Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by James Barbato

Quote by James Barbato

Work

The Magic Christmas Ornament

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

James Barbato

Browse famous quotes and profile details for James Barbato. more

You May Also Like

“On principle, I don't want to teach English. It's a slippery slope. You agree to teach English and then suddenly you're forty-five, with a fanny pack and Teva sandals, still teaching English, except inexplicably you have become a white male and you have a hot Chinese girlfriend and everyone else thinks you're a creep.”

“Mr. Morris's poem is ushered into the world with a very florid birthday speech from the pen of the author of the too famous Poems and Ballads,—a circumstance, we apprehend, in no small degree prejudicial to its success. But we hasten to assure all persons whom the knowledge of Mr. Swinburne's enthusiasm may have led to mistrust the character of the work, that it has to our perception nothing in common with this gentleman's own productions, and that his article proves very little more than that his sympathies are wiser than his performance. If Mr. Morris's poem may be said to remind us of the manner of any other writer, it is simply of that of Chaucer; and to resemble Chaucer is a great safeguard against resembling Swinburne.”

“The chef outdid himself, as one delectable dish after another was brought up from the kitchens. For Gabriel, there was a succulent roast goose with figs and a tender glazed ham, while (Esme) dined on a pair of clever cheese dishes, one made with cream and potatoes and another from Italy that combined cheese-filled flat noodles smothered with a wonderful rosemary butter sauce. Accompanying all of that was a plentiful array of vegetables, spiced and stewed fruits and freshly baked breads with creamy butter. And for dessert, there was a flaming plum pudding with a cognac whipped cream so strong it threatened to leave her tipsy.”

“If Madame Rapacine had taught her anything, it was that if you wanted to capture a time, a place, a feeling, you needed to make it into a perfume. Iris understood, Rapacine hadn't destroyed the home she loved--- she had bottled it. But for those few passersby who resist the dissociation the city begs of its residents, those who are more in touch with their bodies, or sensitive to whimsy, or at the very least not in a terrible rush, they had a surreal experience. A Pilates instructor and former principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey company walked by and smelled the water and was reminded of the glamorous patrons at her first professional dance gig, opening a new club called Studio 54. A Japanese chef on holiday passed by and thought it smelled like the yuzu and rosewater cake he once baked for his sister's wedding. And a small child simply thought it smelled like her mother when she was going out for the evening. The perfume that poured from the brownstone could evoke a different memory for every person in New York. But all of them were beautiful.”