter Winchell

  Sarcastic, Lap

  25 Copy quote

• The most exciting business ideas fit on the back of an airplane napkin.

  Carmine Gallo

  Airplane, Ideas, Fit

  16 Copy quote

• After eating, an epicure gives a thin smile of satisfaction; a gastronome, burping into his napkin, praises the food in a magazine; a gourmet, repressing his burp, criticizes the food in the same magazine; a gourmand belches happily and tells everybody where he ate; a glutton empraces the white porcelain alter, or more plainly, he barfs.

  William Safire

  White, Giving, Satisfaction

  William Safire (2011). “Language Maven Strikes Again”, p.480, Doubleday

  13 Copy quote

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• I find that a shirt is most similar to a napkin when I don't have a napkin.

  Demetri Martin

  Shirts

  Twitter post from Jun 27, 2014

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• Reservations and cloth napkins are really minor pinnacles in the high sierra of the New York lunch. The zenith, the Mount Whitney of lunches, the noon meal at which all local lines of force converge [is] the Bar Room of the Four Seasons.

  Raymond Sokolov

  New York, Lunch, Four

  18 Copy quote

• If you have a napkin, you need another napkin to receive back all the blessings you'll get. And you keep giving. Then you need a towel to receive all the gifts. And you continue giving. Finally, you need a tablecloth. And you continue giving - not stupidly, but you give. And when you give, you finally have to move out and get a second house, and a third house and a fourth.It is a no - fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can't do anything with that except do it.

  Maya Angelou

  Moving, Reality, Blessing

  7 Copy quote

• The big success stories - Facebook, Zynga and Twitter - are leading to investing in ideas on a napkin, because no one wants to miss out on the next big thing.

  Eric Lefkofsky

  Ideas, Missing, Stories

  7 Copy quote

• Never trust the food in a restaurant on top of the tallest building in town that spends a lot of time folding napkins.

  Andy Rooney

  Food, Cooking, Towns

  Andy Rooney (2009). “Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit”, p.263, PublicAffairs

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• Our good time is sitting in a coffee shop with a newspaper, writing a line on the back of a napkin. That is the most fun comedians ever have

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Fun, Coffee, Writing

  5 Copy quote

• At the dinner table, if you can't think of anything to say, sit quietly. Don't throw rolls, or chew on your napkin.

  Mason Cooley

  Thinking, Tables, Dinner

  4 Copy quote

• Never buy anything that you can't illustrate on the back of a napkin.

  Peter Lynch

  9 Copy quote

• When trying to seduce a woman, a writer says: 'I'm a writer', and scribbles a poem on a napkin. It always works.

  Paulo Coelho

  Trying, Scribbles, Seducing

  6 Copy quote

• There are two good reasons to put your napkin in your lap. One is that food might spill in your lap, and it is better to stain the napkin than your clothing. The other is that it can serve as a perfect hiding place. Practically nobody is nosey enough to take the napkin off a lap to see what is hidden there.

  Daniel Handler

  Two, Perfect, Lap

  8 Copy quote

• Potassium cyanide," says the talent wrangler as she leans over to pick up a paper napkin off the floor. "Found naturally in the cassava or manioc roots native to Africa, used to tint architectural blueprints in the form of the deep-blue pigment known as Prussian blue. Hence the shade 'cyan' blue.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Roots, Blue, Paper

  11 Copy quote

• I had an American journalist say to me, "Is it true you wrote the whole of the first novel on napkins?" I was tempted to say, "On teabags, I used to save them.

  J. K. Rowling

  Firsts, Used, True You

  8 Copy quote

• Since I was a kid, I could make up stories, I could make up funny jokes and I could always do it. When I'm walking down the street or having dinner, ideas will hit me, and I write them down on matchbooks or napkins and throw them in the draw.

  Woody Allen

  Writing, Kids, Ideas

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. September 27, 2001.

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• I never use a napkin on my lap at a restaurant...because I believe in myself.

  Hannibal Buress

  Funny, Believe, Lap

  66 Copy quote

• During the course of the year a number of ideas just come up automatically. I could be walking down the street. Or shaving. An idea will hit me and I'll write it down. Then, when I'm ready to write, I check my little matchbooks and napkins and find that it is good or it's pretty terrible. There are other times when I don't have any ideas and I'll go into a room and close the door and I sit and sweat it out for a day or a month and eventually I come up with [something].

  Woody Allen

  Writing, Doors, Years

  9 Copy quote

• We don't choose our talents; but we needn't hide them in a napkin because they are not just what we want.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Want, Talent

  Louisa May Alcott (2015). “Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys & A Sequel - Jo's Boys and How They Turned Out (Children’s Classics Series – Illustrated Edition)”, p.397, e-artnow

  7 Copy quote

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• There's not a shirt and a half in all my company, and the half
  shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the
  shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves.

  William Shakespeare

  Two, Clothes, Together

  William Shakespeare, John Payne Collier (1858). “Winter's tale. King John. King Richard II. King Henry IV, part 1. King Henry IV, part 2. Henry V. King Henry VI, part 1”, p.395

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• My mom would take me to restaurants, and the first thing I'd ask for would be a pen and a napkin, and I'd sketch shoes and shoes and shoes.

  Alexander Wang

  Mom, Shoes, Would Be

  "Alexander Wang: Fashion's Boy Wonder" by Anamaria Wilson, www.harpersbazaar.com. August 11, 2011.

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• I make napkins talk in restaurants, socks talk on car journeys. There is an awful lot of puppetry going on in the house.

  Nina Conti

  Journey, Car, House

  3 Copy quote