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Quote by Jane Smiley

“...but from this distance, the velvety reds, flashing yellows and glassy whites [of the roses] seemed to break up the light of the summer sun into its various elements and cast it back far more brilliantly than any other flower ever could, seemed not exactly of the earth, but of space and air itself.”

Quote by Jane Smiley

Book:Duplicate Keys
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Work

Duplicate Keys

This book delves into the complexities of human identity and the concept of duplication, offering a thought-provoking narrative that challenges readers' perceptions. more

Author

Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley is an accomplished American novelist known for her profound character development and rich imagination. Her works span a variety of literary genres, including historical fiction, contemporary life, and children's literature. Her novels, such as 'A Thousand Acres' and 'Bluebird', have received widespread acclaim. more

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“Amongst the ochre leaves are roses: deep-crimson Gabriel Oak, apricot-blushed Lady Emma Hamilton and the final breath of the haunting white Direktör Benschop, which clambers through the yew hedges. There are Japanese anemones-- windflowers-- and at the far end of the garden, at the foot of the crab apple tree, a cluster of pale-pink autumn cyclamen.”

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Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“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.”

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Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“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.”

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Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“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.”

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Book:In the Garden: Essays on Nature and Growing
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