Human memory, they say, is like a coat closet: The most enduring outcome of a formal education is that it creates rows of coat hooks so that later on, when you come upon a new piece of information, you have a hook to hang it on. Without a hook, the new information falls on the floor.
The only man who really needs a tail coat is a man with a hole in his trousers.
Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?
I got a coat lined with hampster. You couldn't do that kind of thing in America. All the Boy Scouts would go on strike.
Originality in literature is only a new coat of paint on an old house.
Wisdom often exists under a shabby coat.
Even castles in the sky can do with a fresh coat of paint.
How to fool yourself into feeling younger: When you go to restaurants, always check a coat and a skateboard.
If there was any petting to be done. . . he chose to do it. Often he would sit looking at me, and then, moved by a delicate affection, come and pull at my coat and sleeve until he could touch my face with his nose, and then go away contented.
A woman's mink coat represents the sacrifice of a lot of little animals, including her husband.
In Philadelphia, there's no delineation, they address me as Rocky, for real. They'll say things like: "Rocky, do you like this coat?" Or: "Rock, say hi to my sister. " Or: "Yo Rock, I know a great restaurant. " There's no Sylvester. Even the Mayor goes: "It's good to have Rocky here today. "
To reject wisdom because the person communicates it is uncouth and his manners are inelegant, what is it but to throw away a pine-apple, and assign for a reason the roughness of its coat?
The trick of wearing mink is to look as though you were wearing a cloth coat. The trick of wearing a cloth coat is to look as though you are wearing mink.
If the first button of one's coat is wrongly buttoned, all the rest will be crooked.
Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.
So in Jamaica it is the aim of everybody to talk English, act English and look English. And that last specification is where the greatest difficulties arise. It is not so difficult to put a coat of European culture over African culture, but it is next to impossible to lay a European face over an African face in the same generation.
I've got a sweater. " Ben pulled off his coat and held it out for her. "Here. " "Thanks, Ben. It's lovely and warm. " Then she said, "Ben, I-- I can tell you how I feel about-- about everything. I think you're the best friend I've ever had. I-- I'd lie down and die for you if you wanted me to. " "Honey," Ben said. "When I get you to lie down for me it won't be to die.
Men to whom life had appeared as a reversible coat - seamy on both sides.
The more supple vagabond, too, is sure to appear on the least rumor of such a gathering, and the next day to disappear, and go into his hole like the seventeen-year locust, in an ever-shabby coat, though finer than the farmer's best, yet never dressed. . . . He especially is the creature of the occasion. He empties both his pockets and his character into the stream, and swims in such a day. He dearly loves the social slush. There is no reserve of soberness in him.
Men in the uniform of Wall Street retirement: black Chesterfield coat, rimless glasses and the Times folded to the obituary page.