Quotes & Sayings About The Landlady

She never managed to find herself in these books no matter how hard she tried, exhuming traits from between the pages and donning them for an hour, a day, a week. We think in some ways, we have all done this our whole lives, searching for the book that will give us the keys to ourselves, let us into a wholly formed personality as though it were a furnished room to let. As though we could walk in and look around and say to the gray-haired landlady behind us, We'll take it. — Eleanor Brown

There was not a soul to be seen, and apart from a hammering noise echoing from somewhere distant, and an occasional coughing in a room to the back of the house, there is still no sound to be heard. The landlady is clearly not yet up and about, suggesting there is little chance of her serving breakfast earlier than her declared time of seven thirty. — Kazuo Ishiguro

When Lillian left work in the early evening the streets were slick and shiny with rain and the lamps flared yellow giving her the melancholy feeling that always came with the rain and the dark. She'd just struggled to push up her umbrella when the farmer from Saskatchewan came out of the shadows and tipped his hat again, very politely, and said could he escort her home? She put her small hand on his broad arm and held the umbrella over both their heads (he was very tall) and he walked her all the way back to her lodging-house where the landlady, Mrs Raicevic, looked after Edmund after school. By then, Lillian had learned the farmer's name and she said, 'Edmund, this is Mr Donner,' and Pete Donner squatted right down and said, 'Hello there, Edmund, you can call me Pete.' Although he never did, preferring to call him 'Pop' almost from the day his mother married him. — Kate Atkinson

He thought about history, the hidden human anxieties behind momentous events. The tiny trivial things that were probably bothering Einstein or Darwin or Newton as they formulated their theories: arguments with the landlady, maybe, or concern over a blocked fireplace. The pilots who bombed Dresden, fretting over a phrase in a letter from back home: What did she mean by that? Or what about Columbus, when he was sailing toward the New Land ... who knows what was on his mind? The last words spoken to him by an old friend, perhaps, a person not even remembered in history books ... — Michel Faber

Repeatedly Yates went berserk - raging over grievances old and new, hurling furniture at phantoms out of his past. The nurses who lived upstairs complained about the racket to the landlady, an eccentric woman who adored Yates and did nothing. — Blake Bailey

It had to be the most surreal, embarrassing, awkward moment of his life, standing petrified in his mother's backyard in front of a broken lawn mower, sporting a woody and discussing sex for sale with the landlady. — Linda Kage

The pretty landlady was desolate. She would have taken D'Artagnan not only as her husband, but as her God, he was so handsome and had so fierce a mustache. Then — Alexandre Dumas

Within a year Ivan Dmitritch was completely forgotten in the town, and his books, heaped up by his landlady in a sledge in the shed, were pulled to pieces by boys. — Anton Chekhov

The landlady of a boarding-house is a parallelogram - that is, an oblong angular figure, which cannot be described, but which is equal to anything. — Stephen Leacock

Boarding-House Geometry DEFINITIONS AND AXIOMS All boarding-houses are the same boarding-house. Boarders in the same boarding-house and on the same flat are equal to one another. A single room is that which has no parts and no magnitude. The landlady of a boarding-house is a — Stephen Leacock

I heard we see the world not as it is, but as we are. — Neil Gaiman

Molly was up now, sitting in the kitchen nursing the babies and instructing Mrs. Bienenstock on how to make biscuits. "Don't pound the dough, Dody!" Molly was crying with laughter. "You want to end up crackin' your teeth on 'em? Pat it gentle like it's a baby. That's better." Robert had only ever seen his landlady make coffee and eggs, and he did not think she would take kindly to being taught. But Mrs. B. seemed willing; she was smoothing out the biscuit dough into a round on the table. Neither woman even glanced over at him as he moved between the yard and the wagon with the pails. "Now, take this cup," Molly ordered, "and cut out some circles. Don't twist it! Twistin' seals the dough and it don't rise so well. Jest press and bring the cup back out. There now, put that on your sheet for bakin'." "We're — Tracy Chevalier

He paid two dollars and a half a month rent for the small room he got from his Portuguese landlady, Maria Silva, a virago and a widow, hard working and harsher tempered, rearing her large brood of children somehow, and drowning her sorrow and fatigue at irregular intervals in a gallon of the thin, sour wine that she bought from the corner grocery and saloon for fifteen cents. From detesting her and her foul tongue at first, Martin grew to admire her as he observed the brave fight she made. — Jack London

That's not my concern just now. This man - " "Grayson Thane," Brianna supplied, more than grateful the topic had turned away from their mother. "A respected American author who has designs on a quiet room in a well-run establishment in the west of Ireland. He doesn't have designs on his landlady." She picked up her tea, sipped. "And he's going to pay for my greenhouse. — Nora Roberts

All desire to laugh fled. How exactly did Strike think that it would cheer Robin up, to know that his girlfriend was thinking of buying a ludicrously expensive flat? Or was he about to announce (Robin's fragile mood began to collapse in on itself) that he and Elin were moving in together? Like a film flickering rapidly before her eyes she saw the upstairs flat empty, Strike living in luxury, herself in a tiny box room on the edge of London, whispering into her mobile so that her vegan landlady did not hear her. — Robert Galbraith

I like 'Goodbye My Lover' because it's a really personal song and I recorded it in my landlady's bathroom in Los Angeles. She had a piano in there and for me listening back to it, it actually sounds like the voice I hear in my head. It's so close to what I can imagine. — James Blunt

Do you remember," he said, "one of Holmes's little scores over Watson about the number of steps up to the Baker Street lodging? Poor old Watson had been up and down them a thousand times, but he had never thought of counting them, whereas Holmes had counted them as a matter of course, and knew that there were seventeen. And that was supposed to be the difference between observation and non-observation. Watson was crushed again, and Holmes appeared to him more amazing than ever. Now, it always seemed to me that in that matter Holmes was the ass, and Watson the sensible person. What on earth is the point of keeping in your head an unnecessary fact like that? If you really want to know at any time the number of steps to your lodging, you can ring up your landlady and ask her. — A.A. Milne

Public work brings a vicarious but assured sense of immortality. We may be poor, weak, timid, in debt to our landlady, bullied by our nieces, stiff in the joints, shortsighted and distressed; we shall perish, but the cause endures; the cause is great. — Winifred Holtby

Miss Witherfield retired, deeply impressed with the magistrate's learning and research; Mr. Nupkins retired to lunch; Mr. Jinks retired within himself - that being the only retirement he had, except the sofa-bedstead in the small parlour which was occupied by his landlady's family in the daytime - and Mr. Grummer retired, to wipe out, by his mode of discharging his present commission, the insult which had been fastened upon himself, and the other representative of his Majesty - the beadle - in the course of the morning. — Charles Dickens

A complete transformation seemed to have place in my life overnight. It was quite staggering, and thenceforward visitors and invitations continued to pour in daily until they became a source of grievance to our landlady, who was obliged to engage an extra servant to respond to the battering of powdered footmen on her humble and somewhat flimsy door. — Lillie Langtry

Where does a man get inspiration to write a song like that? Well, he gets it from the landlady once a month. — John Michael Hayes

I don't think I can do this anymore," I told my landlady ...
"Can anyone else, then?" she asked, voice rough.
"I don't think so," I acknowledged.
"And the this you mean - must this be done?"
"Yes."
"Then you will keep going." ...
"Keeping going is terrible."
"It is, she agreed. "That is why I admire you, Mr. Wilde. It is much easier to stop. — Lyndsay Faye

Seated in a car full of women, squashed between his six-foot landlady and Sybil Underwood, having to listen to them talk nonstop all the way to Atlanta and back, was too much for him to bear. — Fannie Flagg

But the landlady is a fat, ugly, mean, stupid, unwashed, misanthropic, cheap, drunken bag of garbage. And you may have noticed that I very seldom use profanity, so I can't describe her as well as I might. — Edward Albee

Air struggles up my throat and past my lips as Mom talks with our new landlady. Even with the air conditioner working at full blast, the air is thin, dry, and empty. I imagine this is how it feels for someone with asthma, this constant fight for breath. As if you can't ever fill your lungs with enough air. I glare at Mom. Of all the places in the world to relocate, she had to choose a desert. I'm certain she's a sadist. — Sophie Jordan

And I walked into a dark hall
where the landlady stood
execrating and final,
sending me to hell,
waving her fat, sweaty arms
and screaming
screaming for rent
because the world had failed us
both. — Charles Bukowski

The Violins waltzed. The Cellos and Basses provided accompaniment. The Violas mourned their fate, while the Concertmaster showed off. The Flutes did bird imitations ... repeatedly, and the reed instruments had the good taste to admire my jacket. The Trumpets held a parade in honor of our great nation, while the French Horns waxed nostalgic about something or other. The Trombones had too much to drink. The Percussion beat the band, and the Tuba stayed home playing cards with his landlady, the Harp, taking sips of warm milk a blue little cup.
But the Composer is still dead. — Lemony Snicket

Next morning I finally arrived at the place. The two sisters had already left for work, but the landlady of the pension admitted me into their room. I fell asleep with exhaustion. By late afternoon, when they arrived, they were more shocked than elated about my presence. They took me within an hour to a coffee house, on Lipscani Street, where many Czernowitzers congregated. Sure enough, I met Jancu, the uncle of my former student Vera. He immediately took me with my belongings, to his family, to his parents. They were the warmest, friendliest people imaginable. Vera's mother was happy, because now, she thought, Vera would pass the grade, with my help. — Pearl Fichman

One night I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room on Buker Hill, down in the middle of Los Angeles. It was an important night in my life, because I had to make a decision about the hotel. Either I paid up or I got out: that was what the note said, the note the landlady had put under my door. A great problem, deserving acute attention. I solved it by turning out the lights and going to bed. — John Fante

mug before him. 'Here she is,' the landlady turned — Kaye Dobbie

We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him. Our landlady and the delicatessen man are our mourners, and we leave nothing behind us but a frock-coat and a fiddle, or an easel, or a typewriter, or whatever took we got our living by. All we have ever managed to do is to pay our rent, that exorbitant rent that one has to pay for a few square feet of space near the heart of things. We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theaters. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder. — Willa Cather

John F. Kennedy, who seized the White House from Richard Nixon in a frenzied campaign that turned a whole generation of young Americans into political junkies, got shot in the head for his efforts, murdered in Dallas by some hapless geek named Oswald who worked for either Castro, the mob, Jimmy Hoffa, the CIA, his dominatrix landlady or the odious, degenerate FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. The list is long and crazy - maybe Marilyn Monroe's first husband fired those shots from the grassy knoll. Who knows? — Hunter S. Thompson

His landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in dressing gown and shawl; her husband followed ejaculating. — Mary Shelley

Brenda had been the landlady of the Pied Horse for twenty years and, as Jack, the village grocer, came in every single day, she knew just how cantankerous, stubborn and mean-spirited he could be. It was a common knowledge that his older daughter, Emily, had left home after a beating and had never been home since. His wife, Mary, was a sweet-natured woman who was well liked by everyone, but she was a bag of nerves and too weak to stand up to such a bully. — Lesley Pearse

By late autumn the yard would grow thick with fallen leaves, causing the landlady to heave many deep sighs. — Takashi Hiraide

This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to lie - no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and slip out unseen. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky