Piggledy Quotes & Sayings

The whole world is run on bluff. — Marcus Garvey

When I was younger I thought I'd meet the man of my dreams, get married and have a child, but it all went higgledy-piggledy. Never say never, though ... — Anna Friel

It came to me then, I am sure, for the first time, how promiscuous, how higgledy-piggledy was the whole of that jumble of mines and homes, collieries and potbanks, railway yards, canals, schools, forges and blast furnaces, churches, chapels, allotment hovels, a vast irregular agglomeration of ugly smoking accidents in which men lived as happy as frogs in a dustbin. Each thing jostled and damaged the other things about it, each thing ignored the other things about it; the smoke of the furnace defiled the potbank clay, the clatter of the railway deafened the worshipers in church, the public-house thrust corruption at the school doors, the dismal homes squeezed miserably amidst the monstrosities of industrialism, with an effect of groping imbecility. Humanity choked amidst its products, and all its energy went in increasing its disorder, like a blind stricken thing that struggles and sinks in a morass. — H.G.Wells

Kissing's nothing like dancing. Think of it as you would..." He flicked a glance to the fossil-studded cave wall. "An excavation."
"An excavation?"
"Yes. A proper kiss is like an excavation. When you're digging up your little troglodytes, you don't just go plunging your shovel into the soil higgledy-piggledy, do you?"
"No." Her wariness stretched the word.
"Of course not. A proper excavation takes time and care. And very close attention to detail. Slowly sifting through the layers. Unearthing surprises as you go. — Tessa Dare

I'm a higgledy-piggledy person in every way. On days that I work, I work for eight hours in a row, with my internet access entirely turned off, locked in my office. — Elizabeth McCracken

Venice is a cheek-by-jowl, back-of-the-hand, under-the-counter, higgledy-piggledy, anecdotal city, and she is rich in piquant wrinkled things, like an assortment of bric-a-brac in the house of a wayward connoisseur, or parasites on an oyster-shell. — Jan Morris

Terribly undignified," Qibli said in a haughty voice, tipping his snout at the racing dragons. "We would never allow such higgledy-piggledy shenanigans in the Ice Kingdom." "Was that supposed to be me?" Winter asked him. "Terribly unimpressive, if so. I haven't once said 'higgledy-piggledy' in my entire life. We would never allow such linguistic imprecision in the Ice Kingdom." Qibli barked a delighted laugh and did a loop in the air. — Tui T. Sutherland

At nearly six feet, she's only a few inches shorter than him and every bit as stubborn. At times like this I wonder if they're twins who were somehow born a year apart. — Veronica Rossi

What a grand, higgledy-piggledy, sensible old place Norwich is! — J.B. Priestley

Elizabeth was excessively disappointed ... but it was her business to be satisfied - and certainly her temper to be happy; and all was soon right again. — Jane Austen

The great menace to the life of an industry is industrial self-complacency. — Joyce Carol Oates

You must rely on reason and science," she said, "and be guided by a likewise rational ethic of human concern. You must do your utmost as individuals to improve your understanding, ability and compassion. — Ken MacLeod

Such heaped up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the tender oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst
Heaven bless the mark! — Washington Irving

He thought that maybe when you're making your way forward into your life, it just looks higgledy-piggledy, the way, if you were a fly walking across one of Beautiful Girl's drawings all you'd be able to see was green, then blue, then yellow. Only if you got in the air before the swat came down would you see the colors belonged to a big drawing, with the green for this part of the picture, the blue and yellow for others, every color being just where if was meant to be. Could that be what life was? — Rachel Simon

The situation was absurd. He wore riding boots with spurs. Her hair tumbled about her like a shaggy pony's. They were in the schoolroom with the furniture pushed about higgledy-piggledy. But in that instant, she would have danced a fandango with a rose in her teeth if Lochinvar had asked her to. — Marissa Doyle

Goodness gracious me,' exclaimed Alexia, 'what are you wearing? It looks like the unfortunate progeny of an illicit union between a pair of binoculars and some opera glasses. What on earth are they called, binocticals, spectoculars? — Gail Carriger

Thee might observe incidentally that if the state paid for child-bearing it might and ought to require a medical certificate that the parents were such as to give a reasonable result of a healthy child
this would afford a very good inducement to some sort of care for the race, and gradually as public opinion became educated by the law, it might react on the law and make that more stringent, until one got to some state of things in which there would be a little genuine care for the race, instead of the present haphazard higgledy-piggledy ways. — Bertrand Russell

They that are against superstition oftentimes run into it of the wrong side. If I wear all colors but black, then I am superstitious in not wearing black. — John Selden

Sanctified cyanide
Super-quick arsenic
Higgledy-piggledy
Into the Soup.
Put out the mourning lamps
Call for coffin clamps
Teach them to trifle with
Flavia de Luce! — Alan Bradley

Asked him and he said he wasn't. Besides, nothin's real scary except on books. — Harper Lee

Everyone says to you, 'if you play Ophelia, you'll end up crazy,' but we're all somewhere on the spectrum of mental health, and I think that if you approach it that way it's not such an intimidating issue. — Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn't work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they're done they're done. — Kurt Vonnegut

While the poet wrestles with the horses on his brain and the sculptor wounds his eyes on the hard spark of alabaster, the dancer battles the air around her, air that threatens at any moment to destroy her harmony or to open huge open empty spaces where her rhythm will be annihilated. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Ethnic stereotypes are misshapen pearls, sometimes with a sandy grain of truth at their center ... but they ignore complexity, change, and individuality. — Anna Quindlen

Trump's America is not America: not today's or tomorrow's, but yesterday's.

Trump's America is brutal, perverse, regressive, insular and afraid. There is no hope in it; there is no light in it. It is a vast expanse of darkness and desolation.

And that is a vision of America that most of the people in this country cannot and will not abide. — Charles M. Blow

The artist's transcendence is achieved through success at diagnosing and naming the maladies of the age. Artists tell a different sort of truth than scientists do. The truth of the scientist is a generalizing truth, while the artist or writer's is a particular truth. It is the truth about particular persons in particular situations. The poet or the novelist reveals truths about human lives by embodying these truths in concrete characters, in specific situations. Readers recognize their own reality in the work. We find ourselves saying, as we read, 'Yes! This is how it is for me.' Both those who enjoy the work of artists and the artists themselves achieve transcendence through this identification of the particular truths about selves in the world. — David LaRocca

We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox. — Nicholas Sparks

Lina had never seen anyone so disorganized as the doctor. She peeked into the medicine room once when the doctor was out and was amazed at the clutter in there-shelves and cupboards and tables piled with stuff in bottles and stuff in boxes and stuff in jars, all higgledy-piggledy. How Dr. Hester found anything she couldn't imagine. — Jeanne DuPrau