Lapel Quotes & Sayings

Until recently, the question was 'Why can't a woman be more like a man?' It should have been changed to 'Why can't both sexes be more like the best parts of each other?' Instead, the pendulum swung to the 1960s feminist lapel button Adam Was a First Draft. True enough. So are we all. — Warren Farrell

She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership). — O. Henry

Franny was among the first of the girls to get off the train, from a car at the far, northern end of the platform. Lane spotted her immediately, and despite whatever it was he was trying to do with his face, his arm that shot up into the air was the whole truth. Franny saw it, and him, and waved extravagantly back. She was wearing a sheared-raccoon coat, and Lane, walking to- ward her quickly but with a slow face, reasoned to himself, with suppressed excitement, that he was the only one on the platform who really knew Franny's coat. He remembered that once, in a borrowed car, after kissing Franny for a half hour or so, he had kissed her coat lapel, as though it were a perfectly desirable, organic extension of the person herself. — J.D. Salinger

The marquis breathed heavily on his fingernails and polished them on the lapel of his coat. "I have always felt," he said, "that violence was the last refuge of the incompetent, and empty threats the final sanctuary of the terminally inept. — Neil Gaiman

A fat man with a Nazi party pin in his lapel played Cole Porter on a white piano. — Alan Furst

Judging by the lopsided way she was hunched, with one hand buried deep under the lapel of her coat, Strike deduced that he had saved her by grabbing a substantial part of her left breast. — Robert Galbraith

MAURY: What is a gentleman, anyway? ANTHONY: A man who never has pins under his coat lapel. MAURY: Nonsense! A man's social rank is determined by the amount of bread he eats in a sandwich. DICK: He's a man who prefers the first edition of a book to the last edition of a newspaper. RACHAEL: A man who never gives an impersonation of a dope-fiend. MAURY: An American who can fool an English butler into thinking he's one. MURIEL: A man who comes from a good family and went to Yale or Harvard or Princeton, and has money and dances well, and all that. MAURY: At last - the perfect definition! Cardinal Newman's is now a back number. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I was doing comedy in laundry mats in 1992, literally where I would bring a little gorilla amp and a lapel mike and just start performing. — Dane Cook

I coax my palm into his lapel in search of my wish, returning his feverish kisses.
"Checkmate, you son of a bug," I say against his mouth two seconds before my fingers find an empty pocket.
"Sleight of hand, blossom," he says right back. " 'Tis in fact in my pants pocket, if you'd like to search there. — A.G. Howard

Did you bite someone?' Jack enquired.
'I laughed at people, which is much worse. My laughter has sharper teeth than any dog. It tears people apart who wish to be taken seriously, but I could not help myself. There were many complaints and finally a man in a brown suit came and looked at me. He was very important and not used to being laughed at, but I could see he had dandruff on his collar, and there was a spot of his breakfast egg on his lapel. You should have seen him - so puffed up and proud of himself. I couldn't help but laugh and that made people see him as I did, and so they laughed too. All of a sudden everyone realised that for all his status in official matters, he was a man who lived alone and was loveless. — Isobelle Carmody

I can't be a rose in any man's lapel. — Margaret Trudeau

Though Alec had never seen the occupants of the first floor loft, they seemed to be engaged in a tempestuous romance. Once there had been a bunch of someone's belongings strewn all over the landing with a note attached to a jacket lapel addressed to "A lying liar who lies." Right now there was a bouquet of flowers taped to the door with a card tucked among the blooms that read I'M SORRY. That was the thing about New York: you always knew more about your neighbors' business than you wanted to. — Cassandra Clare

I want to be more than a rose in my husband's lapel. — Margaret Trudeau

Comes to my door. Mr. Mayor now. Got the suit, with the American flag in the lapel. Don't join the military; don't help out the little guy; don't take in your tired, your poor, your huddled masses - but if you wear a little flag, you're a patriot. — Harlan Coben

I could still do a suit, I just wouldn't have done that exact lapel situation. — Kanye West

People get this very romantic vision of a fashion designer who in one night makes 25 sketches and in the morning throws them on the table and there are a lot of women in white aprons with the pins on the lapel and they start to grab the sketches and ... It's not like that. — Dries Van Noten

We're being sold a brand new idea of patriotism. It never occurred to me that patriotism had to be advertised. Patriotism is something you deeply felt. You didn't have to wear it on your lapel or show it in your window or on a bumper sticker. That kind of patriotism does not appeal to me at all. — Sam Shepard

Slowly, slowly, with a drugged, fathomless calm, Henry bent and picked up a handful of dirt. He held it over the grave and let it trickle from his fingers. Then, with terrible composure, he stepped back and absently dragged the hand across his chest, smearing mud upon his lapel, his tie, the starched immaculate white of his shirt.
I stared at him. So did Julian, and Francis, and the twins, with a kind of shocked horror. He seemed not to realise he had done anything out of the ordinary. He stood there perfectly still, the wind ruffling his hair and the dull light glinting from the rims of his glasses. — Donna Tartt

Asked why no flag is studded in his coat lapel or decorates his aerial, a veteran responds, "I wear my flag on my heart - I don't wear my heart on my sleeve. — Anonymous

The pandering and ignorance-across-party-lines represented by the John McCain-Hillary Clinton united front for a temporary reduction in the gasoline tax should make Americans hold their heads in their hands and moan [ ... ] Please. This is embarrassing. It makes me long for the good old days of debating about flag pins on the lapel. — James Fallows

Better the crime,
the suicides of lovers, the incest committed
by brother and sister like two mirrors
in love with their likeness, better to eat
the poisoned bread, adultery on a bed
of ashes, ferocious love, the poisonous
vines of delirium, the sodomite who wears
a gob of spit for a rose in his lapel,
better to be stoned in the plaza than to turn
the mill that squeezes out the juice of life,
that turns eternity into empty hours,
minutes into prisons, and time into
copper coins and abstract shit — Octavio Paz

The false pride of perennial celebration, of wearing flag lapel pins while betraying the values that the flag stands for, is like the self-esteem curriculum for toddlers, where everything is praised and no achievement ultimately has meaning. — Anne-Marie Slaughter

Claire was struggling through last summer's diary volume when Myrnin popped in through the portal, wearing a big floppy black hat and a kind of crazy/stylish pimp coat that covered him from neck to ankles, black leather gloves, and a black and silver walking stick with a dragon's head on it. And, on his lapel was a button that said, If you can read this, thank a teacher. — Rachel Caine

I love Mister." Corbin kissed the top of her head. "I love you, Alice." "And Ebum?" "Yes, dear." Corbin looked over at Edmund, who watched him intently. "I love Edmund too." Edmund smiled. Corbin motioned him over. Edmund climbed onto his lap beside Alice and buried his face in Corbin's lapel. "Love Mama?" Alice continued her questioning. "Yes," Corbin whispered. "Especially Mama. — Sarah M. Eden

Men's clothing hasn't changed in 200 years, maybe a lapel gets a little wider or a tie gets narrower from time to time. But it's usually always the same. There is stupidity in men's fashion. But women know who they are. They can change. Clothing is seductive for women. They get different personas by buying new clothes. But men don't. — Massimo Vignelli

Are those cat hairs on your lapel, or have you been dating a blonde with a crew cut? — Lilian Jackson Braun

The sensors have many potential practical uses - in Government buildings, train carriages, cargo containers, on a soldier's lapel - and are a thousand times cheaper than current sensors that are used for the same purpose. — Anne Campbell

Make no sounds. Do not, under any circumstances, make any sounds.
She faltered. A whimper of unutterable pleasure escaped her tightly clenched teeth.
Deep inside her, a dam that had been ceaselessly reinforced crumbled. Years upon years of pent-up desires flooded her. Suddenly she couldn't care less that she must remain quiet and pliant.
She wanted. She wanted. She wanted.
She gripped him by the lapel and yanked him to her. — Sherry Thomas

The end of 'City Lights' makes me cry every time I see it - when Charlie Chaplin walks by the shop window and the once-blind girl brings him a flower and pins it to his lapel. — Emma Stone

From behind her back, Sarah brought out a set of Matchbox cars, which she handed to Jonah.
"What's this for?" He asked.
"I just wanted you to have something to play with while you're here," she said. "Do you like them?"
He stared at the box. "This is great! Dad ... look." He held the box in the air.
"I see that. Did you say thanks?"
"Thank you, Miss Andrews."
"You're welcome."
As soon as Miles approached, Sarah stood again and greeted him with a kiss. "I was just kidding, you know. You look nice, too. I'm not used to seeing you wearing a jacket and tie in the middle of the afternoon." She fingered his lapel slightly. "I could get used to this."
"Thank you, Miss Andrews," he said, mimicking his son. — Nicholas Sparks

You're all right, Blue Eyes." She lifted her head to look into them. "You're all right, down the line. You ever want a free bang, you got one coming."
"It would, no doubt be a memorable bang. But my wife is fiercely jealous and territorial." He grinned over at a very cold-eyed Eve.
"Her? You? That's a kick in the ass."
"Every damn day," Eve muttered, and strode out.
She kept striding, out of the club, back into the comparatively fresh air of the city street. And fisted her hands on her hips as she spun to him. "Did you have to do the 'my wife' crap?"
His grin remained, and only widened. "I did, yes. I felt a desperate need for your protection. I believe that woman had designs on me."
"I'll put a design on you that won't come off in the shower."
"See, now I'm excited." Reaching out, he toyed with the lapel of her coat."What have you got in mind ? — J.D. Robb

As planned The Three Wise Women meet at 3WW HQ for debriefing. Angelina extracted the small camera from her lapel and downloaded it onto a laptop. She then expertly digitally scanned the Polaroid into her electronic file on James. Ava had just missed Sean who had given his camcorder and photographs of himself and Patrick to Angelina. It had been digitally downloaded and formatted onto Patrick's pc file. A back-up of all data was done on the Company server but it was heavily encrypted and written in Angelina's own program Borrow and used her own software Gotya, so only the very best could break her code and that would take months — Annette J. Dunlea

You might one day be offered the opportunity to display symbols of loyalty. Make sure that such symbols include your fellow citizens rather than exclude them. Even the history of lapel pins is far from innocent. In Nazi Germany in 1933, people wore lapel pins that said "Yes" during the elections and referendum that confirmed the one-party state. In Austria in 1938, people who had not previously been Nazis began to wear swastika pins. What might seem like a gesture of pride can be a source of exclusion. In the Europe of the 1930s and '40s, some people chose to wear swastikas, and then others had to wear yellow stars. — Timothy Snyder

And the second [thing about the CBS EVENING NEWS that stands out in the mind of Michael J. Fox] was something Katie did later in the interview, as the drugs kicked in and the tremors segued into the jerkiness of dyskinesias. Somewhere in the contortions of making a point, my left arm detached the microphone clip from my jacket lapel. With no fuss and hardly a break in conversation or eye contact, she calmly leaned over and refastened it. Neither of us commented on it, but it was such an empathetic gesture, so far from anything patronizing or pitying, a simple kindness that allowed me the dignity to carry on making a point more important than the superficiality of my physical circumstance ...
... One thing was abundantly clear though, whether or not she was able to forget how much she liked me: with that single act of consideration, she made it abundantly clear how much she loved her father. — Michael J. Fox

You are supposed to know how to fly or you would not be here. You will now learn to fly all over again. Our way. I have examined your logbooks. They contain some interesting and clever lies. If you are lucky and work a good solid eighteen hours a day in this school, it is barely possible that a few of you may succeed in actually going out on the line-that is, if the company is still in such desperate need of pilots that it will hire anybody who wears his wings in his lapel and walks slowly past the front door. — Ernest K. Gann

Do you have any idea how much I love you?" Jordan curled her hands around the lapel of his jacket and tugged him closer. In her heels, she was almost his height, and when she pressed her body against his, her mouth was a scant inch away. Jordan flicked her tongue over his lower lip and whispered. "It might even border on obsession. — Sara Humphreys

The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying 'we' when referring to the United States and, even the 'shock and awe' of the initial stages, it was just too jubilant and just a little uncomfortable. — Katie Couric

She knew the minute HE arrived. Felt the warm blanket of comfort reach out to her frozen soul ... He made his way down the isle and sat next to her ... he didn't reach out, didn't touch her ... a single tear slid out from her closed lids and she blindly reached for his hand. He took her hand in more, gathering her close, arms coming around her warm and strong as her head sank down unto his shoulder and the tears finally came soaking the lapel of his wool suit. He offered her a perfectly white handkerchief ... she stared at it and wondered who carries that type of thing anymore? He looked back at her and explained, I'm old fashioned. — D.B. Reynolds

Although she's miles away, still I remember spending that December, staring at the sounds she made with her breath. And when I asked what it was she was up to "five foot nothing" came from her cracked honky-tonk lips and from a calico bonnet monstrous curls unfurled like apple-blossoms scattering about into the back-country. And wreaths of snowflakes swarmed over the hems of her garments and wandered with us into the ether on John F. Kennedy Avenue, and mingled in the traffic. While she held my head together like Jackie Onassis.
Although she's miles away, still I remember her pinning roses to a lapel and the icicles that hung upon the city when I told her "I may not be a handsome man and I probably don't have what it takes to make you forget for long, but know that I'm grateful we had this little drink and a dance before I'm sent ony way." Down John F. Kennedy Avenue, thumbing to Dallas. She held my head together
Like Jackie Onassis. — Valentine Xavier

Love is the same as a safety pin unsafe in the lapel of chance. — Joaquin Sabina

A tomb is a vault, a vault is a home," Mr. Sadlot said casually sniffing the flower in his lapel. "That's where the deceased chose to reside and that is where he will be placed." Kekaju and the Hidden Swamp — Robert W. Sweeting

During the last presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama, asked why he was not wearing a flag pin, answered that it represented "a substitute" for "true patriotism." Bad move. Months later, Obama quietly beat a retreat and began wearing the flag on his lapel. He does so still. — Charles Krauthammer

I twist like a flower
at the sound of your voice
But you leave the receiver
static most days
You have me growing into a dial tone

All it would take is your voice
saying my name
And I would behead myself
to be carried around on your lapel — Kait Rokowski

Sexy." "I'm not interested in funny and sexy with Malcolm Kavanaugh." "Parker, if you weren't interested, on some level, you'd have flicked him off like lint on a lapel. He ... " Laurel searched for the right word. "He intrigues you." "No, he ... Maybe." "As your friend, let me say it's nice to see you intrigued by a man, especially since I like the — Nora Roberts

If you don't care about the lapel or the buttons or the fit, then you are doing a disservice to the consumer. We're all inside the tunnel, speaking the language of business, but we need to speak the language of customers. — Mickey Drexler

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: I'm with you kid. Let's go. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

face lit up with a glow of gratitude that was prayer, though he did not know it. Then furtively the percussion-cap box came out. He released the tick and put him on the long flat desk. The creature probably glowed with a gratitude that amounted to prayer, too, at this moment, but it was premature: for when he started thankfully to travel off, Tom turned him aside with a pin and made him take a new direction. Tom's bosom friend sat next him, suffering just as Tom had been, and now he was deeply and gratefully interested in this entertainment in an instant. This bosom friend was Joe Harper. The two boys were sworn friends all the week, and embattled enemies on Saturdays. Joe took a pin out of his lapel and began to assist in exercising the prisoner. The sport grew in interest momently. Soon Tom said that they were interfering with each other, and neither getting the fullest benefit of the tick. So he put Joe's slate on the desk and drew a line down the middle of it from top to bottom. — Mark Twain

of those New York construction workers were honored at the White House a few weeks later by President Nixon. He thanked them for showing their patriotism the day they beat students. He gave them flag lapel pins, and they gave him a yellow hard hat like the ones they wore the day they assaulted students, seventy of whom were seriously injured. — Betty Medsger

There's a certain elitism that has crept into the attitudes of some in journalism, and it played out perfectly over the issue of these little American flag lapel pins. — Brit Hume

After all, we humans are not just one thing, we are multiple things, all at once, and any man wearing a badge on his chest boasting one particular quality or value is a man who is hiding ten other qualities and values he didn't see fit to pin to his lapel. — Lenore Zion

Fitz called after him, "We'll see how far you get without me. Enjoy it Aidan, your nosedive to the discount rack, playing second-rate concert halls, being yesterday's news. That's all this will get you
that and your Catswallow trailer park bride." An old temper surged through Aidan, moving angrily at him.
"Aidan, don't!" she shouted.
Grabbing a shoulder, Aidan spun him about, landing a solid punch to his jaw, knocking the record-producing mogul onto the pavement. "Get it straight," he said, jerking his lapel. "She's from New Jersey. — Laura Spinella

Miniaturization of electronics started by NASA's push became an entire consumer products industry. Now we're carrying the complete works of Beethoven on a lapel pin listening to it in headphones. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The people in makeup would buff away the shine on the face of anyone in front of the camera, and the sound blokes would clip a microphone onto the lapel of a jacket so it looked like something other than an insect about to crawl onto the presenter's chin, but Steven Spielberg this group was not. This was a low-budget operation, thank you very much. — Elizabeth George

The figures ... are not supposed to reveal anything ... It's like seeing a stranger in some place like an air terminal for the first time. You look at him, you notice his shoes, his suit, the pin in his lapel, but you don't have any particular feeling about him. — Wayne Thiebaud

It's certainly nice to have my options open." He looked back out at the city. "Can this possibly work, Mister Brekker? Or am I risking the fate of Ravka and the world's Grisha on the honor and abilities of a fast-talking urchin?"
"More than a bit of both," said Kaz. "You're risking a country. We're risking our lives. Seems a fair trade."
The king of Ravka offered his hand. "The deal is the deal?"
"The deal is the deal."
They shook.
"If only treaties could be signed so quickly," he said, his easy privateer's mien sliding back in place like a mask purchased on West Stave. "I'm going to have a drink and a bath. One can take only so much mud and squalor. As the rebel said to the prince, it's bad for the constitution."
He flicked an invisible speck of dust from his lapel and sauntered out of the solarium. — Leigh Bardugo