Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Nigel Slater

Quote by Nigel Slater

“The roses were originally picked as much for their perfume as much for their color and form. (Unlike my first roses, which were bought purely because I was enchanted by their romantic names.) Of the basic musk, myrrh, tea, fruit and old-rose fragrances I am drawn to the latter two. Fruity is a broad bush on a night like tonight. Lady Emma Hamilton, reliable though now retired by the growers, is at her most giving: apricots and white peaches spring to mind. Gertrude Jekyll is one of the most intense of the old-rose scented varieties. She calls me over every time I set foot on the terrace. Unlike the more generous jasmine, even the most scented rose requires us to bend a little, pushing the tip of our nose into the cluster of petals. Not so Gertrude tonight, mingling as she does with the white jasmine, hovering cloud-like over the hot stones of the terrace. I have a plan to bring the Queen of Denmark into the garden too, another old-rose scent, and I long for a decent musk rose such as Buff Beauty, exuding its faint note of cloves on a warm evening.”

Quote by Nigel Slater

Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
Create image

Work

A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Nigel Slater
Nigel Slater

Nigel Slater is a distinguished British writer known for his culinary expertise and literary contributions. Born on April 9, 1958, Slater has made substantial contributions to the field of gastronomy through his cookbooks, columns, and television appearances. His work often centers on the joy of cooking and the significance of food in daily life. more

You May Also Like

“The roses are fading. Turmeric petals soften to the color of old dusters, magenta becomes palest violet, edges that were dark and sumptuous turn to the color of a tea stain. What was once as white as snow is now buttermilk. Their texture changes too: petals soft and strong enough to support a portly bumblebee dry to walnut-colored fragments frail and aging till they shatter.”

RosesColorsWitheringDried Flower
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
Create image

“A gardener's grandmother will have grown such and such a rose, and the smell of that rose at dusk (for flowers always seem to be most fragrant at the end of the day, as if that, smelling, was the last thing to do before going to sleep), when the gardener was a child and walking in the grandmother's footsteps as she went about her business in her garden - the memory of that smell of the rose combined with the memory of that smell of the grandmother's skirt will forever inform and influence the life of the gardener, inside or outside the garden itself.”

InspirationalNatureSpringGardenUpliftingGardeningFlowersRoses
Book:In the Garden: Essays on Nature and Growing
Create image

“It is obvious what the wind will do, and so is the cloud. Flowers, trees, even birds; it is even obvious what the most unknown being will do. However, we know a being well: it is not obvious what they will do. You happen to know: they picked up roses, and are giving them to someone. And then you happen to know again: the roses belong to the man they killed.”

NatureWindReflectionMetaphorObservationIronyPoeticHuman BehaviorRosesMinimal
Book:a Song a Poem
Create image

“As the sun continued to rise, the tune became more intoxicating, lulling me into a completely relaxed state. I allowed my mind to drift, imagining I was walking through a pretty meadow full of roses. In my mind’s eye, I held a rose flower in my hands and sniffed at it, my eyes shining with pure happiness. In my dreamy state, the air smelled of roses, warming my spirit and coaxing me to stop and rest. Lying back in the grass, I stretched my arms up to the sky, inviting the sun to join me. Warm tingles rippled across my skin and eased the pressure in my head. I was light, drifting through the breeze and letting the wind take me somewhere untouched and soothing.”

HappinessMusicMysterySafeRosesLiteraryChildhood MemoryBeauty Of NatureDay DreamingFlute
Book:Adira and the Dark Horse
Create image