Tinsel is really snakes' mirrors.
Time, which runs through the world like an endless tinsel thread, seemed to pass through the centre of this room and through the centre of these people and suddenly to pause and petrify, stiff, still and glittering... and the objects in the room drew a little closer together.
An Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman were invited to a Christmas party. The Englishman brought a bag of tinsel, the Scotsman brought a bag of holly and they asked the Irishman: "What have you brought?" He said: "I brought a pair of knickers." They asked: "What has that got to do with Christmas?" He said "They're Carol's."
Tinsel in February, tinsel in August. There are things in a man besides his reason.
God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.
Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas.
The ribbons! The wrappings! The tags! And the tinsel! The trimmings! The trappings!
Go out of the house to see the moon, and't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.
For instance," said the boy again, "if Christmas trees were people and people were Christmas trees, we'd all be chopped down, put up in the living room, and covered in tinsel, while the trees opened our presents." "What does that have to do with it?" asked Milo. "Nothing at all," he answered, "but it's an interesting possibility, don't you think?
You couldn't make yourself stop feeling a certain way, no matter what the other person did. You had to just wait. Eventually the feeling went away because others came along. Or sometimes it didn't go away but got squeezed into something tiny, and hung like a piece of tinsel in the back of your mind.
She's not my type,' Carter says. 'So what is your type?' 'Tall, skinny, black hair, blue eyes, freckly nose. Blue tinsel wig and snowflakes optional.' 'Skinny?' I squeal. 'Definitely. Pretending to be shy, sensible and stand-offish when really you're mad about me.' 'You sure about that?' 'No, but I'm hoping.
Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room. The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.
Unfortunately, the headlights of the car were bright enough for them to see Mae's outfit quite clearly. "Oh my God," said Nick, and shut his eyes. Jamie gave a small, nervous laugh. "What?" Mae demanded. "Alan told us that we were supposed to dress as we truly are!" "And you felt that what you truly are is a Christmas tree with too much tinsel." Nick grinned. "Huh.
Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you'll find the real tinsel underneath.
Oho, now I know what you are. You are an advocate of Useful Knowledge.... Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position.
In our worship of certainty we must distinguish between the sound certainty and the sham, between what is gold and what is tinsel; and then, when certainty is attained, we must remember that it is not the only good; that we can buy it at too high a price; that there is danger in perpetual quiescence as well as in perpetual motion; and that a compromise must be found in a principle of growth.
Go out of the house to see the moon, and 't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who could ever clutch it? Go forth to find it, and it is gone: 't is only a mirage as you look from the windows of diligence.
I've sold shoes, hawked newspapers, jerked sodas, gazed rapturously at the tinsel dream at the end of a runway from my usher's aisle in a burley-cue, drove a truck - then because I didn't like being pushed around, started pushing a pencil around.
And the sun had on a crown Wrought of gilded thistledown, And a scarf of velvet vapor And a raveled rainbow gown; And his tinsel-tangled hair Tossed and lost upon the air Was glossier and flossier Than any anywhere.
I knew that I would speak in the language of the vanquished No more durable than old customs, family rituals, Christmas tinsel, and once a year the hilarity of carols.
or simply: