Vintage Quotes

“She's an old soul with young eyes, a vintage heart, and a beautiful mind.”
― Nicole Lyons

“He made me feel unhinged . . . like he could take me apart and put me back together again and again.”
― Chelsie Shakespeare

“He would reach for me in the middle of the night, nearly every single night, wrapping one of those solid arms around my waist and pulling me in close. So. Close.”
― Chelsie Shakespeare, The Pull

“In my life long study of human beings, I have found that no matter how hard they try, they have found no way yet to prevent the arrival of Monday morning. And they do try, of course, but Monday always comes, and all the drones have to scuttle back to their dreary workday lives of meaningless toin and suffering.”
― Jeff Lindsay, Dexter in the Dark

“Feeling - what authentic human fun!”
― Jeff Lindsay, Dexter in the Dark

“What I really love about them... is the fact that they contain someone's personal history...I find myself wondering about their lives. I can never look at a garment... without thinking about the woman who owned it. How old was she? Did she work? Was she married? Was she happy?... I look at these exquisite shoes, and I imagine the woman who owned them rising out of them or kissing someone...I look at a little hat like this, I lift up the veil, and I try to imagine the face beneath it... When you buy a piece of vintage clothing you're not just buying the fabric and thread - you're buying a piece of someone's past.”
― Isabel Wolff, A Vintage Affair

“When we can't understand the science behind something in this world, we make up mythological entities that we can relate to. We personify the forces of nature that mystify us, using our boundless imaginations to comfort us and make us feel like we have some control over these things that are much bigger than we are.”
― Chelsie Shakespeare, The Pull

“I don't think that science and the paranormal have to be at war; in fact, it's crucial that they work together. It seems naïve to believe that the world is exactly as it seems.”
― Chelsie Shakespeare, The Pull

“I've no idea when I'm going to wear it, the girl replied calmly. I only knew that I had to have it. Once I tried it on, well... She shrugged. The dress claimed me.”
― Isabel Wolff, A Vintage Affair

“Rectory always sounded to me like a place you would find a proctologist.”
― Jeff Lindsay, Dexter in the Dark

“The longer I lived, the longer it would be until I saw him alive again, until I could taste his new lips and run my fingers through his new hair. We could be young and beautiful again . . .”
― Chelsie Shakespeare, The Pull

“I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed.”
― Umberto Eco

“A timeless classical love story
our romance shall be…
I'll paint it
on vintage canvas
cause your love transcends the realms
defeats any measure of time
and lasts forever.

(fragment from "Utopia", chapter Hope)”
― Claudia Pavel, The odyssey of my lost thoughts

“She is
a poem.

She is an old one, a new one,
one waiting to be written.

She is.”
― N'Zuri Za Austin

“The studio is torn down, all the people who played on it are dead, the instruments have been sold off. But you are listening to a moment that happened in time sixty years ago and you are hearing it just as sharp as when it was made. That remains an amazing thing to me.”
― Tom Waits

“This year’s vintage is best enjoyed this year. Let’s begin.”
― Gina Barreca

“বইখানা খুলিতেই একদল কাগজ-কাটা পোকা নিঃশব্দে বিবর্ণ মার্বেল কাগজের নিচে হইতে বাহির হইয়া ঊর্ধ্বশ্বাসে যেদিকে দুই চোখ যায় দৌড় দিল। অপু বইখানা নাকের কাছে লইয়া গিয়া ঘ্রাণ লইল, কেমন পুরোনো গন্ধ! মেটে রঙের পুরু পুরু পাতাগুলোর এই গন্ধটা তাহার বড় ভালো লাগে”
― Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Pather Panchali : Song of the Road

“He lifted one bottle into the light.
" 'GREEN DUSK FOR DREAMING BRAND PUREE NORTHERN AIR,' " he read. " 'Derived from the atmosphere of the white Arctic in the spring of 1900, and mixed with the wind from the upper Hudson Valley in the month of April, 1910, and containing particles of dust seen shining in the sunset of one day in the meadows around Grinnell, Iowa, when a cool air rose to be captured from a lake and a little creek and a natural spring.'
"Now the small print," he said. He squinted. " 'Also containing molecules of vapor from menthol, lime, papaya, and watermelon and all other water-smelling, cool-savored fruits and trees like camphor and herbs like wintergreen and the breath of a rising wind from the Des Plaines River itself. Guaranteed most refreshing and cool. To be taken on summer nights when the heat passes ninety.' "
He picked up the other bottle.
"This one the same, save I've collected a wind from the Aran Isles and one from off Dublin Bay with salt on it and a strip of flannel fog from the coast of Iceland."
He put the two bottles on the bed.
"One last direction." He stood by the cot and leaned over and spoke quietly. "When you're drinking these, remember: It was bottled by a friend. The S.J. Jonas Bottling Company, Green Town, Illinois- August, 1928. A vintage year, boy... a vintage year.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

“The blush peach, silk dress was layered with cream lace over the bodice and hemline. Most arresting was the stunning cape that Harper imagined to be from the 1940's.
They just didn't make dresses like that anymore.
Actually, they didn't make dresses like it back then, either.
It was exquisite. One of a kind.”
― Ashley Clark, The Dress Shop on King Street

“Patricia Lovell up at the vicarage wants everything "vintage" themed this year. She wants it all 1950s Country Living style. You know the sort of thing: pastel bunting, flowers in jam jars and mismatched teacups.”
― Hannah Richell, The Peacock Summer

“It's not a love of the old as such. It's simply that the process of aging or deterioration provides the necessary detachment - or arouses a necessary sympathy.”
― Susan Sontag

“Beatriz breathed in the sweet aromas that lately appealed to her. Those at the forefront were of various honeys in the wooden honey pots anchoring the tablecloth: lavender, orange blossom, and eucalyptus. But the room was a cornucopia of visual and olfactory treats. Marcona almonds were roasting in Reuben's old wood oven, and from the kitchen downstairs wafted scents of all the spices they would be offering their customers fresh over the counter in cloth bags: cinnamon stalks, cloves, anise, ground ginger, juniper berries, finely grated nutmeg. Nora and Beatriz packaged all the spices themselves. They would also offer ribbon-tied bags of Phillip's tea creations served in the café: loose leaves of lemon verbena, dried pennyroyal, black tea with vanilla. All around the room, on the floor, shelves, and counters, were baskets and baskets and baskets of irresistible delights: jars of marmalades and honeys and pure, dark, sugarless chocolate pieces ready to melt with milk at home for the richest hot chocolate. Customers could even buy jars of chocolate shavings, to sprinkle over warmed pears and whipped cream, or over the whipped cream on their hot chocolates. They sold truffles white and dark, with or without rum, biscuits with every variation of nuts and spices, bars small or large of their own chocolate, and dried fruits dipped in chocolate.”
― Karen Weinreb, The Summer Kitchen

“La sa una cosa? Mi sono sempre chiesta cosa faremo tra mille, duemila, diecimila anni con tutte queste cianfrusaglie. Voglio dire, più passa il tempo e più riusciamo ad andare indietro, a ritrovare oggetti di un passato sempre più lontano cui far posto, e mentre troviamo quelli del passato, produciamo altre tonnellate di cose senza senso da trasformare in oggetti interessanti non appena sarà passato abbastanza tempo da quando sono stati prodotti. Che poi il tempo che deve passare per rendere interessante un oggetto banale oramai è sempre minore. Cento anni, cinquant’anni, vent’anni, un anno, due estati fa. Ora un disco dell’estate scorsa è già un cimelio, c’è già chi lo ha raccolto e chi sta progettando una mostra di dischi di un’estate fa. Ma perché poi? A un certo punto non ci sarà più spazio per il tempo! O no? Voglio dire, come faremo poi a decidere cosa tenere e cosa distruggere quando il nostro passato sarà così lungo e puzzolente da avere occupato ogni spazio possibile? Quando non ci sarà spazio per costruire nuove case perché tutte quelle che ci sono saranno diventate patrimonio dei Beni culturali e di loro non sarà rimasta che la facciata, quando saranno tarlate dalla modernità che scava dentro le case, che le riduce ad asfittici antri levigati che si aprono su balconcini dell’Ottocento, su cavedi ingrigiti dai cadaveri di piccioni? Non converrebbe buttare via tutto subito?”
― Massimo Coppola, Un piccolo buio

“Do you have any old copies of Dickens?

Bookseller: We've got a copy of David Copperfield from 1850 for $150.

Customer: Why is it so expensive if it's that old?”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“We want to possess what they’re not making any more, what not many others can get and what will distinguish us from others.”
― Gina Barreca

“I had discovered the recipe in a book in the basement just last week, had devoured its advice and warnings about beauty, and instructions for potpourri, herbal masks, and beauty soaks. The stern Victorian words, capitalized and underscored: The Young Lady is advised to retire to the Privacy of her own toiletry with only the company of her Maid to assist in the Beauty Episode. When I had leafed through the yellowed, musty pages, a pressed pansy, as brittle and brown as a moth's wing, had zigzagged to the floor in a papery flurry.”
― Mindy Friddle, The Garden Angel

“Glad to see word reached you. I forgot my phone and somehow throwing pebbles at random windows seemed like a losing strategy."

"My roommate thinks I'm running drugs," said Dee flatly. "And that you're my dealer."

James blinked. "At least she thought I looked enterprising."

"She said you looked homeless."

James straightened the sleeves of his orange leather jacket. "It's vintage”
― Emily Lloyd-Jones, The Hearts We Sold

“Gardens take many years to make. One cannot just plant stuff and presto—there is a garden. No, gardens have energy. Like houses, they become part of the energy field of the family living in them, particularly the person who has cared for them the most. That is why I love old gardens and houses. They have life. The regular ups, downs, joys, and sorrows of life all mingle together to create a long-term energy field that can be resurrected and used for good and positive purposes.”
― Donna Goddard, Love's Longing

“The oldest computer hardware I worked on was in professional astronomy.”
― Steven Magee

“What my parents didn’t transform they sold “as is”: those two little words that carry so many scars, and heart.

The phrase itself felt like me, like our life. It felt like enough.”
― Robin Brown, Glitter Saints: The Cosmic Art of Forgiveness, a Memoir