Quotes & Sayings About Top Hats

I recommend the French beret, for it gives the impression of just the right soft toughness, a veritable wave of sophisticated brain matter. It is the kind of hat that inspires a person to grow into it, to become the person they never knew they could be. The space between the top of the head and the beginnings of hat is among the most intimate of areas: earlobe behinds, elbow insides, and anuses. One must pay heed to such spaces for they hold a potential not fully known (but generally agreed to be vast). — Meia Geddes

Foreign diplomats could have modeled their conduct on the way the Negro postmen, Pullman porters, and dining car waiters of Roxbury [Massachusetts] acted, striding around as if they were wearing top hats and cutaways. — Malcolm X

The big house ... reminded me of the types of structures you can still see in places like Center City: gingerbread houses, two-story affairs built back in the nineteenth century when people didn't have televisions and were forced to build interesting things out of wood. I have a theory that the outrageous fashions you see in pre-twentieth century culture came about as a result of the lack of television. I'm talking wild hats on women with lots of feathers, pelts, sequined dresses with long trains, as well as top hats on the men, with long-tailed coats. I figure that life in those days was s dull that people themselves became televisions. I'm still working on the theory. I include European royalty in this construct, but let's move on. — Gary Reilly

Is equally true that throughout his life he retained the small boy's glee in making mischief, in dressing up, in showing off. He was probably the only man in London who owned more hats than his wife - top hats, Stetsons, seamen's caps, his hussar helmet, a privy councillor's cocked hat, homburgs, an astrakhan, an Irish "paddy hat," a white pith helmet, an Australian bush hat, a fez, the huge beplumed hat he wore as a Knight of the Garter, even the full headdress of a North American Indian chieftain. He had closets full of costumes. — William Manchester

On the other hand, I'm drawn to top hats, and spats, and mustaches. I haven't read a Missed Connection yet with someone wearing a monocle, but rest assured I'll snap it up if I do. — Sophie Blackall

The snowmen stood in bunches, in families, and the breeze generated by the car snatched at their striped scarves. Snowmen fathers and snowgirl mothers with their snowchildren and snowpuppies. Top hats were in abundance, as were corncob pipes and carrot noses. They waved the crooked sticks of their arms, saluting Mr. Manx, Wayne, and NOS4A2 as they went by. The black coals of their eyes gleamed, darker than the night, brighter than the stars. — Joe Hill

There are men in frock coats and top hats with the blood of the world on their hands, and they eat with silver forks and white napkins every day, and they will give up their last breath in a linen-made bed whilst the ones they sent out to die lie forgotten in the earth, mouldering bones with the poppies fat and red above 'em. Ah, mankind. — Paul Kearney

I don't like top hats, white ties, and tails. — Fred Astaire

Servants, men in top hats and morning coats, shop girls in — Christina Baker Kline

Well, you know what the Fulham Road's like. If your top-hat blows off into it, it has about as much chance as a rabbit at a dogshow. — P.G. Wodehouse

Mr. Galliano wore his big top-hat very much on one side of his head, so much so that Jimmy really wondered why it didn't fall off.

'When Galliano wears his hat on one side the circus is taking lots of money,' said Lotta to him. 'But when you see him wearing it straight up, then you know things are going badly. He gets into a bad temper then, and I hide under the caravan when I see him coming. I've never seen his hat so much on one side before!'

Jimmy thought that circus ways were very extraordinary. Even hats seemed to share in the excitement! — Enid Blyton

Lions should be strong but sweet beasts in a Disney cartoon. But they aren't, so when they act like lions you're angry at them for not being the fantasy animals you imagined. Russian bears don't put on top hats and ride unicycles. Or sleep in bed next to Goldilocks. People force them to do those stupid things in circuses and films and children's books. Sure, some will be more docile or more ferocious than others, but in the end they will always, always be bears. And you should never turn your back on them. You should never even get near them; it's that simple. They're not being dishonest - you are in your perception of them. — Jonathan Carroll

He could wear hats. He could wear an assortment of hats of different shapes and styles. Boater hats, cowboy hats, bowler hats. The list went on. Pork-pie hats, bucket hats, trillbies and panamas. Top hats, straw hats, trapper hats. Wide brim narrow brim, stingy brim. He could wear a fez. Fezzes were cool. Hadn't someone once said that fezzes were cool? He was pretty aur ether had. And they were. They were cool. — Derek Landy

Lenin in a top hat and frock coat would be a far greater anomaly than the Grand Lama of Thibet or a Zulu chief in that costume. — Wyndham Lewis

It is a dream. He knows it, and his becoming aware of it gives him a power to move freely among the other kids and people. Some of them wear yellow baseball hats. He feels the top of his head. No hat. He becomes anxious, frightened. He looks at those who wear the hats, some of his little friends, a few others he does not recognize. The hat means they will be saved. It means they have been chosen by God to live through the trials of Armageddon, when the moon will turn to blood, the sky will rain fire. — Stephen Dawson

The Vienna Boys Choir decked out in top hats and evil clown make-up could be directly next to me pole-vaulting over giant rotating knives and I'd never know because I'm gazing into the distance deliberating some vaguely imperceptible angst. — Bill Gray

I never realized before this the emotional power of some really simple, corny tropes: people with top hats, people with batons, confetti going off, how important it is to smile. — Ira Glass

We're workers, they say. Work, they call it! That's the crummiest part of the whole business. We're down in the hold, heaving and panting, stinking and sweating our balls off, and meanwhile! Up on deck in the fresh air, what do you see?! Our masters having a fine time with beautiful pink and perfumed women on their laps. They send for us, we're brought up on deck. They put on their top hats and give us a big spiel like as follows: "You no-good swine! We're at war! Those stinkers in Country No. 2! We're going to board them and cut their livers out! Let's go! Let's go! We've got everything we need on board! All together now! Let's hear you shout so the deck trembles: 'Long live Country No. 1!' So you'll be heard for miles around. The man that shouts the loudest will get a medal and a lollipop! Let's — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

What happened is, when I was doing 'Taxi,' the last year, we did this thing where we had on top hats and tails, and we pretended to tap-dance. And I said to myself, 'You know, I always wanted to know how to do this.' So I got myself a teacher, and I started studying, and I got hooked. — Tony Danza