Long Nails Quotes & Sayings

I didn't really want to talk. I'd wanted him there, but I asn't sure why. Maybe just to have someone to drink with. Actually, that sounded pretty good at the moment. I sat on the seat of the chaise and he sat on the foot, and we just drank at each other for a while.
After a few minutes, he leaned back against the railing, like maybe he wanted a backrest, and I shifted my feet over to make room. But I guess I didn't shift far enough, because a large, warm hand covered my right foot, adjusting it slightly. And then it just stayed there, like he'd forgotten to remove it.
I looked at it. Pritkin's hands were oddly refined compared to the rest of him: strong but long fingered, with elegant bones and short-clipped nails. They always looked like they'd wandered off from some fine gentleman, one they'd probably like to get back to, because God knew they weren't getting a manicure while attached to him. — Karen Chance

Dolor
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate gray standard faces. — Theodore Roethke

Being a woman is worse than being a farmer there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved, eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated and moisturised, spots cleansed, roots dyed, eyelashes tinted, nails filed, cellulite massaged, stomach muscles exercised.
The whole performance is so highly tuned you only need to neglect it for a few days for the whole thing to go to seed. Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if left to revert to nature - with a full beard and handlebar moustache on each shin Dennis Healey eyebrows face a graveyard of dead skin cells spots erupting long curly fingernails like Struwelpeter blind as bat and stupid runt of species as no contact lenses flabby body flobbering around. Ugh ugh. Is it any wonder girls have no confidence? — Helen Fielding

With his long sharp nails he opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight and with the other ceased my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound so that I must either suffocate or swallow ...
Some of the ... Oh my god ... my god
What have I done? — Bram Stoker

You know they used to use nails," he says. "In the old days. Poor folks still do. Not the best idea, a nail in a coffin." Bowman says nothing, but in his mind, he asks, Coffin? The man nods, smiling. He picks up something now, and shows it to Bowman, for inspection. It is a long brass screw. "That's better," he says. "Better than a nail. Notice anything about it?" Bowman shakes his head. "The screw runs widdershins. Back to front. 'Gainst the clock. All the other screws in the world turn the other way to this one. But coffin screws are different. " Bowman forms a word in his mind. Why? The coffin maker smiles. "To stop them from coming back, of course. — Marcus Sedgwick

With her purple hair, leather jacket with a decal of two dragons on the back, and tough-as-nails boots, Mal had trouble written all over her - which was precisely what she was going for. The bilious green spray paint spelled out LONG LIVE EVIL. Mal holstered her paint can, reveled in her work, and stepped into the bustling marketplace, where she was quickly swept up in the throng and blended into the sea of haggard, worn faces. — Walt Disney Company

Drink whatever you like, just so long as it coordinates with your nail varnish. — Victoria Beckham

Polynesian women are known for their long hair, glowing skin, and thick nails. And that comes from the local diet, which is mostly plant based with a little bit of fish and a lot of natural fats and oils. — Nikki Reed

That's why she keeps her nails long, she says, to be able to scratch and claw. — Jerzy Kosinski

The first glance at the pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it
cockroaches as large as peach leaves
fellows with long, quivering antennae and fiery, malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. I lay down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas were throwing double somersaults about my person in the wildest disorder, and taking a bite every time they stuck. I was beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went on deck.
The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island schooner life. — Mark Twain

Serious as shit right now, Izzy. You keep looking at me like I'm the last drop of water left over after a long-ass drought and I will take you right here in the doorway. Jesus Christ, I'm so fucking hard right now, I think I really could hammer nails. — Harper Sloan

Alf's nails wander around his forehead like nails do when wandering among memories and opening doors that have long been closed. — Fredrik Backman

The falseness of the seventeenth century became a large measure of the truth by the nineteenth. Money made the man, or at least went a long way toward doing so; and death became the occasion for a final accounting, a stocktaking of worldly success. Of course, there were other metrics: virtue, martyrdom, political standing, fraternal ties. But it took money to publicize them. The funeral became more and more a standardized commodity whose cost could be matched with exquisite precision to the class and degree of 'respectability' of the deceased. When one bought a funeral, one bought a more or less splendid parade, each additional bauble, each horse, each feather or set of nails adding to the base price. Bit by bit, finery accumulated, and by looking at the account books of an undertaker who specialized in pauper funerals, we can begin to see the bounds of decency in death. — Thomas W. Laqueur

Well, let's take what people think is a dignified death. Christ - was that a dignified death? Do you think it's dignified to hang from wood with nails through your hands and feet bleeding, hang for three or four days slowly dying, with people jabbing spears into your side, and people jeering you? Do you think that's dignified? Not by a long shot. Had Christ died in my van with people around Him who loved Him, the way it was, it would be far more dignified. In my rusty van. — Jack Kevorkian

Their eyes, warm not only with human bond but with the shared enjoyment of the art objects he sold, their mutual tastes and satisfactions, remained fixed on him; they were thanking him for having things like these for them to see, pick up and examine, handle perhaps without even buying. Yes, he thought, they know what sort of store they are in; this is not tourist trash, not redwood plaques reading Muir Woods, Marin County, PSA, or funny signs or girly rings or postcards or views of the Bridge. The girl's eyes especially, large, dark. How easily, Childan thought, I could fall in love with a girl like this. How tragic my life, then; as if it weren't bad enough already. The stylish black hair, lacquered nails, pierced ears for the long dangling brass handmade earrings. "Your — Philip K. Dick

One day comes after another and another and pretty soon you realize that yesterday was pretty damn long ago and that everything you had hoped for is never going to happen. You can't control it any more than you can control that big wave from getting stronger before it nails you. All you can do is prepare and hope that when it hits, you'll survive. — Buffy Andrews

I bite my nails. I've been chewing on them for years. As long as you don't chew through flesh it's all right. — Ed Westwick

I just blow-dry my hair and put on mascara and lip gloss, and I'm ready to go. I really don't get long nails. They're so Edward Scissorhands. — Kelly Clarkson

She can outstare anyone, and I am almost as good. We're impervious, we scintillate, we are thirteen. We wear long wool coats with tie belts, the collars turned up to look like those of movie stars, and rubber boots with the tops folded down and men's work socks inside. In our pockets are stuffed the kerchiefs our mothers make us wear but that we take off as soon as we're out of their sight. We scorn head coverings. Our mouths are tough, crayon-red, shiny as nails. We think we are friends. — Margaret Atwood

Looks like my superpowers don't come with automatic manicures, thank heaven. I hate long nails. — Jennifer Silverwood

I have these long nails, but I literally do nothing to them! The thought of filing my nails drives me insane. — Kacy Hill

I haven't got the normal protective whorls, so that touching anything, especially fabric, causes such irritation that I need long nails to protect them. — Gilles Deleuze

But this isn't their God, she decided. It's my God. This is a God I have found through sacrificing my own life, through my flesh being cut, my skin ripped off, my blood sucked away, my nails torn, all my time and hopes and memories being stolen from me. This is not a God with a form. No white clothes, no long beard. This god has no doctrine, no scripture, no precepts. No reward, no punishment. This God doesn't give, and doesn't take away. There is no heaven up in the sky, no hell down below. When it's hot, and when it's cold, God is simply there. — Haruki Murakami

I dust a whole shelf of books on pregnancy, breastfeeding, the first six months, the first year, the first two years - and I wonder what the child care-deprived Maddy makes of all this. Maybe there's been some secret division of the world's women into breeders and drones, and those at the maid level are no longer supposed to be reproducing at all. Maybe this is why our office manager, Tammy, who was once a maid herself, wears inch-long fake nails and tarty little outfits - to show she's advanced to the breeder caste and can't be sent out to clean anymore. — Barbara Ehrenreich

Quit worrying so much about the boards and nails of your life. Focus on the stuff that lasts. He glanced through the window toward the glowing light of the kitchen where Meg and my mom were laughing about something. — Laura Anderson Kurk

If you are dressing up, then dress to the hilt, else let it go easy. But no matter what, pay attention to the nails. Whether you keep it short, long, varnished or plain, it has to look good. — Sonam Kapoor

I brought you some pictures of my work," he said proudly. His name was William Weinstein, which may have explained why he left Jews off his hate list. He had been born in Brooklyn, and moved to Santa Fe ten years before. He took an envelope out of his pocket, rifled through some pictures, and handed them to Paris. They were ten-foot phallic symbols made of clay. The man had penises on the brain. "It's very interesting work," Paris said, pretending to be impressed. "Do you use live models?" she asked more in jest, and he nodded. "Actually, I use my own." He thought that hysterically funny and laughed so hard he almost coughed himself to death. Along with the clay under his nails, enough of it to create another sculpture, his fingers were stained with nicotine. "Do you like to ride?" "Yes, but I haven't in a long time. Do you? — Danielle Steel

Fear envelops bones like new skin,
envelops blood with night's skin,
the earth moves beneath the soles of the feet -
it is not your hair but the terror in your head,
like long hair made of vertical nails,
and what you see are not shattered streets,
but rather, within you, your own crushed walls,
your frustrated infinity, again the city comes
crashing down: in your silence, only water's threat
is heard, and in the water
drowned horses gallop through your death. — Pablo Neruda

As regards your government of yourself and your household, Sancho, my first piece of advice is to be clean and to cut your fingernails, and not to let them grow long, as some people do, moved by ignorance to believe that long nails make their hand look beautiful, as if those appendages, those excrescences that they leave uncut have any right to be called fingernails at all, because they are more like talons of a kestrel: a monstrous and filthy abuse. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Just when it seemed my mother couldn't bear
one more needle, one more insane orange pill,
my sister, in silence, stood at the end
of the bed and slowly rubbed her feet,
which were scratchy with hard, yellow skin,
and dirt cramped beneath the broken nails,
which changed nothing in time except
the way my mother was lost in it for a while
as if with a kind of relief that doesn't relieve.
And then, with her eyes closed, my mother said
the one or two words the living have for gratefulness,
which is a kind of forgetting, with a sense
of what it means to be alive long enough
to love someone. Thank you, she said. As for me,
I didn't care how her voice suddenly seemed low
and kind, or what failures and triumphs
of the body and spirit brought her to that point
just that it sounded like hope, stupid hope. — Jason Shinder

One should let one's fingernails grow for a fortnight. Oh! how sweet to snatch brutally from his bed a boy who has as yet nothing upon his upper lip, and, with eyes open wide, to feign to stroke his forehead softly, brushing back his beautiful locks! And all of a sudden, just when he least expects it, to sink your long nails into his tender breast, but not so that he dies, for if he died you would miss the sight of his subsequent sufferings. Then you drink his blood, sucking the wounds, and during this time, which should last an eternity, the child weeps. — Comte De Lautreamont

One should let one's nails grow for a fortnight. O, how sweet it is to drag brutally from his bed a child with no hair on his upper lip and with wide open eyes, make as if to touch his forehead gently with one's hand and run one's fingers through his beautiful hair. Then suddenly, when he is least expecting it, to dig one's long nails into his soft breast, making sure, though, that one does not kill him; for if he died, one would not later be able to contemplate his agonies. Then one drinks his blood as one licks his wounds; and during this time, which ought to last for eternity, the child weeps. — Comte De Lautreamont

The canvases which Mr. St. Jones referred to with a paintbrush that was long and slightly bowed: for the most part interiors, or undergrounds, of pocked and craggy holes, rock vaults with mossy floors and slimy walls, or narrow scenic vistas that skinny silver streams squirmed through like sidewinders flipped on their backs, beneath downward grasping tentacles of roots, stalactites dagger-sharp and dangling by threads of stone, stalagmites teetering, all doused, frozen in molten electric white that suggested what a glimpse of hell might be, too beautiful, some still lifes too, great bulbous beets, hoary legumes, giant scallions, white carrots, tomatoes, berries, squash in huge radiant bowls, and portraits, signed by Ionia, of shadows, from which gleamed eyes and teeth and nails and, here and there, a glowing bubble, or scrotum, caught the eye. Near the door a counter clacked but rather quietly. — Douglas Woolf

The small gargoyle had gone entirely white to match the ceiling, and only the rims of his ears, his long clawlike nails, and a thick stripe down his whip-like tail were still gray. He was crawling along the ceiling like a bat, wings held to make sharp angles and claws extended. It just about broke my creepy meter. — Kim Harrison

As long as it feels valid to me and feels sincere, I'll do what I do under the moniker of Nine Inch Nails if it's appropriate. I would hate to think I would ever be in a position where I'm faking it to get a paycheck. — Trent Reznor

In the circle of yellow lamplight,
These few roof-beams and columns
Of what could be a Mogul Emperor's palace.
The Prince chews his long nails,
The Princess lowers her green eyelids.
They both smoke too much,
Never go to bed before daybreak. — Charles Simic

My nails are a disaster. If I play guitar when my nails are long, I just tear them off. — Liz Phair

Velma eyed Kate assessingly. She swiped at her hairline with fingers decorated with several diamond-studded gold rings and long nails shellacked with opalescent pearl polish. "Kate," she said in a ominous tone, "how old are you now?"
Ah, Kate thought. Here it comes. Though Velma and Peg had spent their entire lives in Redbud, Kate knew them well from their annual trips to Dallas to see Gran, "I'm thirty-one."
"Why in the world haven't you married anyone yet?"
"Well..." I'm holding out for Prince Harry. I have cooties, so that makes it hard. Shark attack killed the last prospect. — Becky Wade

The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On — Bram Stoker

The Government which attacks its own innocent subjects has no claim to be called a civilised government. Bear in mind, such a government does not survive long. I declare that the blows struck at me will be the last nails in the coffin of the British rule in India. — Lala Lajpat Rai

Then he knew that they had rounded the cape of good hope, and he took her large, soft hand again and covered it with forlorn little kisses, first the hard metacarpus, the long, discerning fingers, the diaphanous nails, and then the hieroglyphics of her destiny on her perspiring palm. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The moon shone upon his almost transparent hands, and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long and that the light shone through them. — M.R. James

The first single I released, 'Anything Goes,' is probably one of the best-written songs I've heard in a long time. It takes somebody knowing who you are. Sometimes writers know who an artist is and what they want to say and how they sing. I will never be opposed to cutting a song if somebody nails my life and what I'm going through. — Randy Houser

Eric was holding my hands, and I was digging my nails into him like we were doing something else. He won't mind, I though, as I realized I'd drawn blood. And sure enough, he didn't. "Let go," he advised me, and I loosened my grip on his hands. "No, not of me," he said smiling. "You can hold on to me as long as you want. — Charlaine Harris

One of the things I liked about her [Dorothy] was that she had long fingernails that she would carefully manicure and paint to fit her mood. If she were in a happy mood, her nails would be bright red. If she were feeling like she wanted to eviscerate her mother she would paint her nails burgundy. — Augusten Burroughs

During his next visit, my father secretly decided that our bathroom needed towel hooks. Using nails that were too long, my father pierced the door, creating towel hooks on one side, medieval blinding devices on the other ... No matter how inconvenient a household malfunction might be, Kazem can always make it worse, for free. — Firoozeh Dumas

If you are ignorant of Lora Delane Porter's books that is your affair. Perhaps you are more to be pitied than censured. Nature probably gave you the wrong shape of forehead. Mrs. Porter herself would have put it down to some atavistic tendency or pre-natal influence. She put most things down to that. She blamed nearly all the defects of the modern world, from weak intellects to in-growing toe-nails, on long-dead ladies and gentlemen who, safe in the family vault, imagined that they had established their alibi. She subpoenaed grandfathers and even great-grandfathers to give evidence to show that the reason Twentieth-Century Willie squinted or had to spend his winters in Arizona was their own shocking health 'way back in the days beyond recall. — P.G. Wodehouse

Our part of District 12, nicknamed the Seam, is usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour. Men and women with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many who have long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails, the lines of their sunken faces. But today the black cinder streets are empty. Shutters on the squat gray houses are closed. The reaping isn't until two. May as well sleep in. If you can. Our — Suzanne Collins

All your mannerisms change easily when you have inch-long acrylic nails. — Margot Robbie

I remember the first day I was looking at my hands and I thought about my nails. People wouldn't really be paying attention to that, but a Civil War doctor - What would they be doing with their nails? Would they cut them really low? And Dr. Burns said, "No, they would let them grow out so they can scoop stuff out. They would use their nails." So for a while I let my nails grow. They were too long. I kept stabbing myself by accident, so I cut them down, but I was trying to be faithful to the details. — Josh Radnor

She wrote she heard them hammering nails all day long and that it was like living next to a coffin maker after a plague. When — Joe Hill

Inside, he had forgotten what it was like to hear a woman's voice, listen to the sort of complaints that only women could have. Bad haircuts. Rude store clerks. Chipped nails. Men wanted to talk about things: cars, guns, snatch. They didn't discuss their feelings unless it was anger, and even that didn't last for long because generally they started doing something about it. — Karin Slaughter

Anita Kleinman was a slight woman in her seventies. Her hair was thinning and white with a touch of pink, and was swept back from her face in unbroken waves. She wore a full-length Chinese silk gown covered with bright gold dragons on a blue background. Her fingers were tipped with long red nails and heavy with gold rings. She held out her arms in an expression of welcome and perhaps to show me the full extent of her dragons. — Frederick Weisel

They talked about what they'd felt as they rained blows on the fallen body. A combination of sleepiness and sexual desire. Desire to fuck the poor bastard? Not at all! More as if they were fucking themselves. As if they were digging into themselves. With long nails and empty hands. Though if your fingernails are long enough your hands are never really empty. But in this dreamlike state, they dug and dug, rending fabric and ripping veins and puncturing vital organs. What were they looking for? They didn't know. Nor, at that stage, did they care. — Roberto Bolano

Golden hands. It is said that all Poles have them, and that this is how you know your place in life, by the ease of your hands, that whether you are born to make cakes or butcher animals, cuddle children or paint pictures, drive nails or play jazz, your hands know it before you do. Long before birth, the movements are choreographed into the tendons as they're formed. — Brigid Pasulka

Alice in Darkness

Forget tears. Chasing
white animals with timepieces
in this drug-trip landscape
can only lead to more of same.
Hedgehogs, playing cards, paintbrushes:
full of undisclosed danger.
Didn't your mother tell you
not to kiss strangers?
That Cheshire smile shouldn't fool you.
Pull your skirt down.
Your nails are growing so fast
you're hardly human.
Alice, fight your version of Bedlam
as long as you can.
Sleep the sweet dream away
from that gooey looking glass, or mushrooms,
or the fear of your own body.
Forget what the night tastes like.
Stop wondering through the shadows,
holding your neck out
for the slice of the axe. — Jeannine Hall Gailey

In the silence punctuated only by their footsteps, both men thought not of themselves but of a Man who once made a long,lonely march up a hill, who in the world's worst hour did the most courageous thing ever done.
At the end of His climb,He spread out His arms and permitted guilty men to drive nails into His hands and feet. He endured untold agony to give undeserving men- like Mike Hollis, Derrick Freeman, Nathan Hayes, and Adam Mitchell- a second chance.
To most people none of this - not what these men were doing now, nor what He did two thousand years ago-made sense.
From the outside, grace and truth,honor and courage,seldom do. — Randy Alcorn

Short a bear market, go long in a bull market, either play, you do it on a hunch, harbor a whole lot of hope, then sit back and try not to bite your nails. Because no one knows anything for sure. Foresight is a hunch. Everyone is making it up as best they can, and life's winners are those who smile at the truth of it and can cut a wake through a Sargasso of ego, guesswork, bullshit and chance. — Simon Pont

I don't have a stylist, and I do most of my shopping online, just because it's easier. I don't have any nails to manicure, and it takes me 30 minutes to get ready for a night out, as long as I've decided what to wear first. — Zara Phillips

Tall, over six foot, ripped, and with sandy-blond hair that was just a bit too long, tats running down both arms to his elbows, cheekbones you could file your nails on, and lips that were just perfect for biting. — Jane Harvey-Berrick

It was like the sun had appeared again in my life, Sophia, You. You changed everything when you stepped into that room. You have a freshness, a strength, an allure, I've never seen before. The way you walk, talk, hold yourself. The way you move your hands, these long red nails. You've become the light of my life. — Cristiane Serruya

Fasting, prayama (breath control), japa (repetition of a name of God or a short mantra), and study of scriptures are among the most common practices. At the mels one can observe other varieties of tapas: lying on a bed of thorns or nails, prolonged standing on one leg, lifting one arm for years till it is withered, looking straight into the glaring sun for long hours, and similar sportive feats. Many ascetics keep silent for years. This is one of the most powerful means of storing up spiritual energy. — Klaus K. Klostermaier

There was something about her fingers. The way they had been crafted. The spaces between them were always calling out to me. Every time I saw them, they moved in a peculiar way and made me feel relaxed. The nails were neither cut short nor were they long. They were perfect. Just the way they are meant to be. It was often that I thought of holding them, caressing them and maybe just touch them. And never stop. — Anushka Bhartiya

Eventually she came. She appeared suddenly, exactly like she'd done that day- she stepped into the sunshine, she jumped, she laughed and threw her head back, so her long ponytail nearly grazed the waistband of her jeans.
After that, I couldn't think about anything else. The mole on the inside of her right elbow, like a dark blot of ink. The way she ripped her nails to shreds when she was nervous. Her eyes, deep as a promise. Her stomach, pale and soft and gorgeous, and the tiny dark cavity of her belly button.
I nearly went crazy. — Lauren Oliver

A sense of wrongness, of fraught unease, as if long nails scraped the surface of the moon, raising the hackles of the soul. — China Mieville