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Cotton Quotes

Browse 261 quotes about Cotton.

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Cotton Quotes

“The reluctance of southern planters to grow food stemmed from more than simply greed and economic self-interest. A major concern involved what to do with their slaves, who would have more time on their hands if not out tending cotton. Planting corn exacted much time during the planting and cultivation stages, but came nowhere near matching the long cotton-picking season, which typically lasted four and often five full months. As one Georgia newspaper put it, 'No grain crop in this climate needs cultivation more than four months of the year, the remainder of the working season is unemployed. Can the farmer afford to keep his negroes, horses, and other capital idle and 'eating their heads off' for the balance of the season?”

HistoryEconomicsSlaveryGreedCottonCapitalDixieConfederate States Of AmericaPlantation
Book:Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History
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“If nothing else, Alice, you will have sight of one of the grandest buildings in the city, one of the grandest ever built, in fact. That florid thing cost three hundred eighty thousand dollars to erect! It is as ornate as a cathedral. But, oh so mixed up. A bit of everything thrown in---Second Empire, Renaissance, Italian, with Corinthian columns, no less. Gold ceiling medallions, frescoes, murals, sculptures--- even a fountain, where the futures are sold. Well, not in the fountain.” Constance laughed uncertainly. “And an ornate steam elevator… Well, just don’t bid on the cotton futures.”

New OrleansCottonExchangeBuildingsBrokerage
Book:The Seamstress of New Orleans
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“If you already hate tofu, the term "tofu skin" is probably an effective emetic. But this stuff is addictive. You start by making fresh soy milk. I'm not going to soft-pedal how much work this is: you have to soak, grind, squeeze, and simmer dried soybeans. The result is a thick milk entirely unlike the soy milk you get in a box at Whole Foods in the same way Parmigiano-Reggiano is unlike Velveeta. Then, to make tofu skins (yuba in Japanese), you simmer the soy milk gently over low heat until a skin forms on the surface, then pluck it off with your fingers and drape it over a chopstick to dry. It is exactly like the skin that forms on top of pudding, the one George Costanza wanted to market as Pudding Skin Singles. Yuba doesn't look like much- like a pile of discarded raw chicken skin, honestly. But the texture is toothsome, and with each bite you're rewarded with the flavor of fresh soy milk. It's best served with just a few drops of soy sauce and maybe some grated ginger or sliced negi. "I'm kind of obsessed with tofu skins right now," said Iris, poking her head into the fridge to grab a round of yuba. Me too. In Seattle, I had to buy, grind, boil, and otherwise toil for a few sheets of yuba. In Tokyo, I found it at Life Supermarket, sold in a single-serving plastic tub with a foil top. The yuba wasn't as snappy or flavorful as homemade, but it had that characteristic fresh-soy aroma, which to me smells like a combination of "healthy forest" and "clean baby." Iris and I ate it greedily. (The yuba, not the baby.) Yuba isn't technically tofu, because the soy milk isn't coagulated. Japanese tofu comes in two basic categories, much like underpants: cotton (momen) and silken (kinugoshi). Cotton tofu is the kind eaten most commonly in the U.S.; if you buy a package of extra-firm tofu and cut it up for stir-frying, that's definitely cotton tofu. Silken tofu is fragile, creamier and more dairy-like than cotton-tofu, and it's the star of my favorite summer tofu dish. Hiya yakko is cubes of tofu, usually silken, drizzled with soy sauce and judiciously topped with savory bits: grated ginger or daikon, bonito flakes, negi. It's popular in Japanese bars and easy to make at home, which I did, with (you will be shocked to hear) tons of fresh negi.”

CottonSkinTofuSoy MilkSilkenYuba
Book:Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo
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“On the night of All Hallow's Eve party, I sew my own black gown using the Witch Sisters' chiffon fabric, and a crown made of forged iron and dove feathers from Valentine's Town. I stand at the mirror, pressing down the silky fabric along my ribs, still feeling like myself--like a rag doll, who is also a queen. Instinctively, I tug at the thread on my wrist, but beneath the seam, I feel the softness of cotton, not the crunch of dead leaves. When I was born, my insides were filled with air-puffed cotton--Dream Town cotton. But when Dr. Finkelstein kidnapped me, he replaced the cotton with dead leaves; he wanted no reminders of where I was really from. But now I have filled myself with both: cotton and dead leaves. Because although I am the queen of Halloween Town, I am also a daughter of Dream Town. Made of nightmares and dreams. A little of both.”

CottonQueenSallyBothRagdollHalloween TownDream Town
Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“I found so many Jews and speculators here trading in cotton, and secessionists had become so open in refusing anything but gold, that I have felt myself bound to stop it. The gold can have but one use - the purchase of arms and ammunition... Of course, I have respected all permits by yourself or the Secretary of the Treasury, but in these new cases (swarms of Jews), I have stopped it.”

UseCoursesFoundFeltCasesArmsGoldBoundsJewPermitSecretaryTradingCottonTreasuryAmmunitionSwarmsSpeculators
Author:William Tecumseh Sherman
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“Here is my Farm Relief bill: Every time a Southerner plants nothing on his farm but cotton year after year, and the Northerner nothing but wheat or corn, why, take a hammer and hit him twice right between the eyes. You may dent your hammer, but it will do more real good than all the bills you can pass in a year.”

YearsMayRealEyeBillsPlantReliefFarmsAgricultureHammersCornWheatCottonSouthernerNortherners
Book:Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams
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“So here we are in a country with more wheat and corn and more money in the bank, more cotton, more everything in the world-there's not a product that you can name that we haven't got more of than any other country ever had on the face of the earth-and yet we've got people starving. We'll hold the distinction of being the only nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile.”

PeopleWorldCountryEarthFacesHouseNamesNationsPoorHavensProductsDistinctionMore MoneyOther CountriesConsumerismWorld HistoryStarvingCornAutomobileWheatCottonOverconsumption
Author:Will Rogers
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“At the age of five years to enter a spinning-cotton or other factory, and from that time forth to sit there daily, first ten, then twelve, and ultimately fourteen hours, performing the same mechanical labour, is to purchase dearly the satisfaction of drawing breath. But this is the fate of millions, and that of millions more is analogous to it.”

YearsFirstsAgeHoursMillionsFiveFateTenBreathsSatisfactionDrawingPerformingFive YearsLabourFactoriesTwelveSpinningFourteenCotton
Author:Arthur Schopenhauer
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“The great cry that rises from our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this, that we manufacture everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages.”

MenFormSpiritCitiesCryShapesAdvantageDeedsSugarSteelManufacturingBlastCottonPotteryFurnaces
Book:Selections From the Works of John Ruskin
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“There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives ... their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them.... Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.”

PeopleThinkingMindCountryDeathDiesLeftForgetGrowingFlowerHonorTerribleMournCotton
Author:Charles Bukowski
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“I started learning my lessons in Abbot Texas, where I was born in 1933. My sister Bobbie and I were raised by our grandparents [...] We never had enough money, and Bobbie and I started working at an early age to help the family get by. That hard work included picking cotton. [...] Picking cotton is hard and painful work, and the most lasting lesson I learned in the fields was that I didn't want to spend my life picking cotton.”

WantHardEnoughHelpingAgeBornFieldsHard WorkLessonsRaisedPainfulLastingTexasMy SisterGrandparentHad EnoughCotton
Author:Willie Nelson
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“A rich man's body is like a premium cotton pillow, white and soft and blank. ''Ours'' is different. My father's spine was a knotted rope, the kind that women use in villages to pull water from wells; the clavicle curved around his neck in high relief, like a dog's collar; cuts and nicks and scars, like little whip marks in his flesh, ran down his chest and waist, reaching down below his hip bones into his buttocks. The story of a poor man's life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.”

MenWellsKindLittlesDifferentStoriesUseBodyLife IsFatherWaterWhitePoorRichCuttingWrittenDogMarkBonesFleshHipsRanNecksReliefReachingPensVillageChestsScarBlankRopePillowWhipsSpineCottonRich ManPoor ManCollarsPremiumButtocks
Author:Aravind Adiga
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“Adults are always telling young people, 'These are the best years of your life.' Are they? I don't know. Sometimes when adults say this to children I look into their faces. They look like someone on the top seat of the Ferris wheel who has had too much cotton candy and barbecue. They'd like to get off and be sick but everyone keeps telling them what a good time they're having.”

PeopleKnowsYearsLooksChildrenSometimesFacesYoungToo MuchAdultsSickWheelsSeatsGood TimesAdolescenceCandyCottonBarbecueBest YearCotton CandyFerris WheelsBest Years Of Your Life
Book:At Wit's End
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“There was nothing natural about laissez-faire; free markets could never have come into being merely by allowing things to take their course. Just as cotton manufactures were created by the help of protective tariffs, export bounties, and indirect wage subsidies, laissez-faire was enforced by the state.”

StatesHelpingCoursesNaturalAllowingFree MarketProtectiveBeing MeCottonIndirectBountySubsidiesLaissez FaireTariffs
Book:The Great Transformation
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