Cravat Quotes & Sayings

The proud little man was accompanied by three discreet touches of male vanity: a gold watch chain hanging from his dapper white waistcoat, a polka-dotted silk cravat held tightly to his high collar by a pearl stickpin, and his thirty-six-year-old wife. — Bill Dedman

While her own taste was, frankly, pedestrian, Lady Maccon did enjoy seeing what all the peacocks had arranged to drape themselves with. In the better parts of London, one could run into almost anything: the latest evening gowns from Paris, floating dresses to the extremes of practicality from the Americas, and the fullest, most complex cravat ties imaginable. One could witness a veritable cornucopia of visual delights merely by driving through the crowded streets. If — Gail Carriger

Having made his clerical toilet with due care in the morning, he was prepared only for those amenities of life which were suited to the well-adjusted stiff cravat of the period, and to a mind weighted with unpublished matter. — George Eliot

Merripen emerged from a hallway leading away from the entrance room. He was in his shirtsleeves with no collar or cravat, the neck of the garment hanging open to reveal tanned skin gleaming with perspiration. With his black hair falling over his forehead, and his dark eyes smiling at the sight of them, Merripen cut a dashing figure. "You're three hours behind schedule," he said.
Laughing, Amelia pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and gave it to him. "In a family of four sisters, there is no schedule. — Lisa Kleypas

Baleen was a very pricey place that I would not have attempted on my own modest means. It has the kind of oak-paneled elegance that makes you feel the need for a cravat and spats. — Jeff Lindsay

Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say:
Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'. — Chip Kidd

Very well, Miss Temminnick. Tell me a little about yourself. Are you well-educated?" Sophronia considered this question seriously. "I don't believe so." "Excellent. Ignorance is most undervalued in a student. And have you killed anyone recently?" Sophronia blinked. "Pardon?" "Oh, you know, a knife to the neck, or perhaps a cleverly noosed cravat?" Sophronia said only, "Not my preferred diversion." "Oh, dear, how disappointing. Well, don't you fret. We shall soon find you some useful hobby. — Gail Carriger

Click.
The salamander flared, etching the room with searing white light and dark shadows.
Otto screamed. He fell to the floor, clutching at his throat. He sprang to his feet, goggle-eyed and gasping, and staggered, knock-kneed and wobbly-legged, the length of the room and back again. He sank down behind a desk , scattering paperwork with a wildly flailing hand.
"Aarghaarghaaaargh ... "
There was a shocked silence.
Otto stood up, adjusted his cravat, and dusted himself off. Only then did he look up at the row of shocked faces.
"Vel?" he said sternly. "Vat are you all looking at? It is just a normal reaction, zat is all. I am vorking on it. Light in all its forms is mine passion. Light is my canvas, shadows are my brush."
But strong light hurts you!" said Sacharissa. "It hurts vampires!"
"Yes. It iss a bit of a bugger, but zere you go. — Terry Pratchett

It was not lust itself he felt, but the premonition of desire, as if the wind that whipped around his cravat were whispering in his ears. /Her. Choose her./ — Courtney Milan

Who suffers more, the gentleman in the badly tied cravat or those who must look upon him? — Gail Carriger

It is possible to compromise in certain areas when choosing a partner for life, but never on a cravat. — Amanda Grange

You're somethin' else, Hel. Know that? Dodged the sea toad, got rescued off that damned comet, bisected ol' Bron Elgar like a bagel out there on Cravat ... How the hell you get away from those damn fish down in the Glory Hole? Man, you got more lives than a New York alleycat. — Julian May

Under his buckskin riding-coat he wore a black vest and the cravat and collar of a churchman. A young priest, at his devotions; and a priest in a thousand, one knew at a glance. His bowed head was not that of an ordinary man, - it was built for the seat of a fine intelligence. His brow was open, generous, reflective, his features handsome and somewhat severe. There was a singular elegance about the hands below the fringed cuffs of the buckskin jacket. Everything showed him to be a man of gentle birth - brave, sensitive, courteous. His manners, even when he was alone in the desert, were distinguished. He had a kind of courtesy toward himself, toward his beasts, toward the juniper tree before which he knelt, and the God whom he was addressing. — Willa Cather

Marcus stood at the mantel mirror, fussing with his lace cuffs, adjusting his cravat and openly admiring his reflection. "I'll beguile her with the full power of my persuasive charm."
"And should that fail?"
Marcus turned to his secretary with a slow, devious grin. "Why, Nick, I'd have thought it obvious. I'll just have to ruin her."
-A BREACH OF PROMISE — Victoria Vane

XXXVII. If I shouldn't be alive When the robins come, Give the one in red cravat A memorial crumb. If I couldn't thank you, Being just asleep, You will know I'm trying With my granite lip! — Emily Dickinson

As the year goes on, certain deputies - and others, high in public life - will appear unshaven, without coat or cravat; or they will jettison these marks of the polite man, when the temperature rises. They affect the style of men who begin their mornings with a splash under a backyard pump, and who stop off at their street-corner bar for a nip of spirits on their way to ten hours' manual labor. Citizen Robespierre, however, is a breathing rebuke
to these men; he retains his buckled shoes, his striped coat of olive green. Can it be the same coat that he wore in the first year of the Revolution? He is not profligate with coats.
While Citizen Danton tears off the starched linen that fretted his thick neck, Citizen Saint-Just's cravat grows ever higher, stiffer, more wonderful to behold. He affects a single earring, but he resembles less a corsair than a slightly deranged merchant banker. — Hilary Mantel

No doubt she'd thought she was doing him a kindness, urging him to kick up his heels and loosen his too-tight cravat and learn to savor careless pleasures. As though he hadn't heard such urgings before, from every feckless acquaintance made uncomfortable by his example of propriety, or every heedless one who sailed through life never noticing that it was vigilant people, the people standing back from the merriment, who stomped out the fiery raisins dropped by others and kept everything from going up in flames. — Cecilia Grant

And then everything went on very quietly for a fortnight, says Dr. Jordan. He is reading aloud from my confession.
Yes Sir, it did, I say. More or less quietly.
What is everything? How did it go on?
I beg your pardon, Sir?
What did you do everyday?
Oh, the usual, Sir, I say. I performed my duties.
You will forgive me, says Dr. Jordan. Of what did those duties consist?
I look at him. He is wearing a yellow cravat with small white squares, he is not making a joke. He really does not know. Men such as him do not have to clean up the messes they make, but we have to clean up our own messes, and theirs into the bargain. In that way they are like children, they do not have to think ahead, or worry about the consequences of what they do. But it's not their fault, it is only how they are brought up. — Margaret Atwood

I hammered on the Poes' front door like Alaric on the gates of Rome. Poe said that a gaudy figure of speech was a silk cravat around a dirty neck. He didn't say whether the truth lay in the plain thing or in its fancy. — Norman Lock

If I shouldn't be alive
When the Robins come,
Give the one in Red Cravat,
A Memorial crumb. — Emily Dickinson

Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; although she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Lord Maccon, might we have words on the proper tying of a cravat? For my sanity's sake?
Lord Maccon was nonplussed. Professor Lyall, on the other hand, was pained. "I do what I can." Lord Akeldama looked at him, pity in his eyes. "You are a brave man. — Gail Carriger

I can't believe that any man would care enough to go to all that trouble. Not for me."
He stopped pacing and approached her. He put his hands on her shoulders and forced her to meet his intense blue gaze. "I am wearing a cravat and cuff links at the godforsaken Beetle Ball. Does this not count as going to trouble for you?"
"But ... that's not for me. Not really."
"Maddie, mo chridhe." His grip on her arms softened to a caress, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. "Like hell it isn't."
-Maddie & Logan — Tessa Dare

And that love letter you wrote," Rowan added helpfully. "Signing it with another chap's name." Emma Smallwood's eyes widened, and she turned to look at him, brows high. Henry felt his neck heat. His cravat seemed suddenly far too tight. "That's right," Phillip nodded as the memory returned to him. "Pugsworth, was it not?" Julian grinned at Miss Smallwood, clearly enjoying himself. "Did you really think this Pugsworth fellow in love with you?" Heaven help him, Henry hoped she wouldn't burst into disillusioned tears. Not all these years later. And not over Milton Pugsworth. But Miss Smallwood remained her imperturbable self. "Goodness no," she said. "For all his faults, Mr. Pugsworth spelled exceptionally well and had the neatest hand I ever saw. Your brother, on the other hand, never did learn to spell. And I recognized his sloppy scratchings the moment I saw them." Phillip gave her a long look of amused approval. "Bravo, Emma. — Julie Klassen

He wore a tweed suit, of all horrible things, and a cravat tied with such carelessness it was almost as much a sin as his actions. — Gail Carriger

Wilde stepped off the train in Oakland wearing a Spanish sombrero, a velvet suit, a puce cravat, yellow gloves, and buckled shoes, and wended his way across the bay to the Bohemian Club, where he is reported to have drunk his hosts under the table. — Kevin Starr

Sir,' she called out. 'Lord Bradford.'
He turned. His eyes lit up, seeing Azalea.
'Thank you,' said Azalea.
Lord Bradford bowed deeply, removing his hat, which re-rumpled his hair. When he straightened, he was smiling, as crooked as his cravat, and Azalea couldn't help but smile back. — Heather Dixon

For, what is order without common sense, but Bedlam's front parlor? What is imagination without common sense, but the aspiration to out-dandy Beau Brummell with nothing but a bit of faded muslin and a limp cravat? What is Creation without common sense, but a scandalous thing without form or function, like a matron with half a dozen unattached daughters?
And God looked upon the Creation in all its delightful multiplicity, and saw that, all in all, it was quite Amiable. — Vera Nazarian

O, Senator, drop your trousers! Loosen your cravat! Eschew your spats and step into that shallow, teeming world of mayflies and dragonflies and frogs' eyes staring eye-to-eye with your own, and the silty bottom. Cease your filibuster against the world God gave you. — Paul Harding

I had a recent delivery of new fashion plates from Paris, and you hardly glanced at the hairstyles. My husband tells me you are still having difficulty controlling the change. And your cravat has been tied very simply of late, even for evening events. — Gail Carriger

WELCOME to my bookamabob!
Buckle your cravat and prepare
for have your whiskers quiver.
My story of struggles, successes and
sergei is the greatest, most thrillsy book ever written by a meerkat in the bath... — Aleksandr Orlov

The weather being hot, he had no cravat, and wore his shirt collar wide open; so that every time he spoke something was seen to twitch and jerk up in his throat, like the little hammers in a harpsichord when the notes are struck. Perhaps it was the Truth feebly endeavouring to leap to his lips. If so, it never reached them. — Charles Dickens

Before Charlotte could utter a syllable, Tristan picked up her gloved hand and kissed her lightly on the
knuckles.
"Good day, Charlotte," he said.
"Good day," she answered. She turned to bid farewell to Lady Rosalind, but she seemed to have
disappeared.
Numbly, she descended the front steps toward a waiting Rothbury, who only had eyes for the Devines'
front door, looking quite like he wanted to murder someone.
"Perfection, dear brother," Rosalind proclaimed, while peeking out the little window next to the door.
"Utter perfection."
Slipping a finger inside his cravat to loosen it a bit, Tristan craned his neck from side to side, easing the
building tension. "If he kills me, I'll see to it that you get hanged for murder as well. — Olivia Parker

A miscreant with coiffed, scented hair, a slender waist, the hips of a woman and the chest of a Prussian officer, with a finely tied cravat, by all girls admired. ~ [introduction of character Montparnasse] — Victor Hugo

Time and feeding had expanded that once romantic form; the black silk waistcoat had become more and more developed; inch by inch had the gold watch-chain beneath it disappeared from within the range of Tupman's vision; and gradually had the capacious chin encroached upon the borders of the white cravat: but the soul of Tupman had known no change - admiration of the fair sex was still its ruling passion. — Charles Dickens

Despite the headmaster's romantic claims that the origin of the cravat went back to the silk fascalia worn by Roman orators to warm their vocal cords, Langdon knew that, etymologically, "cravat" actually derived from a ruthless band of Croat mercenaries who donned knotted neckerchiefs before they stormed into battle. To this day, this ancient battle garb was donned by modern office warriors hoping to intimidate their enemies in daily boardroom battles. — Dan Brown

Odd's fish, m'dear! The man can't even tie his own cravat! — Emmuska Orczy

You ought to use a little of that siren song on Alan, my pearl. The boy needs to loosen his cravat. — Jaclyn Dolamore

Friends," he began, "fellow citizens of the Federation, I have tonight a unique honor and privilege. Since the triumphant return of our trail-blazing ship Champion - " He continued in a few thousand well-chosen words to congratulate the citizens of Earth on their successful contact with another planet, another civilized race. He managed to imply that the exploit of the Champion was the personal accomplishment of every citizen of the Federation, that any one of them could have led the expedition had he not been busy with other serious work - and that he, Secretary Douglas, had been chosen by them as their humble instrument to work their will. The flattering notions were never stated baldly, but implied; the underlying assumption being that the common man was the equal of anyone and better than most - and that good old Joe Douglas embodied the common man. Even his mussed cravat and cowlicked hair had a "just folks" quality. — Robert A. Heinlein