Quotes About Sophistication

So the first thing about the history of rhyme . . . is that it's all happened before. It's all part of these huge rhymeorhythmic circles of exuberance and innovation and surfeit and decay and resurrectional primitivism and waxing sophistication and infill and overgrowth and too much and we can't stand it and let's stop and do something else.

You don't get to be a respected intellectual by uttering truisms in monosyllables.

Black makes your life so much simpler. Everything matches black, especially black.

Flowers, champagne, caviar. Do you usually come so well equipped when you break and enter? Only when I want to apologize and throw myself on the mercy of a beautiful woman.

Unsophisticated', he said, cracking himself up again, 'but nubile'. Jesus, where do they get that stuff? Nubile. Try to contain your hilarity. Sophia sat behind the desk in her office in the villa and continued to study the models Kris had chosen for the ads. And I'd appreciate it if you'd warn me the next time you decide to add a mystery vintage to the selection. Last-minute candidate. And it was in the name of science.

The villain is the person who knows the most but cares the least.

She'd taken the harlot century she'd been born into for granted, knowing no other, but now-seeing it with his eyes, hearing it with his ears-she understood it afresh; saw just how desperate it was to please, yet how dispossessed of pleasure; how crude, even as it claimed sophistication; and, despite it's zeal to spellbind, how utterly unenchanting.

Nothing would take him, he was a barbarian with the manners of a gentleman. Neither

She'd taken the harlot century she'd been born into for granted, knowing no other, but now — seeing it with his eyes, hearing it with his ears — she understood it afresh; saw just how desperate it was to please, yet how dispossessed of pleasure; how crude, even as it claimed sophistication; and, despite its zeal to spellbind, how utterly unenchanting.

She knew he was telling the truth, the kind of unsavoury truth that only monsters were at liberty to tell. He had no need to flatter or cajole; he had no philosophy to debate, or sermon to deliver. His awful nakedness was a kind of sophistication. Past the lies of faith, and into purer realms.

Their perfect English accents. As if serving all their vowels on a fine set of tongs.

Women in long dresses, aloof and elegant, the mark of bonnet ribbons still on the soft of their necks.

And her old Uncle William used to say a lady is known by her shoes and her gloves.

They were boastful, triumphant; it seemed to both that they had read every book in the world; known every sin, passion, and joy. Civilizations stood round them like flowers ready for picking. Ages lapped at their feet like waves fit for sailing.

There are one or two people I'm fond of, and there's a little good music, and a few pictures, now and then—just enough to keep one dangling about here. Ah, but I couldn't live with savages! Are you fond of books? Music? Pictures? D'you care at all for first editions? I've got a few nice things up here, things I pick up cheap, for I can't afford to give what they ask.

She came from the most worthless of all classes—the rich, with a smattering of culture.

Mr. Denham cursed himself very sharply for having exchanged the freedom of the street for this sophisticated drawing-room

Bond Street la fascinaba; Bond Street muy de mañana en plena temporada; sus banderas ondeando; sus tiendas; sin excesos; sin resplandor; un rollo de tweed en la tienda donde su padre se había comprado los trajes durante cincuenta años; unas cuantas perlas; el salmón encima de un taco de hielo.

We are still groping perhaps, but we grope intelligently, like a gynecologist feeling a tumor.

Egy elegáns elsÅ' osztályú fülkében, egyik keszty?s kezünket bedugva a bársony ajtóhurokba, könny? nagyon világlátott embernek érezni magunkat, miközben nézzük a szorgosan elsuhanó tájat.

I felt that way not because I never once discovered any palpable hard young throat to crush among the masculine mutes that flickered somewhere in the background; but because it was to me overwhelmingly obvious (a favorite expression with my aunt Sybil) that all varieties of high school boys - from the perspiring nincompoop whom holding hands thrills, to the self-sufficient rapist with pustules and a souped-up car - equally bored my sophisticated young mistress.

There just aren't enough o's in the word smooth for me, are there?

Thus it is said: The path into the light seems dark, the path forward seems to go back, the direct path seems long, true power seems weak, true purity seems tarnished, true steadfastness seems changeable, true clarity seems obscure, the greatest are seems unsophisticated, the greatest love seems indifferent, the greatest wisdom seems childish. The Tao is nowhere to be found. Yet it nourishes and completes all things.

The rich, like well brought up children, are meant to be seen, not heard.