Quotes & Sayings About Red Shoes

His name was George F. Babbitt. He was forty-six years old now, in April, 1920, and he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.
His large head was pink, his brown hair thin and dry. His face was babyish in slumber, despite his wrinkles and the red spectacle-dents on the slopes of his nose. He was not fat but he was exceedingly well fed; his cheeks were pads, and the unroughened hand which lay helpless upon the khaki-colored blanket was slightly puffy. — Sinclair Lewis

One time I told her that she reminded me of that charming tale, the one with the red shoes."
Helen had always hated that story, in which a little girl who had dared to wear red shoes to her confirmation had been doomed to dance in them until she died. "You're referring to the one by Hans Christian Andersen? It's a morality tale about the wages of sin, is it not?"
His smile faded, and his gaze returned to hers, now appraising rather than dismissive. "I confess, I don't recall the moral of the story."
"No doubt it's been a long time since you've read it." Helen made her face into the inscrutable mask that had always annoyed the twins and provoked them to call her a sphinx. "The red shoes become instruments of death, after a girl yields to temptation. — Lisa Kleypas

The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees - BLOOD. — Charles Dickens

They could not listen.
They could not stop.
What they did was the death dance.
What they did would do them in. — Anne Sexton

Because it is illegal to talk to a stranger on a train, it can sometimes be confusing when someone stands on your foot or hits you with their briefcase and then fails to say sorry. Which is why I have decided to carry an air horn with me at all times, and when someone stands on my foot I will set it off in their face and then go back to reading my paper. I imagine this will make people want to avoid standing on my feet, but if I've paid good money for the air horn, I'll want to use it, so I'll wear massive clown-shoes while travelling. I'll also wear a red nose and a wig.
Essentially, I really want to get into clowning. — Danny Wallace

I know I've been called the Louis Vuitton Don ... I've been called a lot of names ... Due to what happened, so severely, when the red shoes hit the runway, I was forced to change my name to Martin Louis Vuitton the King, Jr. Address me as such. — Kanye West

She walks into my life legs first, a long drink of water in the desert of my thirties. Her shoes are red; her eyes are green. She's an Italian flag in occupied territory, and I fall for her like Paris. She mixes my metaphors like a martini and serves up my heart tartare. They all do. Every time. They have to. It's that kind of story. — Catherynne M Valente

My shoes I got to pick. I chose worn-out red flats. I figured I should make it clear from the start that I wasn't princess material. — Kiera Cass

I have to admit," I said when he finished a lengthy discussion on the types of drivers, "I've been golfing and it's about the most boring thing I've ever done. Old men drive around in golf carts pretending they're sporty and getting grouchy if there's any noise. It's like the nursing-home Olympics."
Nick's mouth dropped open. "It takes great athletic ability to know how to aim and drive the ball that far."
"I get more exercise shopping at the mall," I joked. "I don't come home and tell everyone I won at shopping." Although those red shoes I got on sale the other day felt like a win. — Cindi Madsen

I took in her shoes, the dark leather and bright red laces, the toes of the shoes like smirks and the high heels like stems or talons. They were cancan shoes. I'd never seen them before and so I stared at them. I'd — Alexander Chee

The subtle hues of gold and yellow and the fresh greens and the pepper red seemed to spiral into a kaleidoscope of shapes and forms that made the tips of a person's toes tingle, so that some were inclined to remove their shoes in its presence. — Jeffry R. Halverson

What really matters is that 'Black Swan' deploys and exaggerates all the cliches of earlier ballet movies, especially 'The Red Shoes,' another tale of a ballerina driven mad and suicidal. — Robert Gottlieb

She imagined what it must be like to have Charlie's mind - to believe that red shoes are faster then other shoes; to believe, as he did, that ducks could drive fire engines and that pigs built houses out of bricks and straw. There were plenty of people who weren't three-and-three-quarters who believed equally implausible things ... and when to war over them. — Alexander McCall Smith

Yes no yes no yes no? Red blue? Yes red, no blue? No red, yes no? In out, up down? Do don't, can can't? Choices sit on the shelf life New shoes in a shoe shop. If the in crowd are squeezing into a must-have shoe And the one pair left are too tiny for you Don't feel compelled into choosing them If you're really a size 9, buy that size. While everyone else Hobbles round with sore feet Your choices should feel comfortable Or they aren't your choices at all. Why limp when you can sprint — Sir David Baird, 1st Baronet

She was gauche in movement and in a sense, ugly of face, but with how small a twist might she not suddenly have become beautiful. Her sullen mouth was full and rich - her eyes smouldered.
A yellow scarf hung loosely around her neck. Her shapeless dress was a flaming red.
For all the straightness of her back she walked with a slouch.
"Come here," said Lord Groan as she was about to pass him and the doctor.
"Yes father," she said huskily.
"Where have you been for the last fortnight, Fuchsia?"
"Oh, here and there, father," she said, staring at her shoes. She tossed her long hair and it flapped down her back like a pirate's flag. She stood in about as awkward a manner as could be conceived. Utterly unfeminine - no man could have invented it. — Mervyn Peake

I believe every woman should own at least one pair of red shoes. — Terry Tempest Williams

Mr. Blue's way of death was fitting. He had been utterly corrupted by America, and I find it proper that his carotid artery should have been severed by flak from a jumbo-sized can of mentholated shave cream. Like James Joyce, who tried to bend and subjugate the ironmongery of the cosmos with words (wasn't it The Word Joyce was after?), Mr. Blue tried to undo the empyrean mysteries with Seedy and his red carpet, with his elevated alligator shoes, with the ardent push-ups he seemed so sure would make him outlast time's ravages, with his touching search for some golden pussy that would yield to his lips the elixir of eternal life. And like Joyce's Leopold Bloom, like Quixote, Mr. Blue had become the perennial mock-epic hero of his country, the salesman, the boomer who believed that at the end of his American sojourn of demeaning doorbell-ringing, of faking and fawning, he would come to the Ultimate Sale, conquer, and soar. — Frederick Exley

My red patent-leather, 5-inch peep-toe slingbacks are not mere shoes. They are fine art. They make me feel tall. They make me feel sexy. They make me feel powerful. I call them my 'special-day shoes.' — Nancy Lublin

Oh, what's this in my shoe? Red carpet insole. Everywhere I go, I'm walking on red carpet. — Aziz Ansari

I'm wearing my good shoes, the patent leather ones with the bows ; and my red jacket with the yellow ducklings; and white socks. You don't go to Athens everyday after all. — Eugenia Fakinou

I like my squishy, red, high-heeled Vivienne Westwood jelly shoes. They make you seem like you're much more of a go-er. — Nina Conti

It was a gringo; in the remote corners of the world the short-sleeved flowered tourist shirt, the steel-rimmed glasses, khaki pants and bulldog shoes had become the uniform of earnest American enterprise. Moon recognized the man as the new missionary. His head was cropped too close, so that his white skull gleamed, and the red skin of his neck and jaw was riddled with old acne; his face was bald with anxiety and tiresome small agonies. — Peter Matthiessen

Lawrence's suggestion for a starter wardrobe: a black dress, a fitted black jacket, black pants, a black skirt, a camel-colored skirt, a white blouse, a trendy-looking cardigan in a color (red could be good, for instance), several cool, inexpensive blouses (from places such as H&M or Zara) that pick up or work with the color of the cardigan and will go with your pants and skirts. For shoes, go for black heels and a pair of colored ones (they will make one of your all-black outfits look totally fab). Then build from there. — Kate White

She remained on the steps, waiting for Papa, watching the stray ash and the corpse of collected books. Everything was sad. Orange and red embers looked like rejected candy, and most of the crowd had vanished. She'd seen Frau Diller leave (very satisfied) and Pfiffikus (white hair, a Nazi uniform, the same dilapidated shoes, and a triumphant whistle). Now there was nothing but cleaning up, and soon, no one would ever imagine it had happened.
But you could smell it. — Markus Zusak

I like to buy girls shoes and jewelry. I buy stupidly expensive shoes. I got Louboutins for my mom and my girlfriend before. My mom was like, 'I can't wear these; they're too high.' I was like, 'Mom, you have to try them - they're so cool. They're red snakeskin!' She still wears them every so often, but she can't walk in them. — Ansel Elgort

I remember being mad about having pink and red shoes. I gew up envying other girls' pink and red shoes. — Miuccia Prada

There are two industry secrets to surviving a long day on camera on the red carpet: First, no drinking the night before - ever. You can celebrate after with some bubbly. Second is make sure to use shoe insoles. I don't care if you are a guy or a girl, dress shoes are painful. Worth it, but painful. — Ross Mathews

fact our shoes filled with mud and our clothes turned to slime, and it was the farthest thing from pleasant. Mosquitoes that had lain dormant through the long drought now hatched and rose from the forest floor in clouds so thick they filled our mouths and nostrils. I learned to draw back my lips and breathe slowly through my teeth, so I wouldn't choke on mosquitoes. When they'd covered our hands and faces with red welts they flew up our sleeves and needled our armpits. We scratched ourselves — Barbara Kingsolver

Put on your red shoes, and dance the blues. — David Bowie

Cole Haan is like high fashion Nike, so you feel like you're wearing Nike shoes, but you're wearing heels. Every time I'm on a red carpet, I always either wear Cole Haan or Stuart Weitzman. You end up having to walk around all night in these heels and you want to be comfortable and not look like you're in pain. It definitely shows in pictures. — Nina Dobrev

This was all horribly wrong. This was red wine with fish. This was a man wearing a dinner jacket and brown shoes. This was as wrong as things get. — Hugh Laurie

Dancing Towards Bethlehem
If there is only enough time in the final
minutes of the 20th century for one last dance
I would like to be dancing it slowly with you,
say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel.
My palm would press into the small of your back
as the past hundred years collapsed into a pile
of mirrors or buttons or frivolous shoes,
just as the floor of the 19th century gave way
and disappeared in a red cloud of brick dust.
There will be no time to order another drink
or worry about what was never said,
not with the orchestra sliding into the sea
and all our attention devoted to humming
whatever it was they were playing. — Billy Collins

In her skirted pinkswimsuit, her plump shoulders glistening with suntan lotion and her legs lightly dusted with sand, she looked something like a cupcake. She hadn't ventured into the water at all so far, and neither had Red. In fact, Red was wearing his work shoes and dark socks. Evidently this was the year when the two of them were declaring themselves to be officially old. — Anne Tyler

I supposed images of an evil god who wanted to break free of his mythological prison and enslave the whole world
weren't any scarier than a guy wearing big red shoes,yellow plaid pants,and white face paint.Clowns had always creeped me out. They were so not funny. — Jennifer Estep

Sabrina turned back to the house and saw the horrible truth- a pair of legs was sticking out from beneath it and they were wearing a pari of shiny silver shoes with a remarkable red tint to them. She suddenly realized they hadn't just entered a story. They had entered one of the most famous stories ever told.
Daphne, I don't think we're in Ferryport Landing anymore. — Michael Buckley

Sometimes all a breathing attack takes is reassurance. What Pete thought. And a shot of prednisone. And two huffs of the red inhaler, then the white one. And a big burly doctor who looked a little like Ernest Hemingway to place his hand on an arm and keep repeating, "Just a reaction to the altitude, maybe the mist tonight and woodsmoke combined. You'll be fine, fine. There now." And a Latvian in a bathrobe - Oh God! Pete noticed now that she had bare feet! She had not even stopped to put on shoes - a barefoot Latvian to intone, "So beautiful, you really look like an angel," and a one-armed hero who reeks of cigarettes and pot to keep saying happily, "Fuckin' A, look, look at that, breathing fine now, fuckin' A. — Peter Heller

The red sole was born from red nail polish. I am giving back to beauty what the shoes took from the nails many years ago. — Christian Louboutin

Lermontov: Why do you want to dance?
Vicky: Why do you want to live?
Lermontov: Well, I don't know exactly why, but ... I must.
Vicky: That's my answer too. — The Red Shoes

When I step foot to my locker and change shoes for training, its like turning on a switch. I become a creature. Not a human. I look to tear apart anyone and everyone in my way to hugeness and I don't care how I do it. I can feel my heart start jumping and my body start saying "beat me into the ground like a red-headed step child. I want punishment" I WANT TO BE A FREAK, A FREAK I TELL YOU!! — Jason Bennett

I told her about the best and the worst. The slow and sleepy places where weekdays rolled past like weekends and Mondays didn't matter. Battered shacks perched on cliffs overlooking the endless, rumpled sea. Afternoons spent waiting on the docks, swinging my legs off a pier until boats rolled in with crates full of oysters and crayfish still gasping. Pulling fishhooks out of my feet because I never wore shoes, playing with other kids whose names I never knew. Those were the unforgettable summers. There were outback towns where you couldn't see the roads for red dust, grids of streets with wandering dogs and children who ran wild and swam naked in creeks. I remembered climbing ancient trees that had a heartbeat if you pressed your ear to them. Boomboom-boomboom. Dreamy nights sleeping by the campfire and waking up covered in fine ash, as if I'd slept through a nuclear holocaust. We were wanderers, always with our faces to the sun. — Vikki Wakefield

But all my love ever came to was a bad end. Red-hot shoes, barrels studded with nails. That's what it feels like, unrequited love. — Margaret Atwood

To this day I still do not know why red shoes are sooo me. I think it might be that in a way the color demonstrates that though I am not much of a dresser I do have a fiery element in me and sometimes I even run with it. — Gisela Hausmann

Don't soil your pretty little shoes The gutter's deep and red Climb up climb up and ride along with me the tumbrel driver said But she never said a word never turned her head Don't soil your pretty little pants I only go one way Climb up climb up and ride along with me There's no gold coach today But she never said a word never turned her head — Peter Weiss

When I return to that house it will be with my son in my arms. I shall have a red coat on him and red-flowered trousers and on his head a hat with a small gilded Buddha sewn on the front and on his feet tiger-faced shoes. And I will wear new shoes and a new coat of black sateen and I will go into the kitchen where I spent my days and I will go into the great hall where the Old One sits with her opium, and I will show myself and my son to all of them. — Pearl S. Buck

And women with red shoes and green handbags were never to be trusted. — Ruth Hogan

I stifle a laugh. Ruby red slippers. Just like Cinderella: it always comes back to the shoes. — Victoria Van Tiem

All in all, I'd say,
the world is strangling.
And I, in my bed each night,
listen to my twenty shoes
converse about it.
And the moon,
under its dark hood,
falls out of the sky each night,
with its hungry red mouth
to suck at my scars. — Anne Sexton

And thus Snow White became the prince's bride.
The wicked queen was invited to the wedding feast
and when she arrived there were
red-hot iron shoes,
in the manner of red-hot roller skates,
clamped upon her feet. — Anne Sexton

And whenever I'm in a situation where I'm wearing the same as 600 other people and doing the same thing as 600 other people, looking back, I always found ways to make myself different, whether it be having a red lining inside of my jacket, having red shoes, it hasn't changed. — Jeremy Irons

Planet Earth is blue.
Blue blue electric blue, that's the color of my room. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues. I never did anything out of the blue. Now my Blue Jean's blue. See these eyes so green, I could stare for a thousand years. See these eyes so red. Oh you've got green eyes, oh you've got blue eyes, oh you've got gray eyes. I'll give you television, I'll give you eyes of blue. I looked in her eyes, they were blue, but nobody home. The blue light was my baby, and the red light was my mind. See these tears so blue. You wouldn't believe what I've been through. It's been so long. And I think it's gonna be a long, long time. It's all over now, Baby Blue.
And there's nothing I can do. — Rob Sheffield

My go-to shoes for red-carpet events are usually always black, but I mix between my pointed stilettos and platform heels. — Katherine Schwarzenegger

When the personal soul life is burnt to ashes, a woman loses the vital treasure and begins to get dry boned as Death. In her unconscious, the desire for the red shoes, a wild joy, not only continues, it swells and floods, and eventually staggers to its feet and takes over, ferocious and famished. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

These shoes look like they're straight out of 'The Wizard of Oz,' but since I'm like the tornado that blew you into Oz, I guess you can wear Dorothy's red slippers. And if I'm gone and seem lost, maybe you can do a little click and I'll find my way home. — Portia Moore

On the plane he had been confident. He'd talked to the vieja near the aisle, telling her how excited he was. It is always good to return home, she said tremulously. I come back anytime I can, which isn't so much anymore. Things aren't good. Seeing the country he'd been born in, seeing his people in charge of everything, he was unprepared for it. The air whooshed out of his lungs. For nearly four years he'd not spoken his Spanish loudly in front of the Northamericans and now he was hearing it bellowed and flung from every mouth. His pores opened, dousing him as he hadn't been doused in years. An awful heat was on the city and the red dust dried out his throat and clogged his nose. The poverty- the unwashed children pointing sullenly at his new shoes, the familias slouching in hovels- was familiar and stifling. — Junot Diaz

When Jordan took the court for the first time wearing his special red-and-black shoes, the NBA fined the Bulls $1,000 for violating the league's uniform dress code. Nike cleverly seized on the fine as a publicity opportunity, producing a television commercial that showed Jordan bouncing a ball as a voice said: "On September 15, Nike created a revolutionary new basketball shoe. On October 18, the NBA threw them out of the game. Fortunately, the NBA can't keep you from wearing them. Air Jordans from Nike. — Aaron Frisch

He remained on his knees, looking up at his fellow-prisoner with a lively look for a prison. A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, though rather thickset. Earrings in his brown ears, white teeth lighting up his grotesque brown face, intensely black hair clustering about his brown throat, a ragged red shirt open at his brown breast. Loose, seaman-like trousers, decent shoes, a long red cap, a red sash round his waist, and a knife in it. 'Judge — Charles Dickens

In spite of all the red flags and signs that Marc had more baggage than Imelda Marcos taking shoes on vacation, I continued to date him. — Cierra Rantoul

Glancing at Danika, I notice she isn't wearing her normal 'look at me, all proper' style. Instead she has on jeans, a red t-shirt with the image of a smiling mushroom on it, and a pair of tennis shoes.
"Wow, you look ... different."
She cast a peek down at her clothes. "This was always my preferred style, but I thought I had to dress prim and proper to be taken seriously. But you know what I realized when I met you?"
"What?"
She takes a step forward, placing her hand over my heart. "It's not about appearances, it's about heart. — Brandy Nacole

Mom! Look. This one is my favorite," Devin said, pulling out a faded pink dress with a red plaid sash. The crinoline petticoat underneath was so old and stiff it made snapping sounds, like beads or fire embers. She dropped the dress over her head, over her clothes. It brushed the floor. "When I'm old enough for it to fit me, I'm going to wear it with purple shoes," she said.
"A bold choice," Kate said as Devin dove back into the trunk. The attic in Kate's mother's house had always fascinated Devin with its promise of hidden treasures. When Kate's mother had been alive, she had let Devin eat Baby Ruth candy bars and drink grape soda and play in this old trunk full of dresses that generations of Morris women had worn to try entice rich men to marry them. Most of the clothes had belonged to Kate's grandmother Marilee, a renowned beauty who, like all the rest, had fallen in love with a poor man instead. — Sarah Addison Allen

My father ran London Films. He made films like 'The Red Shoes,' 'The Third Man.' And he had had a long career in the film business, which was bifurcated with a career in intelligence. He had to deal with gangsters, and sometimes he would take me with him. Also, I went to school with their children. — Mark Helprin

She felt about her zester the way some women do about a pair of spiky red shoes
a frivolous splurge, good only for parties, but oh so lovely. — Erica Bauermeister

All your suits, cravats, socks, and shoes are black. All your shirts and underwear are white.' He looked at the rug by the bed. 'And your slippers are red tartan. You don't have outfits, Johannes. You have a uniform. — Jonathan L. Howard

Feathery Stokers - There is no definitive list but here are some examples. Men who didn't eat red meat were Feathery Strokers. Men who used postshave balm instead of slapping stinging aftershave onto their tender skin were Feathery Strokers. Men who noticed your shoes and handbags were Feathery Strokers. (Or Jolly Boys.) Men who said pornography was exploitation of women were Feathery Strokers. (Or liars.) Men who said pornography was exploitation of men as much as women were of the scale. All straight men from San Francisco were Feather Strokers. All academics with beards were Feathery Stokers. Men who stayed friends with their ex-girlfriends were Feathery Strokers. Especially if they called them their "ex-partner." Men who did Pilates were Feathery Strokers. Men who said, "I have to take care of myself right now" were screaming Feathery Strokers. (Even I'd go along with that.) ~Jacqui — Marian Keyes

Once in a great while, she was distressed by the way she looked. As she was rounding the bend to forty she would write to Avis DeVoto that whenever she read Vogue she "felt like a frump....but I suppose that is the purpose of all of it, to shame people out of their frumpery so they will go out and buy 48 pairs of red shoes, have a facial, pat themselves with deodorizers, buy a freezer, and put up the new crispy window curtains with a draped valence."
Julia was able to deconstruct the disingenuous motives that drive women's magazines with the ease she normally reserved for deboning a duck, seeing quite clearly that while ostensibly offering inspiration and useful advice, the stories and articles quietly pummel the reader's sense of self, the better to drive her into the arms of the advertisers. — Karen Karbo

Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was as golden as the sun's rays, and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes. She wheedled her mother, was kind to her doll, took great care of her frock and her red shoes and her fiddle, but loved most of all, when she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music. — Gaston Leroux

When she got to Eileen Reilly, Eileen turned red and said, "I would rather not say." This astounded me, for her father was a handsome, charming salesman at Home Savings Shoes on Main Street - Stan the Shoe Man, my mother affectionately called him. But his daughter had absorbed some disappointment - his, or her mother's - and did not want to speak of how he earned his living. Perhaps that was the moment I learned this as a source of personal shame, or observed the possibility of it. — Lorrie Moore

Part of an icon's power comes from its indivisibility. The swoosh cannot be further deconstructed into its component parts. Just as golden arches mean McDonald's, and the little red tab means Levi's, the swoosh is Nike. The product is its icon, inseparably and without exception. To buy a pair of Nike shoes is to buy the Nike swoosh. — Douglas Rushkoff

I love visual stylists like Bob Fosse and Vincente Minnelli and Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger with The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman. — Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Eve supposed everything about Nadine looked mag, from her sweep of streaky blonde hair to the toes of her jazzed shoes. She had a foxy, angular face, observant green eyes, and a slim body that curved appropriately in her on-camera suit of power red. She was smart, she was sneaky, she was cynical. And for reasons Eve imagined neither of them fully understood, they'd become friends. — J.D. Robb

Off come her skirts and petticoats, her lace cuffs and collar, her shoes and whalebone stay, until she lies on her side in nothing but a cotton shift and endless strands of pearls. Dust hangs in a crack of light between red velvet drapes, like stars.

Her dreams are glimpses, bewildered--celestial charts, oceanic swells, massive, moving bodies of water, the heavens as heavenly liquid, familiar whirlpools, the universe as a ship lost at sea--but the ship she imagines arrived safely, years ago, loaded with their possessions. — Danielle Dutton

With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet. — Mary Blakely

Little fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut widow's peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on who he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people. — Terry Pratchett

Well, I used to be disgusted.
Now I try to be amused. — Elvis Costello

Father, R.I.P., Sums Me Up at Twenty-Three
She has no head for politics,
craves good jewelry, trusts too readily,
marries too early. Then
one by one she sends away her friends
and stands apart, smug sapphire,
her answer to everything a slender
zero, a silent shrug
and every day
still hears me say she'll never be pretty.
Instead she reads novels, instead her belt
matches her shoes. She is master
of the condolence letter, and knows
how to please a man with her mouth:
Good. Nose too large, eyes too closely set,
hair not glorious blonde, not her mother's red,
nor the glossy black her younger sister has,
the little raven I loved best. — Deborah Garrison

Dressed in new jeans, a light blue dress shirt and a red patterned tie, he stood at Heather's grave with his eyes closed. Although I didn't hear him, his lips were moving like he was praying. In the faint breeze, Mother Nature ran her fingers through his dark hair like I wanted to. He looked tall and strong, the way he used to, but somewhere along the way, without me, he'd stepped into the shoes of a man. And a part of me ached for those missing years. — Jordan Dane

Her lips are full and red and tend to wetness and do not ask but rather demand, in a pout of liquid silk, to be kissed. I kiss them often, I admit it, it is what I do, I am a kisser, and a kiss with Lenore is, if I may indulge a bit for a moment here, not so much a kiss as it is a dislocation, a removal and rude transportation of essence from self to lip, so that it is not so much two human bodies coming together and doing the usual things with their lips as it is two sets of lips spawned together and joined in kind from the beginning of post-Scarsdale time, achieving full ontological status only in subsequent union and trailing behind and below them, as they join and become whole, two now utterly superfluous fleshly bodies, drooping outward and downward from the kiss like the tired stems of overblossomed flora, trailing shoes on the ground, husks. — David Foster Wallace

You'd have looked perfect to me if you'd walked into the room wearing a clown outfit, with a big red nose and huge shoes,' said Rob, giving her a smile that would have made every woman in a three-mile radius melt a little inside. 'Even if you'd sprayed my face with water from a fake flower. — Debbie Johnson

Oh I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused. But since their wings have got rusted, you know, the angels wanna wear my red shoes. — Elvis Costello

Long John Silver's wife, Short, who said to John, If the shoe fits ... Never got a dinner! — Red Buttons

Leslie Ann was now agonizing over a full-length Flame gown that actually appeared to be burning fire covering her lush body: cool blue flames hugging her neck, red-hot flames usually covering her breasts, fluttering orange and yellow fire hips, all down along her white-hot legs to her Bunsen burner tipped high-heel shoes. — @hg47

It was an innocent enough activity, after all; like looking at the sky, perhaps, when the sun was going down and had made the clouds copper-red, or looking at a herd of fine cattle moving slowly over the land when rains had brought on the sweet green grass. These were pleasures which the soul needed from time to time, and she would wait for Mma Makutsi until she had examined the shoes from all angles. — Alexander McCall Smith

His days passed like this, slow and methodical. And then one morning he saw her. She had brown hair and blue eyes and red shoes and a big yellow clasp in her hair.
And then there was no more peace and quiet for Ove. — Fredrik Backman

Seeing Taylor Swift live in 2013 is seeing a maestro at the top of her or anyone's game. No other pop auteur can touch her right now for emotional excess or musical reach - her punk is so punk, her disco is so disco. The red sequins on her guitar match the ones on her microphone, her shoes and 80 percent of the crowd. — Rob Sheffield

Her shoes were short heels, open toe, no straps, red leather, high-class-tart stuff. — John Grisham

Red-heeled shoes and silk stockings clocked in black. Gray satin breeches with silver knee buckles. Snowy linen, with Brussels lace six inches deep at cuff and jabot. The coat, a masterpiece in heavy gray with blue satin cuffs and crested silver buttons, hung behind the door, awaiting its turn. — Diana Gabaldon

We see women who go out and want to look like Jennifer Aniston, and they're wearing an ill-fitting red dress and ugly gold shoes, and they've got flat hair and they can't walk. — Kelly Cutrone

I didn't really feel that there were any filler tracks on 'The Red Shoes,' but if I were to do that album now, I wouldn't make it so long. — Kate Bush