Elegant People Quotes & Sayings

We all have people who are genuinely love us, we have those who hate us with a passion and we have those who imitate us resentfully in life. But in the midst of all, your elegant thanksgiving table will be set before their eyes and they'll all be invited to celebrate your thanksgiving celebration with you. — Euginia Herlihy

A lot of people say, 'I always knew Lucky Luciano as a very smooth, very elegant, very powerful man.' All the accounts of him as an older man were that he was very genteel but he still had the look of smothered violence behind his eyes. — Vincent Piazza

Oberon could not speak for the burning anger on is tongue. Instead, he drew back his mighty fist and would have knocked his captain clean off the wall, down on the jagged rocks below...
Only suddenly, standing between him and his prey was the gloriously golden image of his wife smiling sweetly up at him.
"Really, darling, such a display. And so public too!" she said, laughing like the ringing of a bell chorus. "What will all the little ones think?'
"Out of my way, Titania!" Oberon bellowed. "Puck has told me of your part in all this nonsense, and I'll be dealing with you next!"
But Titania had seen too many of her husband's tempers over the long centuries of their marriage to mind him much now. "Don't be ridiculous," she said lightly, tapping him on the nose with one long, elegant finger. 'Do you really want to stand in the way of true love? When you start meddling with people's hearts, things never go well, as everyone knows. — Camryn Lockhart

I explain to you, exactly and truly, how we are circumstanced. A greater portion of our means is unavailable, consisting of a house in S. Springfield and some wild lands in Iowa. Notwithstanding my great and good husband's life was sacrificed for his country, we are left to struggle in a manner ... of life undeserved. Roving Generals have elegant mansions showered upon them, and the American people leave the family of the Martyred President to struggle as best they may! Strange justice this. — Mary Todd Lincoln

I see it every day: People trying to create a home that somebody else tells them they should have. I don't care if it's a magazine or a bossy friend - when somebody says, 'This is what's elegant, this is what's trendy,' if it doesn't represent you, you're not going to be happy. — Nate Berkus

Humankind's struggle against a hostile environment causes people throughout the ages to deploy their full armory of logic, training, strategy, imagination, inventiveness, and creativity. We are born with the natural ability to strategize. The most influential tool in humankind's intellectual tool kit is the ability to regenerate a sense of unruffled alertness, to establish a poised stance that leads to intuitive discoveries generated by the conscious and unconscious mind constantly filtering a plethora of data, selecting critical facts, and producing elegant solutions to seemingly insoluble dilemmas. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Our own existence once presented the greatest of all mysteries, but ... it is a mystery no longer because it is solved. Darwin and Wallace solved it ... I was surprised that so many people seemed not only unaware of the elegant and beautiful solution to this deepest of problems but, incredibly, in many cases actually unaware that there was a problem in the first place! — Richard Dawkins

And what did I see? I saw people who are elegant, open-hearted, intelligent; I saw an elder statesman who was kind and attentive to a boy like me; I saw people who are capable of understanding and forgiving, good-natured Russian people, almost as good-natured and warm-hearted as those whom I met back there, almost as good as them. So you may imagine how happily I was surprised! Oh, permit me to say this! I had heard a great deal and was very much of the conviction that in society all is style, all is decrepit formality, while the essence has dried up; but I mean, now I can see for myself that it cannot be so in our country; it may be like that in other countries, but not in ours. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple, you don't really understand the complexity of the problem. Then you get into the problem, and you see that it's really complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That's sort of the middle, and that's where most people stop ... But the really great person will keep on going and find the key, the underlying principle of the problem - and come up with an elegant, really beautiful solution that works. — Steve Jobs

I admire David Hare as much as I admire certainly any writer ever. What I like about his writing is it is very conscientiously, in one way, an attempt to reproduce the way people actually speak, but it's not just an attempt at naturalism. It's stylised and it's heightened, to great effect. It's elegant and it's funny and that's the way to my heart, frankly. — Bill Nighy

It sounded wrong rolling off his tongue, but still elegant, somehow. Like a British person cussing. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

When times are bad, people like to lose themselves in the sheer glamour of another period: beautiful wardrobes, magnificent meals served in elegant settings. — Shirley Maclaine

Just as many smart people fail in the investment business as stupid ones. Intellectually active people are particularly attracted to elegant concepts, which can have the effect of distracting them from the simpler, more fundamental truths. — Peter Cundill

All I want is to cultivate curiosity. Yes, my old friend remains undiminished even now: the simple yearning to know. If these students cannot tell a xylem from a phloem, it will not unduly handicap their college hopes or impede their careers. But their lives will depend entirely on whether they possess wonder, an eye for beauty. For many people, the unknown is something to fear. Instead I want to give my students the humility to believe that anything they do not understand therefore possesses an elegant magic. — Stephen Kiernan

I connect fashion to other peoples' elegance, but not my own. I don't think I've ever felt elegant. I've felt appropriate, but never elegant, and I wonder what that must be like. I like it when other people are elegant - I prefer it - but I can't do it myself. I honestly think it's some form of autistic disorder. — Douglas Coupland

Elegant self-control concealing from the world's eyes until the very last moment a state of inner disintegration and biological decay; sallow ugliness, sensuously marred and worsted, which nevertheless is able to fan its smouldering concupiscence to a pure flame, and even to exalt itself to mastery in the realm of beauty; pallid impotence, which from the glowing depths of the spirit draws strength to cast down a whole proud people at the foot of the Cross and set its own foot upon them as well; gracious poise and composure in the empty austere service of form; the false, dangerous life of the born deceiver, his ambition and his art which lead so soon to exhaustion - to contemplate all these destinies, and many others like them, was to doubt if there is any other heroism at all but the heroism of weakness. In any case, what other heroism could be more in keeping with the times? — Thomas Mann

Highly creative people have a gift for connecting supposedly unrelated elements and ideas. They cross borders without regard for customs posts or No Trespassing signs. They throw suspension bridges across great distances. These elegant and unexpected combinations flow together beautifully in the twilight zone, where metaphor and resemblance rules in place of logic and classification. — Robert Moss

Clear writing is universal. People talk about writing down to an audience or writing up to an audience; I think that's nonsense. If you write in a way that is clear, transparent, and elegant, it will reach everyone. — Malcolm Gladwell

You never want to be the first one of your friends to get married. If you are, just resign yourself to the fact that your wedding will be a shitshow. Most people are still single, open bars are a novelty, and no matter how elegant the wedding was planned to be, it will end up looking like a scene out of Girls Gone Wild. — Jennifer Close

Franklin's inquisitive mind craved stimulation, consistently gravitating toward whatever community of intellects asked the most intriguing questions; his expansive temperament sought souls that resonated with his own generosity and sense of virtue. In five years in England he had found more of both than in a lifetime in America. "Of all the enviable things England has," he told Polly Stevenson, "I envy most its people. Why should that petty island, which compared to America is but like a stepping stone in a brook, scarce enough of it above water to keep one's shoes dry; why, I say, should that little island enjoy in almost every neighbourhood more sensible, virtuous and elegant minds than we can collect in ranging 100 leagues of our vast forests?" He left such people reluctantly and, he trusted, temporarily. — H.W. Brands

On the whole, it was not the crudest, the simplest, the most animalistic and primitive aspects of the human species that were reflected in the natural phenomena. It was, rather, the more complex, the aesthetic, the intricate, and the elegant aspects of people that reflected nature. It was not my greed, my purposiveness, my so-called 'animal,' so-called 'instincts,' and so forth that I was recognizing on the other side of that mirror, over there in 'nature.' Rather, I was seeing there the roots of human symmetry, beauty and ugliness, aesthetics, the human being's very aliveness and little bit of wisdom. His wisdom, his bodily grace, and even his habit of making beautiful objects are just as 'animal' as his cruelty. — Gregory Bateson

People ask me how can I be stylish, how can I be elegant and what can I wear? My only answer is study! You have to learn. — Miuccia Prada

"We, the people." It is a very elegant beginning. But when that document was completed on the 17th of September in 1787, I was not included in that "We, the people." — Barbara Jordan

I think people think of me as this elegant person because they always see me dressed up. — Vanna White

In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else. — Leo Tolstoy

It seems strange," said he, as he watched the Tin Woodman work, "that my left leg should be the most elegant and substantial part of me." "That proves you are unusual," returned the Scarecrow. "and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed." "Spoken like a philosopher!" cried the Woggle-Bug, — L. Frank Baum

It's disheartening that animal people criticize societies that enlist the help of actors or organize creative acts like 'I'd rather go naked than wear fur,' to increase public awareness to our cause. These are great/courageous ideas which time has come! Liberation of animals is REVOLUTION - not elegant performance/ intellectual competition. We should do most anything to advance the animal rights cause. All the bickering may make the one step forward ... TWO STEPS BACKWARD??? — Adela Popescu

SCHISMATRIX is a creeping sea-urchin of a book - spikey and odd. It isn't very elegant, and it lacks bilateral symmetry, but pieces of it break off inside people and stick with them for years. — Bruce Sterling

Money. Just money. She knew that wasn't true. It was never about the money with him - it was about the work. It was about coming up with the perfect idea, the most elegant solution. Her dad didn't really care what he was selling. Tampons or tractors or dog food for people. He just wanted to find the perfect puzzle-piece idea that would be beautiful and right. — Rainbow Rowell

In a sense, these people were the vanguard of a well-to-do and well-educated proletariat of the future, boxed up in these expensive apartments with their elegant furniture and intelligent sensibilities, and no possibility of escape. — J.G. Ballard

Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things than I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths. — Joseph Goebbels

While now and then you hear somebody talking about how ". . . beautiful and elegant the predator-prey relationship is, how natural and proper the death of the prey is," it is usually so much misunderstood balderdash by people who have not witnessed it very many times, or worse, by people who have witnessed only highly edited versions on film. — Gary Paulsen

Tabloid photos capture people at their most self-conscious and disoriented; in real life, Paris Hilton is like an elegant paper crane. — Diablo Cody

Elegant in its simplicity and practicality, Lee has distilled many powerful leadership strategies into the lessons many of us learned as children. They are no less relevant to our working lives. At its core, Creating Magic is a collection of stories that reminds us to demonstrate care and respect for every member of the team and to focus our efforts not our ourselves but on the people we lead. — George Bodenheimer

Those people who are scared of science or are a bit dismissive of science tend to not really understand what science really is, which is the most beautiful, most elegant and most creative way of looking at the world. — Dallas Campbell

Read what gives you delight - at least most of the time - and do so without shame. And even if you are that rare sort of person who is delighted chiefl y by what some people call Great Books, don't make them your steady intellectual diet, any more than you would eat at the most elegant of restaurants every day. It would be too much. Great books are great in part because of what they ask of their readers: they are not readily encountered, easily assessed. — Alan Jacobs

Because I'm shy and a bit quiet, I think people assume I'm an elegant person. — Jack Jones

During the eighties and nineties, people wanted to be chic, elegant, bourgeois. — Donatella Versace

When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. — Steve Jobs

Perhaps the deterioration of American education is illustrated by the high correlation between the number of years a person has attended school and his inability to understand the words "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." It is more likely, though, that those who interpret the Second Amendment to preclude an individual right to own guns are driven by their political agenda. Whichever the case, they do themselves no credit when they tell us that a simple, elegant sentence means the opposite of what it clearly says. — Sheldon Richman

Vienna School merges with the thought of Ayn Rand. She believed that competition was the meaning of life itself; Hitler said much the same thing. Such reductionism, although temptingly elegant, is fatal. If nothing matters but competition, then it is natural to eliminate people who resist it and institutions that prevent it. — Timothy Snyder

The most puzzling thing in the entire encounter occurred at a certain stage very late in the conversation, when she discovered she had been talking to a man. She had the feeling of a dream where things and people transmogrify, characters dissolve from one to the other like tricks in a film, monsters in a bottle. She had the sense, the very distinct sense, of her companion's female gender; she had been pleased to find it, had relaxed into it, had been even more delighted to find it coupled with an elegant wit and a sense of both joy and irony. The forces of life, she thought to herself, are flying high tonight. — Peter Carey

When I was out of favor and people didn't want that type of boot, flats, or high heels with the elegant, dainty things, it gave me much more energy. — Manolo Blahnik

Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race. — Bertrand Russell

If you have ever been accused of being rude when you were merely stating the truth, or called a gossip because you like to dwell on other people's actions, Westacott is for you. His linked studies of everyday vices offer elegant analysis of the goods that lurk in behavior that is usually condemned. This wise book is practical philosophy in the best sense. — Mark Kingwell

Writing can be thankless. People treat writing like it's some elegant act but it's usually lonely and isolating. You will struggle over a piece of writing and then get to set and some dumb actor will say it wrong or immediately want to change it. — Amy Poehler

The room was full with voices, loud music and beautiful people milling about everywhere. But all I noticed was her; beautiful, elegant and sitting alone in a quiet corner trying to remain unseen, to blend in, to become invisible, as if she actually thought such a thing were possible. — Tonny K. Brown

It was a shock to people of the nineteenth century when they discovered, from observations science had made, that many features of the biological world could be ascribed to the elegant principle of natural selection. — Michael Behe

I like my code to be elegant and efficient. The logic should be straightforward to make it hard
for bugs to hide, the dependencies minimal to ease maintenance, error handling complete according to an articulated strategy, and performance
close to optimal so as not to tempt
people to make the code messy with unprincipled optimizations. Clean code does one thing well.

-Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of C++
and author of The C++ Programming
Language — Robert C. Martin

I don't like directing a lot of people. So trying to keep things really simple and elegant is my preferred way of working. — Carrie Mae Weems

People always say the greatest love story in the world is Romeo and Juliet. I don't know. At fourteen, at seventeen, I remember, it takes over your whole life." Alice was worked up now, her face flushed and alive, her hands cutting through the night-blooming air. "You think about nobody, nothing else, you don't eat or sleep, you just think about this ... it's overwhelming. I know, I remember. But is it love? Like how you have cheap brandy when you're young and you think it's marvelous, just so elegant, and you don't know, you don't know anything ... because, you've never tasted anything better. You're fourteen."
It was no time for lying. "I think it's love"
You do?"
I think maybe it's the only true love."
She was about to say something, and stopped herself. I'd surprised her, I suppose. "How sad if you're right," she said, closing her eyes for a moment. "Because we never end up with them. How sad and stupid if that's how it works. — Andrew Sean Greer

So this is (a manager's) dilemma: The manager must retain control and focus people on performance. But she is bound by her belief that she cannot force everyone to perform the same way ... The solution is as elegant as it is efficient: Define the right outcomes and let each person find his own route toward these outcomes. — Marcus Buckingham

You always knew where you stood with Quezovercoatl. It was generally with a lot of people on top of a great stepped pyramid with someone in an elegant feathered headdress chipping an exquisite obsidian knife for your very own personal use. — Terry Pratchett

My time in Weimar Berlin was the most elegant in my life. I would have parties for a hundred people - writers, scientists, artists. — Eva Zeisel

What did one see if one looked in any depth into the world of this writer's fiction? Elegant self-control concealing from the world's eyes until the very last moment a state of inner disintegration and biological decay; sallow ugliness, sensuously marred and worsted, which nevertheless is able to fan its smouldering concupiscence to a pallid impotence, which from the glowing depths of the spirit draws strength to cast down a whole proud people at the foot of the Cross and set its own foot upon them as well; gracious poise and composure in the empty austere service of form; the false, dangerous life of the born deceiver, his ambition and his art which lead so soon to exhaustion
— Thomas Mann

I stand and listen to people speaking french in the stores and in the street. It's such a pert, crisp language, elegant as ruffling taffeta. — Belva Plain

The same goes for pajamas. If you are a woman, try wearing something elegant as nightwear. The worst thing you can do is to wear a sloppy sweat suit. I occasionally meet people who dress like this all the time, whether waking or sleeping. — Marie Kondo

Reading the book now means that one can, if one wants, play Fantasy Literature
match writers off against each other and see who won over the long haul. Faulkner or Henry Green? I reckon the surprise champ was P.G. Wodehouse, as elegant and resourceful a prose stylist as anyone held up for our inspection here ... he has turned out to be as enduring as anyone apart from Orwell. Jokes, you see. People do like jokes.
(Hornby's thoughts after reading "Enemies of Promise" by Cyril Connolly) — Nick Hornby

The engineer and historian of engineering Henry Petroski presents a very elegant point. Had the Titanic not had that famous accident, as fatal as it was, we would have kept building larger and larger ocean liners and the next disaster would have been even more tragic. So the people who perished were sacrificed for the greater good; they unarguably saved more lives than were lost. The story of the Titanic illustrates the difference between gains for the system and harm to some of its individual parts. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I'm a practitioner of elegant frugality. I don't feel comfortable telling other people what to do, so I just try and lead by example. — Amory Lovins

Once you get into the problem... you see that it's complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That's where most people stop, and the solutions tend to work for a while. But the really great person will keep going, find the underlying problem, and come up with an elegant solution that works on every level. — George Beahm

They see me wheeling around in a beautiful gown, and they realize you can look elegant, and you can lead a happy life in a wheelchair. I know I've helped handicapped people, because I've received many comments. — Anna Lee

You know, I find people with great honesty, bodily, physical honesty, who sit just the way they like to sit, and walk the way they like to walk, and don't come into a room all pumped up, I find them elegant. — Alexander Siddig

So which guideline should a writer follow, "Avoid elegant variation" or "Don't use a word twice on one page"? Traditional style guides don't resolve the contradiction, but psycholinguistics can help. Wording should not be varied capriciously, because in general people assume that if someone uses two different words they're referring to two different things. And as we shall soon see, wording should never be varied when a writer is comparing or contrasting two things. But wording should be varied when an entity is referred to multiple times in quick succession and repeating the name would sound monotonous or would misleadingly suggest that a new actor had entered the scene. — Steven Pinker

Something good happened to my writing when I stopped being afraid to do something simple, for the fear that people might think I couldn't do something more complex. Don't be confused by the word simple. Simple is not easy, it is clear voiced, and fearlessly elegant. — Carrie Newcomer

I am locked in a very expensive suit
old elegant and enduring
Only my hair has been able to get free
but someone has been leaving
their dandruff in it
Now I will tell you
all there is to know about optimism
Each day in hub cap mirror
in soup reflection
in other people's spectacles
I check my hair
for an army of alpinists
for Indian rope trick masters
for tangled aviators
for dove and albatross
for insect suicides
for abominable snowmen
I check my hair
for aerialists of every kind
Dedicated as an automatic elevator
I comb my hair for possibilities
I stick my neck out
I lean illegally from locomotive windows
and only for the barber
do I wear a hat — Leonard Cohen

Complexity has and will maintain a strong fascination for many people. It is true that we live in a complex world and strive to solve inherently complex problems, which often do require complex mechanisms. However, this should not diminish our desire for elegant solutions, which convince by their clarity and effectiveness. Simple, elegant solutions are more effective, but they are harder to find than complex ones, and they require more time, which we too often believe to be unaffordable — Niklaus Wirth

During the 1919 solar eclipse, people go out to measure the positions of the stars and they find exactly what Einstein predicted. Einstein gets a telegram saying this, and somebody asked him, Professor Einstein, what would you have said if the observations didn't agree with what your prediction of general relativity said should be happening? And Einstein said, "I'd be sorry for the dear lord; the theory is correct." What he meant by that is the math is just so elegant, so beautiful, so powerful, that almost seemingly it can't possibly be wrong. — Rivka Galchen

The built environment is shaped not only by private sector development pratices, but also by the honored and fascinating field of planning. Planners in towns, counties, regional and state government, consulting firms and in economic development agencies translate ideas about human settlements into concrete designs. They can be generalists or specialize in transportation, urban centers, rural land use, economic development and more. At its best, the planning profession aims to mediate tensions between people, social groups, and the natural environment by creating an orderly process for determining common values, shared priorities and elegant principles for transcending conflicts. Therefore planners may find themselves caught in some of the most challenging political crossfire to be found. But they also have the opportunity to educate many sectors and communities. — Melissa Everett

I really admire Airbnb as a pioneer of the sharing economy and for building community. They've found an elegant way to help hosts make more money and for guests to have authentic experiences. It brings those people together in a unique way. — Logan Green

The very sight of a teapot puts a smile on the face of most people. One cannot help but think of more serene and genteel times. From a whimsical child's teapot to an elegant English Teapot, to collectible teapots that adorn some homes, they are a subtle reminder of all that is good in this world. — Barbara Roberts

As a child, I saw this beautiful film, Dracula's Daughter, and it was with Gloria Holden and was a sequel to the original Dracula. It was all about this beautiful daughter of Dracula who was an artist in London, and she felt drinking blood was a curse. It had beautiful, sensitive scenes in it, and that film mesmerized me. It established to me what vampires were-these elegant, tragic, sensitive people. I was really just going with that feeling when writing Interview With the Vampire. I didn't do a lot of research. — Anne Rice

I really like the risk takers. I like people who make those different choices on the carpet. I really like Charlize Theron. I think she's elegant and edgy as well. I love Zoe Saldana. — Genesis Rodriguez

In this twilight they were more imagined than seen, but I felt surrounded by the practitioners of a sacred mediocrity, an elegant mediocrity cloistering inaccessible tortures. I don't know quite how to put it. People, men, proud of their cliches yet full of helpless poetry. — Denis Johnson

Get people talking. Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. Nothing so animates writing as someone telling what he thinks or what he does - in his own words. His own words will always be better than your words, even if you are the most elegant stylist in the land. — William Zinsser

In the next room, perhaps twenty people were sitting around, drinking what looked like wine out of wine-glasses. They were the sort of people William and Louisa used to be in the habit of knowing, a crowd of elegant furniture, like the legs of a herd of gazelle taken together, and equally useless, when all things are considered. — Jesse Ball

Oh, no, Cameron; I believe we're born free of sin and free of guilt. It's just that we all catch it, eventually. There are no clean rooms for morality, Cameron, no boys in bubbles kept in a guilt-free sterile zone. There are monasteries and nunneries, and people become recluses, but even that's just an elegant way of giving up. Washing one's hand didn't work two thousand years ago, and it doesn't work today. Involvement, Cameron, connection. — Iain Banks

Helen was beautiful in the way a supercomputer was beautiful: sleek with elegant but utilitarian styling, full of top-notch technological know-how, far too expensive for most people to possess. — Maggie Stiefvater

More than nine-tenths of all literate men and women certainly read nothing but newspapers, and consequently model their orthography, grammar and style almost exclusively on them and even, in their simplicity, regard the murdering of language which goes on in them as brevity of expression, elegant facility and ingenious innovation; indeed, young people of the unlearned professions in general regard the newspaper as an authority simply because it is something printed. For this reason, the state should, in all seriousness, take measures to ensure that the newspapers are altogether free of linguistic errors. A — Arthur Schopenhauer

Sometimes people are very worried about dying. There is no need to be afraid. when the moment of your dying comes, you will be given everything that you need to make that journey in a graceful, elegant, and trusting way. — John O'Donohue

All times are changing times, but ours is one of massive, rapid moral and mental transformation. Archetypes turn into millstones, large simplicities get complicated, chaos becomes elegant, and what everybody knows is true turns out to be what some people used to think. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Me? Rebuild" I shook my head."First off, I don't know anything about construction or reconstruction. And second, have you been down there? Have you seen it? So many people haven't moved back or rebuilt, and I totally get it. Why invest all that time and money when each hurricane season brings a new threat?"
Aimee regarded me with a steady blue gaze. "Why build skyscrapers in San Francisco that might be knocked down by an earthquake? Or why build farms in Kansas and Oklahoma that might get blown away by a tornado?" She snorted, and it seemed so uncharacteristic for the elegant old woman that I almost laughed. "Where did they want us to go, anyway? I figure if we're still breathing, then we're meant to keep going. So we rebuild. We start over. It's just what we do. — Karen White

I must represent France, and I want to be elegant, and I want the French people to be proud of me, you know. — Carla Bruni

Many people, after spending a long weekend being stealthily seduced by this grand dame of the South, mistakenly think that they have gotten to know her: they believe (in error) that after a long stroll amongst the rustling palmettoes and gas lamps, a couple of sumptuous meals, and a tour or two, that they have discovered everything there is to know about this seemingly genteel, elegant city. But like any great seductress, Charleston presents a careful veneer of half-truths and outright fabrications, and it lets you, the intended conquest, fill in many of the blanks. Seduction, after all, is not true love, nor is it a gentle act. She whispers stories spun from sugar about pirates and patriots and rebels, about plantations and traditions and manners and yes, even ghosts; but the entire time she is guarded about the real story. Few tourists ever hear the truth, because at the dark heart of Charleston is a winding tale of violence, tragedy and, most of all, sin. — James Caskey

I walk through the black Indiana night, under a ceiling of stars, and think about the phrase "elegance and euphoria," and how it describes exactly what I feel with Violet. For once, I don't want to be anyone but Theodore Finch, the boy she sees. He understands what it is to be elegant and euphoric and a hundered different people most of them flawed and stupid, part asshole, part screwup, part freak, a boy who wants to be easy for the folks around him so that he doesn't worry them and, most of all, easy for himself. A boy who belongs - here in the world, here in his own skin. He is exactly who I want to be and what I want my epitaph to say: The Boy Violet Markey Loves. — Jennifer Niven

British people don't express when they are in pain. They don't think it's elegant. — Monica Bellucci