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Delicacy Quotes

Browse 203 quotes about Delicacy.

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Delicacy Quotes

“Ever since she was a young girl, [Patricia Highsmith] had felt an extraordinary empathy for animals, particularly cats. The creatures, she said, 'provide something for writers that humans cannot: companionship that makes no demands or intrusions, that is as restful and ever-changing as a tranquil sea that barely moves'. Her affection for cats was 'a constant as was feline companionship wherever her domestic situation permitted,' says Kingsley. 'As for animals in general, she saw them as individual personalities often better behaved, and endowed with more dignity and honesty than humans. Cruelty to or neglect of any helpless living creature could turn her incandescent with rage.' Janice Robertson remembers how [...] Highsmith was walking through the streets of Soho when she saw a wounded pigeon lying in the gutter. 'Pat decided there and then that this pigeon should be rescued,' says Janice. 'Although I think Roland persuaded her that it was past saving, she really was distraught. She couldn't bear to see animals hurt.' Bruno Sager, Highsmith's carer at the end of her life, recalls the delicacy with which the writer would take hold of a spider which had crawled into the house, making sure to deposit it safely in her garden. 'For her human beings were strange - she thought she would never understand them - and perhaps that is why she liked cats and snails so much,' he says.”

HumansGirlIndividualAnimalSeaHonestyStrangePersonalityCreaturesBehaviorEmpathyHumanDignityCatAffectionRageCrueltySavingWriterWritersNeglectAnimalsWoundedCompanionshipCatsUnderstandTranquilDelicacyFelineRestfulPersonalitiesDemandsSpiderDistraughtPigeonYoung GirlCrawlGutterDepositSnailsIntrusionsSafelyIncandescentBehaved
Book:Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι
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“If a good system of agriculture, unrivaled manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to either convenience or luxury, schools established in every village for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, the general practice of hospitality and charity amongst each other, and above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a civilized people – then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe, and if civilization is to become an article of trade between England and India, I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo.”

WritingScienceReadingRespectEuropeIndiaEnglandCharityLuxuryHinduismAgricultureHospitalityConvenienceSchoolsDelicacyArithmeticSkillHindus
Author:Thomas Munro
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“I was frightened of so many things, in my vanity, that ultimately i couldn't protect myself any other way. Try not to be like that, okay? Be sure to keep your tummy warm, try to relax, both your heart and your body, try not to get flustered. Live like a flower. You have that right. It's something you can achieve, for sure, in your lifetime. And it's enough.”

LifeHumanityFearHuman NatureFlowerLifestyleComplexityDelicacyWay Of Life
Book:The Lake
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“The desert madness." He'd never been to Africa, but he'd seen plenty of remote places and what they did to men. "Lots of them get it. They've nothing to do but brood. Time treats them badly. It stretches worse here because the liquor stinks and there aren't any women. The place just uses them up. Even their assholes get raw from the sand." "I'll never let the desert affect me as it does them," Paul said. "I'll go home first." Remy couldn't help mocking Paul gently for his naïve enthusiasm. "I think you take it a bit far the other way. Let me see if I understand your point of view. In the market there are clouds of flies competing with swarms of beggars for the pleasure of eating camel shit mixed with rotting vegetables. What they can't stomach the cook picks up. He spices it up nicely with some old spit and smears it on top of a mixture of couscous, peb- bles, and sand. Then he dishes it back to you, at six times the price he'd charge anyone else. You know what you're eating-you watch him prepare it-but all the same you enjoy it, because it's exotic." "That's about it." Paul smiled. "L'haute cuisine d'Afrique." Remy roared.”

FoodDelicacyExoticness
Book:Empires of Sand by David Ball
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“…how it would be nice if, for every sea waiting for us, there would be a river, for us. And someone -a father, a lover, someone- able to take us by the hand and find that river -imagine it, invent it- and put us on its stream, with the lightness of one only word, goodbye. This, really, would be wonderful. It would be sweet, life, every life. And things wouldn’t hurt, but they would get near taken by stream, one could first shave and then touch them and only finally be touched. Be wounded, also. Die because of them. Doesn’t matter. But everything would be, finally, human. It would be enough someone’s fancy -a father, a lover, someone- could invent a way, here in the middle of the silence, in this land which don’t wanna talk. Clement way, and beautiful. A way from here to the sea.”

LovePoetrySeaProfoundRiverDelicacyLightness
Book:Ocean Sea
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“I celebrated my arrival in Kyoto with a dinner of grilled eel, a sublime delicacy in Japan. In the water the fish resembles a ferocious jagged-toothed snake. But when sizzled over hot charcoal it looks like a fillet of sole that has spent the winter in Palm Beach. The skin turns crisp and smoky and the fatty white flesh, basted with a sweet soy syrup, becomes deeply tanned and as succulent as foie gras.”

DelicacyKyotoJapanese CuisineEel
Book:Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
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“To understand how seriously the people of Noto take the concept of waste, consider the fugu dilemma. Japanese blowfish, best known for its high toxicity, has been a staple of Noto cuisine for hundreds of years. During the late Meiji and early Edo periods, local cooks in Noto began to address a growing concern with fugu fabrication; namely, how to make use of the fish's deadly ovaries. Pregnant with enough poison to kill up to twenty people, the ovaries- like the toxic liver- had always been disposed of, but the cooks of Noto finally had enough of the waste and set out to crack the code of the toxic reproductive organs. Thus ensued a long, perilous period of experimentation. Locals rubbed ovaries in salt, then in nukamiso, a paste made from rice bran, and left them to ferment. Taste-testing the not-quite-detoxified fugu ovary was a lethal but necessary part of the process, and many years and many lives later, they arrived at a recipe that transformed the ovaries from a deadly disposable into an intensely flavored staple. Today pickled fugu ovaries remain one of Noto's most treasured delicacies.”

DelicacyPoisonousJapaneseDeadlyOvariesBlowfishNotoFugu
Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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“...this refinement and delicacy were what Cale adored; but Cale had been beaten into shape, hammered in dreadful fires of fear and pain. How could she be with him for long? A secret part of Arbell had been searching for some time for a way to leave her lover—although she was unaware of this, it is only fair to record. And so as Cale waited for her to save him while he worked out a way of saving her, she had already chosen the bitter but reasonable path of the good, of the many over the one...”

LoveHeartSoulGodPainEvilFearSecretPathFireGoodChosenBitterReasonableLoverAdoreBadRefinementDelicacySaveHandHammeredPaulBeatShapePartUnawareNeckCaleHoffmanSwanTomasDreadfulArbellLaft
Book:The Left Hand of God
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“A special treat has been prepared----ayu, a troutlike fish caught in the Nagara River from the Gifu area. It is served whole over a bed of rice, once a currency and now a sacred grain. "Very fresh," the chef informs us with a proud smile. "Caught this morning." "It's considered a delicacy," my father says as the chef leaves. I haven't managed a taste yet. I'm watching my father, observing how he'll eat the fish. He brings the bowl to his face, then uses the ohashi to grasp the tiny sweetfish and take a bite, staring with the head. I blink. Oh, okay. That's how it's done. I pick up my ohashi and copy his moves. My teeth sink into the fish. I wait for my gag reflex to kick in, but it doesn't. The skin is crunchy and salty, but gives way to a softer, sweet inside, tasting like watermelon. My saliva glands kick into overdrive. Just like that, I'm all in. If ayu is on the menu, I'll have two.”

FlavorsDelicacyJapanese CuisineAyu
Book:Tokyo Ever After
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“During his years in Japan, Ed has eaten many famous, cheap street food delicacies. Takoyaki, the golden batter opening to reveal tiny little suckered octopus tentacles. Natto----- slimy fermented soybeans which instantly made him gag, to the great amusement of Sayuri, who had tricked him into believing it was a delicious Japanese favorite. (It's not.) He even once tried shirako, dared by his colleagues on a night out after too many draft beers, the bowl of fish prostate reminiscent of fat white maggots. But none of these things had a full face and skeleton. So he looks away and shovels the bird into his mouth and begins to chew. The skull crunches so lightly between his teeth that he'd almost have missed it; the skin is delightfully crispy, like deep-fried chicken skin; and the soy sauce gives a sweet yet salty tang to the meat. "Tastes like liver," he says, going in for a second bite.”

DelicacyJapanese CuisineYakitori
Book:Greedy
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“HOG, n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for the delicacy and the melody of its voice. It is chiefly as a songster that the fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus has been known to draw tears from two persons at once. The scientific name of this dicky-bird is _Porcus Rockefelleri_. Mr. Rockefeller did not discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of resemblance.”

PersonsHas BeensTwoNamesVoiceKnownTearsDrawsBirdJewFavorsDietsRemarkableServingMelodyAppetiteArticlesCagesChorusResemblanceDelicacyHogFowl
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
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“A man who from the beginning has long been soaked in the languid atmosphere of a woman, the scent of her hands, her bosom, her knees, her hair, her lithe and flowing clothes, Sweet bath, suavely Scented with ointments, has acquired a delicacy of skin, a refinement of tone, a kind of androgyny without which the toughest and most virile of geniuses remains, when it comes to artistic perfection, an incomplete being.”

MenKindLongHandsWomenHairGeniusClothesPerfectionSkinsRemainsArtisticAtmosphereKneesToneScentBosomsIncompleteRefinementDelicacyAndrogyny
Author:Charles Baudelaire
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“Ho, Ho, Sir Surgeon. You are too delicate to tell the man that he is ill. You hope to heal the sick without their knowing it. You therefore flatter them. And what happens? They laugh at you. They dance upon their own graves and at last they die. Your delicacy is cruelty, your flatteries are poisons you are a murderer. Shall we keep men in a fool's paradise? Shall we lull them into soft slumber from which they will awake in hell? Are we to become helpers of their damnation by our smooth speeches? In the name of God we will not.”

MenHappensLastsDiesNamesLaughingHellKnowingHe ManFoolSpeechSickIllGravesHealCrueltyAwakeParadisePoisonDelicateSmoothFlatteryMurdererSurgeonsDamnationDelicacySlumberHelpersLulls
Author:Charles Spurgeon
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“The old view was that delicacy of language was part of the nature, the sacred nature, of eros and that to speak about it in any other way would be to misunderstand it. What has disappeared is the risk and the hope of human connectedness embedded in eros. Ours is a language that reduces the longing for an other to the need for individual, private satisfaction and safety.”

WayNeedsHumansWould BeIndividualSpeakLanguageViewsRiskSafetySacredLongingSatisfactionEmbeddedDelicacyConnectednessEros
Author:Allan Bloom
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“Whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the Constitution, is, at all times, a question of much delicacy, which out seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative, in doubtful case. ... But it is not on slight implication and vague conjecture that the legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers, and its acts to be considered as void. The opposition between the Constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other.”

IfsFeelsShouldLawStrongCasesClearJudgingDecidedConstitutionConvictionAll TimeOppositionVoidVagueImplicationsLegislatureDoubtfulDelicacyAffirmativeConjectureIncompatibility
Author:John Marshall
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“Speech, originally, was the device whereby Man learned, imperfectly, to transmit the thoughts and emotions of his mind. By setting up arbitrary sounds and combinations of sounds to represent certain mental nuances, he developed a method of communication--but one which in its clumsiness and thick-thumbed inadequacy degenerated all the delicacy of the mind into gross and guttural signaling.”

MenMindCertainLanguageSoundEmotionCommunicationSpeechMethodSettingSettingsCombinationDevicesThickGrossArbitraryNuanceTransmitDelicacyInadequacyThoughts And EmotionsClumsiness
Book:Foundation Trilogy
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“The most dangerous lovers women have are men of Cordis's feminine temperament. Such men, by the delicacy and sensitiveness of their own organizations, read women as easily and accurately as women read each other. They are alert to detect and interpret those smallest trifles in tone, expression, and bearing, which betray the real mood far more unmistakably than more obvious signs.”

MenRealDangerousExpressionLoversOrganizationObviousMoodToneFeminineBetraySmallestTemperamentTriflesDelicacy
Author:Edward Bellamy
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“It is a wonderful advantage to a man, in every pursuite or avocation, to secure an adviser in a sensible woman. In woman there is at once a subtle delicacy of tact, and a plain soundness of judgement, which are rarely combined to an equal degree in man. A woman, if she be really your friend, will have a sensitive regard for your character, honor, repute. She will seldom counsel you to do a shabby thing: for a woman friend always desires to be proud of you.”

IfsMenCharacterDesireFriendshipWonderfulProudHonorEqualDegreesAdvantageRegardSecureSensitiveJudgementSubtleSensibleBe ProudDelicacyAdviserTactProud Of YouShabbySoundness
Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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