Bedraggled Quotes & Sayings

I soon forgot about my bedraggled appearance. Until, that is, an old man shuffled in and propped himself, hunched and wheezing, over the check-in desk. Karen asked him if he needed assistance.
"No," he grunted sucking on his teeth, "your wet-T-shirt librarian with the punk rock hair is helping me out just fine. — Suzanne Kelman

And once when we were walking on Bredon Hill, we met a bedraggled and exhausted fox. 'Oh, poor thing,' Jack said. 'What shall we do when the hunt comes up? I can already hear them. Oh, I know
I have an idea.' He cupped his hands and shouted to the first riders, "Hallo, yoicks, gone that way," and pointed in the direction opposite to the one the fox had taken. The whole hunt followed his directions. There followed a long discussion about when lying was morally justifiable, but he boasted delightedly later to my wife that he had saved the life of a poor fox and showed no trace of guilt. — George Sayer

In 1985, I saw a tape of myself where my eyes were puffy. I looked very tired and bedraggled and not as youthful as I would like to have been. — Faye Wattleton

I bring you this stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored from pirate raids in Kiao-Chow, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Phillipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the looking-glass. — Mark Twain

(Watching her) was a little like watching water lilies; rather more like smelling a dinner he was not allowed to eat. Was it possible to be starved for so long as to forget the taste of food, for the pangs of hunger to burn out like ash? It seemed so. But both the pleasure and the pain were his heart's secret, here. He was put in mind, suddenly, of the soil at the edge of a recovering blight; the weedy bedraggled look of it, unlovely yet hopeful. Blight was a numb gray thing, without sensation. Did the return of green life hurt? Odd thought. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Gwen smiled. "Hardly. Bedraggled is being in the full throes of nicotine withdrawal, and after a week on a bus with a group of senior citizens, falling into a cave, and landing on a body."
"And then getting tossed back a few centuries, with no idea of what's going on," Chloe agreed. "Naked, too, weren't you?"
Gwen nodded wryly.
Gabby blinked.
"I gave you my plaid," Drustan protested indignantly. — Karen Marie Moning

I'd prefer not to be the pretty thing in a film. It's such a bloody responsibility to look cute, because people know when you don't and they're like, They're trying to pass her off as the cute girl and she's looking like a bedraggled sack of potatoes. — Minnie Driver

From insipid sweet wine; from men who wear moustaches; from the sort of people that call legs 'limbs'; from bedraggled white petticoats: Kind Devil, deliver me. — Mary MacLane

The Jardin Massey looked dismal today, rain lashed and deserted. She watched a bedraggled pigeon, feathers puffed out, sheltering beneath a branch.She'd never made a will, never considered whether she'd rather her body was buried or burnt to grey powder. And where would she want to be buried - in a French graveyard, gaudy with plastic flowers? If she made a will, could she state an aversion to plastic? — Jackie Ley

Children are not like us. They are beings apart: impenetrable, unapproachable. They inhabit not our world but a world we have lost and can never recover. We do not remember childhood
we imagine it. We search for it, in vain, through layers of obscuring dust, and recover some bedraggled shreds of what we think it was. And all the while the inhabitants of this world are among us, like aborigines, like Minoans, people from elsewhere safe in their own time-capsule. — Penelope Lively

She should have looked ridiculous, standing there wet and bedraggled in her silly underwear, but she looked magnificent. Like some kind of mythical goddess rising from the mists of time.
Statuesque, utterly feminine. Breathtaking. — Sarah Mayberry

The dog looked nothing like the lonely mongrel in her stories. The bedraggled golden retriever halted where the bungalow walkway met the public sidewalk. Girl and beast regarded each other. She called to him, "Here, boy, here." He needed to be coaxed, but eventually he approached the porch and climbed the steps. Bibi stooped to his level to peer into his eyes, which were as golden as his coat. "You stink." The retriever yawned, as if his stinkiness was old news to him. He — Dean Koontz

Remember The Princess and the Pea? She could feel a single pea through dozens of mattresses, and that's how everyone knew she was of noble blood, even though she'd arrived looking bedraggled and scruffy.
It's supposed to be an example of the saying "breeding will out", meaning that you can always spot true royalty, even if that someone is dressed in rags. Am I the only one who thinks the moral of this story is all screwed up? You get caught in a storm and knock on a stranger's door in the middle of the night to ask for shelter... then when they ask how you slept, you COMPLAIN that you were uncomfortable?
Honey, that's not being a Princess. That's being a diva bitch. — Rosie Blythe

She's drenched and bedraggled, but I've never loved anyone as much as I love her right now. That's how I know I'll have to give her up. — Tim Tharp

When I create a sports costume, I remember that it must not look - how do you say? - 'bedraggled.' — Jean Patou

Power deities, for all their strength, are very much like humans, They are subjects to periods of despair and are not free from the crippling consequences of emotions, For over two decades Tibetans were forbidden from holding any religious ceremonies or prayers. No prayer flags, incense or ceremonies were offered to the deities and demi-gods of the region. This neglect broke their hearts and they became bedraggled and weak. — Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

Finnick!" Something between a shriek and a cry of joy. A lovely if somewhat bedraggled young woman
dark tangled hair, sea green eyes
runs toward us in nothing but a sheet. "Finnick!" And suddenly, it's as if there's no one in the world but these two, crashing through space to reach each other. They collide, enfold, lose their balance, and slam against a wall, where they stay. Clinging into one being. Indivisible.
A pang of jealousy hits me. Not for either Finnick or Annie but for their certainty. No one seeing them could doubt their love. — Suzanne Collins

The townhouses looked bedraggled, unkempt, like an old homeless woman with an interesting history but a perilous future. — Sharon Shinn

Why did I laugh at his sorry, bedraggled appearance? Because ridiculousness made a repellant situation more bearable. — Sherwood Smith

Some brave chrysanthemums still stood in the country gardens, but they looked like bedraggled survivors of a battle, barely able to hold their tattered banners upright. October was at the gates and autumn was in full retreat. — Patricia Moyes

He caught his breath, not because of her bedraggled appearance, but rather because of the way she stood, so straight and tall. Courageous. — Jan Moran

On the road, they join the bedraggled remnants of a column of exhausted Confederate soldiers evacuating burning Atlanta. Rhett makes her take note of the scene: "Take a good look, my dear. It's a historic moment. You can tell your grandchildren how you watched the Old South disappear one night." — Vivien Leigh

It didn't matter that Daniel had already seen her at her absolute, tear-streaked, bedraggled worst. She still had an overwhelming desire to be pretty for him. Which made her resent herself. — Frankie Rose

Are you going somewhere?" I said, regarding him timidly. The suit made him seem a different person, less melancholy and distracted, more capable - unlike the Hobie of my first visit, with his bedraggled aspect of an elegant but mistreated polar bear. — Donna Tartt

God, what did any of it matter, in the end? You lived; you died. You were as indistinguishable from a distance as one of these blades of grass, and who was to say more important? Growing, surrounded by your kin, you out-living some, some out-living you. You didn't have to adjust the scale much, either, to reduce us to the sort of distant irrelevance of this bedraggled field. The grass was lucky if it grew, was shone upon and rained upon, and was not burned, and was not pulled up by the roots, or poisoned, or buried when the ground was turned over, and some bits just happened to be on a line that humans wanted to walk on, and so got trampled, broken, pressed flat, with no malice; just effect. — Iain Banks

Some of us try desperately to hold on to ourselves, to live for ourselves. We look so bedraggled and pathetic doing it, hanging on to the dead branch of a bank account for dear life, afraid to risk ourselves on the untried wings of giving. We don't think we can live generously because we have never tried. But the sooner we start the better, for we are going to have to give up our lives finally, and the longer we wait the less time we have for the soaring and swooping life of grace. — Eugene H. Peterson

Even looking at him now, bedraggled, scruffy-jawed, and sleep-deprived, she wanted to strip the man's clothes off and drag him back to her bed to do wild things to him. And she was stone-cold sober. She couldn't imagine what she might have said or done with her inhibitions dulled by who knows how much whiskey she'd actually put away last night. — T.J. Kline

New creation itself has begun, they are saying, and will be completed. Jesus is ruling over that new creation and making it happen through the witness of his church. "The ruler of this world" has been overthrown; the powers of the world have been led behind Jesus's triumphal procession as a beaten, bedraggled rabble. And that is how God is becoming king on earth as in heaven. That is the truth the gospels are eager to tell us, the — N. T. Wright

Our bedraggled heads peeped from the water like bobbing apples just waiting to be eaten, as Magwart prowled the shore. — S.L. Mills

At that, every boy on that side of the hall let out a big cheer for the two of them. This went on for about three or four hours before the cold had got the better of the two of them. Without breaking any rooftop siege records, the bedraggled and wet pair came down into the arms of the awaiting riot screws. And surprisingly, for a change, they never suffered any beatings; they got taken to the digger and put on a rule, pending police investigation. Some nine months later, the two kings of the roof stood trial and received eighteen months apiece on top of their sentence ... oh, and the roofing contractor was ecstatically happy. — Stephen Richards

He noticed that a bedraggled and desiccated pink poppy was growing out of a crack where the wall of the teacher's house intersected with the cobbles of the street. — Louis De Bernieres

And yet there are many times when it does not make any difference what pattern one uses. One thing is certain. The more bedraggled the fly gets the better the trout like it. I think there is a reason for this. I think the bedraggled half worn out wet fly more closely imitates a nymph than a new one does. Most commercial flies are tied too bushy and full. A little trimming of wings and thinning out of hackles will often work wonders. — Ray Bergman

A bedraggled woman stood on his doorstep in the pouring rain, and his first impulse was to slam the door in her face.
But she had clearly come as far as she could; her pale face was twisted in pain, and she shivered convulsively beneath a denim jacket that was as soaking wet as the rest of her. Long black strands of hair hung down in twisted ribbons like seaweed in the vanishing daylight, reminding him of a sea creature he'd once dated briefly in his more adventurous youth. — Deborah Blake

The bedraggled warhorse of American blowhardism. — Conrad Black

If!" protested Mercy. "I am marrying you, Kit Turner, and there's an end to it!"
Tobias nudged James. "I told you she'd produce a landslide when she got rolling."
Kit, however, was not yet fully aware of the character of the girl whom he had just pledged himself. He put his finger to her lips. "Hush, now, this is between your father and me, Mercy. Let me deal with it."
"Oh, dear, oh, dear," muttered James, shaking his head. "Our brother has a lot to learn about the fairer sex. You never, ever do that."
Kit was suddenly sitting in a chair, a sharp elbow having found a tender spot. Mercy stood before her father, looking defiant, if somewhat bedraggled after her night in prison. — Eve Edwards

Where are you? Have you arrived yet?" she asked eagerly.
"I have. I'm here and it's great. I love it."
"I knew you would!" cried Hannah. "So are you coming down? Help me pull a pint or two?"
"Yeah, sure. Give me half an hour or so, and I'll be there."
"Brilliant. See you soon."
"Bye," replied Layla, hanging up.
No time for eating then, she'd better unpack the car, sort out the bedraggled mess that she was, and get down to the pub. Start learning the ropes.
Hauling one of the bags upstairs, she went into her bedroom and plonked it on the bed. Before doing anything else, however, she couldn't resist peering out of the window again, having to imagine Gull Rock this time as the deepening night had hidden it completely. A year, she thought. That's all I've got, a year. Enough time to get over anyone, surely?
Taking in a deep breath then letting it slowly out, she bloody hoped so. — Shani Struthers

Gansey clucked at his bedraggled reflection in the dark-framed mirror hanging in the front hallway. Chainsaw eyed herself briefly before hiding on the other side of Ronan's neck; Adam did the same, but without the hiding-in-Ronan's-neck bit. Even Blue looked less fanciful that usual, the lighting rendering her lampshade dress and spiky hair as a melancholy Pierrot. — Maggie Stiefvater

Death watched me, amusement once again lifting to his dark eyes. Unlike me with my bedraggled clothes and knotted hair, he looked good in the morning light streaming into my apartment. Okay, actually, he looked exactly the same as when I'd first seen him when I was five years old, but recently I'd come to appreciate the way his black T-shirt pulled tight over the expanse of his shoulders and his faded jeans hugged his ass. Not that I was looking, of course. I mean, he was Death. — Kalayna Price

As the years went by and age overtook her, there was something comical yet touching in her bedraggled appearance on this awesome occasion - the small, hunched-over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection. - E. B. White — Katharine S. White

Full of the usual blights, mistakes, ruinous beetles and parasites, glorious for one week, bedraggled the next, my actual garden is always a mixed bag. As usual, it will fall far short of the imagined perfection. It is a chore. Hard work. I'll by turns aggressively weed and ignore it. The ground I tend sustains me in early summer, but the garden of the spirit is the place I go when the wind howls. This lush and fragrant expectation has a longer growing season than the plot of earth I'll hoe for the rest of the year. Raised in the mind's eye, nurtured by the faithful composting of orange rinds and tea leaves and ideas, it is finally the wintergarden that produces the true flowering, the saving vision. — Louise Erdrich

Good night.' Diana summoned all the dignity that she could manage in her bedraggled state and began to move back up the beach. Her dress was soaked and her stockings dotted with sand and her heart couldn't possibly withstand any more. — Anna Godbersen

There, in the horseshoe drive, Kelly, gullible and mortal Kelly, awaits an explanation from a bedraggled immortal. The Minotaur accepts this temporary blessing for all it is worth. There are few things that he knows, these among them: that is is inevitable, even necessary, for a creature half man and half bull to walk the face of the earth; that in the numbing span of eternity even the most monstrous among us needs love; that the minutiae of life sometimes defer to folly; that even in the most tedious unending life there comes, occasionally, hope. One simply has to wait and be ready. — Steven Sherrill

Looking at her, bedraggled and beaten, some might have seen weakness. He saw strength, determination, and a will no one could crush. — Nalini Singh

Rus, dancing alongside Roza like a monstrous, bedraggled pony. — Laura Ruby