Self Decoration Quotes & Sayings

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over. — Ernest Hemingway,

A conscious decision to eliminate certain details and include selective bits of personal experiences or perceptual nuances, gives the painting more of a multi-dimension than when it is done directly as a visual recording. This results in a kind of abstraction ... and thus avoids the pitfalls of mere decoration. — Wayne Thiebaud

The wallpaper with which the men of science have covered the world of reality is falling to tatters. The grand whorehouse which they have made of life requires no decoration; it is essential that only the drains function adequately. Beauty, that feline beauty that has us by the balls in America, is finished. — Henry Miller

The only decoration on the gray segments of her cubicle was a bumper sticker, AT LEAST THE WAR ON THE ENVIRONMENT IS GOING WELL. Her colleagues' cubicles were covered with photos — Jonathan Franzen

Clothes should never be decoration ... whe n someone feels at peace with the clothes, they feel more seductive, more desirable, more sensual, more everything. — Haider Ackermann

For outdoors, he wears a mantle fastened at the shoulder with a clasp or chain; although buttons are sometimes used for decoration, the buttonhole has not been invented. — Joseph Gies

Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 31 in 2010). Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. soldiers who died while — Anonymous

Let the pleasure of doodling led us to writing as decoration rather than to the peculiarly abstract sort of representation it inclines towards: the making of signs to look through rather than at. — Robert M. Kaplan

Books aren't for decoration, they are to improve the design of one's interior. — Karen A. Chase

Beautiful girls are not a decoration, arm candy, an object. They are, whether they know it or not, the very essence of our humanity. — Chloe Thurlow

Believing that the soldiers of the apartheid government really did use rubber bullets and carried batons only for decoration is seriously misguided, though understandable considering that newspapers were strictly censored, while history books abounded with Blatant Boer Bias. — Sumayya Lee

For people like me, books are something solid and real, whereas digital stuff is a bit more ethereal. I like the trophy on my shelf, the presence in my home. A nice book is just as valuable as a decoration as a beautiful porcelain urn - and, let's face it, a hell of a lot more useful. — John Romaniello

The art of decoration requires the most sophisticated and self-indulgent skills. Its aim has always been to sate the senses as gloriously as possible ... ornament is not only a source of sensuous pleasure; it supplies a necessary kind of magic to people and places that lack it. More than just a dread of empty spaces has led to the urge to decorate; it is the fear of empty selves. — Ada Louise Huxtable

The various objects for the decoration of a room should be so selected that no colour or design shall be repeated. If you have a living flower, a painting of flowers is not allowable. If you are using a round kettle, the water pitcher should be angular. A cup with a black glaze should not be associated with a tea-caddy of black lacquer. In placing a vase of an incense burner on the tokonoma, care should be taken not to put it in the exact centre, lest it divide the space into equal halves. The pillar of the tokonoma should be of a different kind of wood from the other pillars, in order to break any suggestion of monotony in the room. — Okakura Kakuzo

The plain old Sam Vimes had fought back. He got rid of most of the plumes and the stupid tights, and ended up with a dress uniform that at least looked as though its owner was male. But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armourers had made a new, gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armour. It was gilt by association. — Terry Pratchett

Usually in theater, the visual repeats the verbal. The visual dwindles into decoration. But I think with my eyes. For me, the visual is not an afterthought, not an illustration of the text. If it says the same thing as the words, why look? The visual must be so compelling that a deaf man would sit though the performance fascinated. — Robert Wilson

Not every oak has to be gnarled, every detective hard-bitten. The adjective that exists solely as a decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and an obstacle for the reader. — William Zinsser

Real fashion change comes from real changes in real life. Everything else is just decoration. — Tom Ford

I will not subscribe to the argument that ornament increases the pleasure of the life of a cultivated person, or the argument which covers itself with the words: "But if the ornament is beautiful! ... " To me, and to all the cultivated people, ornament does not increase the pleasures of life. If I want to eat a piece of gingerbread I will choose one that is completely plain and not a piece which represents a baby in arms of a horserider, a piece which is covered over and over with decoration. The man of the fifteenth century would not understand me. But modern people will. The supporter of ornament believes that the urge for simplicity is equivalent to self-denial. No, dear professor from the College of Applied Arts, I am not denying myself! To me, it tastes better this way. — Adolf Loos

One of them stepped from the crowd. It was Zeebo, the garbage collector. "Mister Jem," he said, "we're mighty glad to have you all here. Don't pay no 'tention to Lula, she's contentious because Reverend Sykes threatened to church her. She's a troublemaker from way back, got fancy ideas an' haughty ways - we're mighty glad to have you all." With that, Calpurnia led us to the church door where we were greeted by Reverend Sykes, who led us to the front pew. First Purchase was unceiled and unpainted within. Along its walls unlighted kerosense lamps hung on brass brackets; pine benches served as pews. Behind the rough oak pulpit a faded pink silk banner proclaimed God Is Love, the church's only decoration except a roto-gravure print of Hunt's The Light of the World. — Harper Lee

And lose my cock, balls and prostate? Are you kidding me? Honey, I'm still all man. I'm just a man with decoration, Tommy had explained before turning with a flounce and practically floating out of the room in his heels. — Vicktor Alexander

But the silent stranger could hardly have understood what was passing: she was a German who had not long been in Russia and knew not a word of Russian, and she seemed to be as stupid as she was handsome. She was a novelty and it had become a fashion to invite her to certain parties, sumptuously attired, with her hair dressed as though for a show, and to seat her in the drawing-room as a charming decoration, just as people sometimes borrow from their friends for a special occasion a picture, a statue, a vase, or a fire-screen. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I pity you Juliet. You don't know what love is. You think it's Valentine's Day, and weekends in Italy. You think it's drinking champagne in some expensive restaurant and being bought stupid bloody underwear. But that's just the trimmings. The decoration. They're just gestures. Without trust, and respect, and kindness, they don't mean shit. I thought love was about caring about someone day in and day out, about being there when it's rucking amazing and still wanting to be there when it feels like crap, I thought it was about forever. — Alexandra Potter

Two hallmarks of Homo Sapiens are decoration and self-identification. — Carl Zimmer

John Gielgud thought 'he was never the same after leaving England, though he wouldn't have admitted it. I think that tax business, and the way people reacted to it, shocked him . . . He wasn't much good as a tax exile. He didn't do a lot with his money. His houses were commonplace, the food dreadful, the decoration pretty amateurish. — Philip Hoare

Where utility ends and decoration begins is perfection. — Jack Gardner

Le Tub is a Miami oceanside restaurant that uses old bath tubs and toilets as decoration. If you're really lucky, you get a table by the water where you can see the manatees as they swim by. Someone once told me that it was one of Oprah's favorite restaurants, but seriously, Oprah has a lot of favorite things--it all sounds like lies at this point. — Tarryn Fisher

Maybe my limbs are made
mostly for decoration,
like the way I feel about
persimmons. — Ada Limon

[Richard] remembered asking Tommy once why he didn't want to transition into a woman.
"And lose my cock, balls and prostate? Are you kidding me? Honey, I'm still all man. I'm just a man with decoration."
Tommy Wilkins, A Very Tate Christmas (Tate Pack #3) — Vicktor Alexander

How many times did you have to take a guy's hand and tell him, "Dude, it's right here." If he had that kind of learning disability in sports, he'd be a bench decoration. She — Suanne Laqueur

The concept of a writer writing a vivid and accurate scene in a language transparent and devoid of decoration so that we see through to the object without writerly distraction suffers the same contradiction as the concept of a painter painting a vivid and accurate scene with pigments transparent and devoid of color, including white and black - so that the paint will not get between us and the picture. — Samuel R. Delany

The greatest satisfaction is not the decoration. It is knowing that I am able to help someone who needs help. — Jimmy Page

She surrounded herself with books at work and at home. Her living space was a testament to her first and abiding love with shelves jammed with books tables crowded with them. She saw them not only as knowledge entertainment comfort even sanity but as a kind of artful decoration. — Nora Roberts

Culture is not trivial. It is not a decoration or artifice, the songs we sing or even the prayers we chant. It is a blanket of comfort that gives meaning to lives. It is a body of knowledge that allows the individual to make sense out of the infinite sensations of consciousness, to find meaning and order in a universe that ultimately has neither. Culture is a body of laws and traditions, a moral and ethical code that insulates a people from the barbaric heart that lies just beneath the surface of all human societies and indeed all human beings. Culture alone allows us to reach, as Abraham Lincoln said, for the better angels of our nature. — Wade Davis

Just like she intended to be with him for Christmas and make him buy a potted tree because, while she didn't like artificial pines, she also couldn't stand the thought of chopping a live one down for decoration. So, every year, she bought a live pine tree, and once Christmas was done, she kept it watered and healthy until spring when she could plant it. — Eve Langlais

There are only a few bits of absolute knowledge in the world, people can learn only one or two fundamental facts about each other, the rest is decoration and prejudice. — Katherine Anne Porter

Meanwhile, the kale market grew by 40% in 2013 alone. The biggest purchaser of kale the year before had been Pizza Hut, which put it in their salad bars - as decoration. Some — Brian Christian

For as long as I could remember, the person in E23 pasted the same Halloween decoration, a witch with a giant wart on her crone's nose, but whenever kids rang, the tenant wouldn't answer. At first, kids figured they'd just missed the guy: bad timing. But it seemed impossible that all of us missed him every year. — Victor LaValle

The autonomy of art that emerged through Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Mondrian, and the Russian Constructivism had seen painting develop independent of imitations or decoration, and so the content of art became much closer to that of music. — Neville Weston

I learned about the sacred art of self decoration with the monarch butterflies perched atop my head, lightning bugs as my night jewelry, and emerald-green frogs as bracelets. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away. — Ismail Haniyeh

Laws change so often it seems pointless to keep track of the fiddly ones. 'Don't kill' is the big one. Everything else is moral decoration. — T.W. Brown