charm

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
ae66308	When a girl feels that she's perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That's charm	charm fashion	F. Scott Fitzgerald
54689a3	All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.	beauty leo-tolstoy diversity charm	Leo Tolstoy
8c07ed2	But youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.	youth charm	Oscar Wilde
bbef7bb	Her delight in the smallest things was like that of a child. There were days when she ran in the garden, like a child of ten, after a butterfly or a dragon-fly. This courtesan who had cost more money in bouquets than would have kept a whole family in comfort, would sometimes sit on the grass for an hour, examining the simple flower whose name she bore.	love charm childlikeness	Alexandre Dumas-fils
5cef7f8	Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more time, or of going one more round with a hostile or (much worse) indifferent audience. I first became involved with the Czech opposition in 1968 when it was an intoxicating and celebrated cause. Then, during the depressing 1970s and 1980s I was a member of a routine committee that tried with limited success to help the reduced forces of Czech dissent to stay nourished (and published). The most pregnant moment of that commitment was one that I managed to miss at the time: I passed an afternoon with Zdenek Mlynar, exiled former secretary of the Czech Communist Party, who in the bleak early 1950s in Moscow had formed a friendship with a young Russian militant with an evident sense of irony named Mikhail Sergeyevitch Gorbachev. In 1988 I was arrested in Prague for attending a meeting of one of Vaclav Havel's 'Charter 77' committees. That outwardly exciting experience was interesting precisely because of its almost Zen-like tedium. I had gone to Prague determined to be the first visiting writer not to make use of the name Franz Kafka, but the numbing bureaucracy got the better of me. When I asked why I was being detained, I was told that I had no need to know the reason! Totalitarianism is itself a cliche (as well as a of pulverizing boredom) and it forced the cliche upon me in turn. I did have to mention Kafka in my eventual story. The regime fell not very much later, as I had slightly foreseen in that same piece that it would. (I had happened to notice that the young Czechs arrested with us were not at all frightened by the police, as their older mentors had been and still were, and also that the police themselves were almost fatigued by their job. This was totalitarianism practically yawning itself to death.) A couple of years after that I was overcome to be invited to an official reception in Prague, to thank those who had been consistent friends through the stultifying years of what 'The Party' had so perfectly termed 'normalization.' As with my tiny moment with Nelson Mandela, a whole historic stretch of nothingness and depression, combined with the long and deep insult of having to be pushed around by boring and mediocre people, could be at least partially canceled and annealed by one flash of humor and charm and generosity.	irony history humour politics 1968 1970s 1980s 1988 allegiance arrest bad-crowds charter-77 gorbachev kafka nelson-mandela vaclav-havel zdenek-mlynar prague moscow czechoslovakia arguments exile commitment bureaucracy boredom clichés generosity dissent totalitarianism detention mediocrity charm russia communism loyalty police	Christopher Hitchens
ac3e0d5	She's not classically beautiful, but somehow that only makes her more interesting.	woman beauty interesting-quotes charm	Jodi Picoult
30f7b0f	He had the charm of all people who believe implicitly in themselves, that of integration.	confidence integration charm	John Fowles
235c153	...that witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits, or magic wands. Language upon a silver tongue affords enchantment enough.	magic language charm	Salman Rushdie
79f1f84	Look, Miranda, he said, those twenty long years that lie between you and me. I've more knowledge of life than you, I've lived more and betrayed more and seen more betrayed. At your age one is bursting with ideals. You think that because I can sometimes see what's trivial and what's important in art that I ought to be more virtuous. But I don't want to be virtuous. My charm (if there is any) for you is simply frankness. And experience. Not goodness. I'm not a good man. Perhaps morally I'm younger even than you are. Can you understand that?	virtue good goodness life betrayed bursting younger older trivial ideals virtuous years frank old frankness betray important understand ideal experience charm knowledge betrayal young	John Fowles
bfba2b0	I once knew of a minstrel who bragged of having had a thousand women, one time each. He would never know what I knew, that to have one woman a thousand times, and each time find in her a different delight, is far better. I knew now what gleamed in the eyes of old couples when they stared at each other across a room...My familiarity with her was a more potent love elixir than any potion sold by a hedge-witch in the market.	time man woman true men women change love truth discover elixir familiar potion sincere find know charm sincerity playboy knowledge delight minstrel	Robin Hobb
2cc4db6	The President is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the President on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm.	television dwight-d-eisenhower golf george-w-bush war-on-terror terrorism united-states hypocrisy double-standards charm statesmanship	Christopher Hitchens
c583fe2	I'll never miss a chance to remind you of what a brat you were. A gloriously beautiful and very spoiled brat. I was utterly charmed by your complete self-absorption. It was rather like courting a cat.	love brat glorious narcissim poke-fun pursue remind self-absorption spoled tease cat woo chance narcissistic narcissus charm court like joke reminiscence courtship wooing	Robin Hobb

When a girl feels that she's perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That's charm

F. Scott Fitzgerald

54689a3

All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.

beauty leo-tolstoy diversity charm

Leo Tolstoy

8c07ed2

But youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.

youth charm

Oscar Wilde

bbef7bb

Her delight in the smallest things was like that of a child. There were days when she ran in the garden, like a child of ten, after a butterfly or a dragon-fly. This courtesan who had cost more money in bouquets than would have kept a whole family in comfort, would sometimes sit on the grass for an hour, examining the simple flower whose name she bore.

love charm childlikeness

Alexandre Dumas-fils

5cef7f8

Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more time, or of going one more round with a hostile or (much worse) indifferent audience. I first became involved with the Czech opposition in 1968 when it was an intoxicating and celebrated cause. Then, during the depressing 1970s and 1980s I was a member of a routine committee that tried with limited success to help the reduced forces of Czech dissent to stay nourished (and published). The most pregnant moment of that commitment was one that I managed to miss at the time: I passed an afternoon with Zdenek Mlynar, exiled former secretary of the Czech Communist Party, who in the bleak early 1950s in Moscow had formed a friendship with a young Russian militant with an evident sense of irony named Mikhail Sergeyevitch Gorbachev. In 1988 I was arrested in Prague for attending a meeting of one of Vaclav Havel's 'Charter 77' committees. That outwardly exciting experience was interesting precisely because of its almost Zen-like tedium. I had gone to Prague determined to be the first visiting writer not to make use of the name Franz Kafka, but the numbing bureaucracy got the better of me. When I asked why I was being detained, I was told that I had no need to know the reason! Totalitarianism is itself a cliche (as well as a of pulverizing boredom) and it forced the cliche upon me in turn. I did have to mention Kafka in my eventual story. The regime fell not very much later, as I had slightly foreseen in that same piece that it would. (I had happened to notice that the young Czechs arrested with us were not at all frightened by the police, as their older mentors had been and still were, and also that the police themselves were almost fatigued by their job. This was totalitarianism practically yawning itself to death.) A couple of years after that I was overcome to be invited to an official reception in Prague, to thank those who had been consistent friends through the stultifying years of what 'The Party' had so perfectly termed 'normalization.' As with my tiny moment with Nelson Mandela, a whole historic stretch of nothingness and depression, combined with the long and deep insult of having to be pushed around by boring and mediocre people, could be at least partially canceled and annealed by one flash of humor and charm and generosity.

irony history humour politics 1968 1970s 1980s 1988 allegiance arrest bad-crowds charter-77 gorbachev kafka nelson-mandela vaclav-havel zdenek-mlynar prague moscow czechoslovakia arguments exile commitment bureaucracy boredom clichés generosity dissent totalitarianism detention mediocrity charm russia communism loyalty police

Christopher Hitchens

ac3e0d5

She's not classically beautiful, but somehow that only makes her more interesting.

woman beauty interesting-quotes charm

Jodi Picoult

30f7b0f

He had the charm of all people who believe implicitly in themselves, that of integration.

confidence integration charm

John Fowles

235c153

...that witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits, or magic wands. Language upon a silver tongue affords enchantment enough.

magic language charm

Salman Rushdie

79f1f84

Look, Miranda, he said, those twenty long years that lie between you and me. I've more knowledge of life than you, I've lived more and betrayed more and seen more betrayed. At your age one is bursting with ideals. You think that because I can sometimes see what's trivial and what's important in art that I ought to be more virtuous. But I don't want to be virtuous. My charm (if there is any) for you is simply frankness. And experience. Not goodness. I'm not a good man. Perhaps morally I'm younger even than you are. Can you understand that?

virtue good goodness life betrayed bursting younger older trivial ideals virtuous years frank old frankness betray important understand ideal experience charm knowledge betrayal young

John Fowles

bfba2b0

I once knew of a minstrel who bragged of having had a thousand women, one time each. He would never know what I knew, that to have one woman a thousand times, and each time find in her a different delight, is far better. I knew now what gleamed in the eyes of old couples when they stared at each other across a room...My familiarity with her was a more potent love elixir than any potion sold by a hedge-witch in the market.

time man woman true men women change love truth discover elixir familiar potion sincere find know charm sincerity playboy knowledge delight minstrel

Robin Hobb

2cc4db6

The President is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the President on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm.

television dwight-d-eisenhower golf george-w-bush war-on-terror terrorism united-states hypocrisy double-standards charm statesmanship

Christopher Hitchens

c583fe2

I'll never miss a chance to remind you of what a brat you were. A gloriously beautiful and very spoiled brat. I was utterly charmed by your complete self-absorption. It was rather like courting a cat.

love brat glorious narcissim poke-fun pursue remind self-absorption spoled tease cat woo chance narcissistic narcissus charm court like joke reminiscence courtship wooing

Robin Hobb