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Distillation Quotes

Browse 34 quotes about Distillation.

Distillation Quotes

“In Greek mythology, the goddess Iris sped messages to the gods on the rainbow's arc. Her flower bears no perfume, but steam distillation of the root, or rhizome, yields orris, a precious essence that smells of candle wax, but its impression in perfume is powdery, silvery green, violet-like- a prize of the perfumer's palette. How I wish I could summon the goddess to carry my message to those I love. -DB”

EssenceGreek MythologyDistillationIris
Book:Scent of Triumph
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“Once he left the Haywood out for her with a page number on a scrap of paper, and she opened the book to recipes for "Distillation." Jess laughed at the page George had found for her. There, between instructions to make rose water and clove water, were instructions "to make jessamine water: Take eight ounces of the jessamine flowers, clean picked from their stalks, three quarts of spirit of wine, and two quarts of water: put the whole into an alembic, and draw off three quarts. Then take a pound of sugar dissolved in two quarts of water, and mix it with the distilled liquor." George left no comment on the recipe, but she read, and read it over, aware that he was thinking of her.”

WaterIngredientsRecipeDistillationJess And GeorgeJessamine
Book:The Cookbook Collector
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“Fairy tales and mythology have always been an exaggerated distillation of the real world. Think of them as blueprints for how to deal with a multitude of situations that can arise in a person's life. The beauty of them is that their analogies resonate so deeply and they also entertain while they teach.”

ThinkingWorldPersonsRealDealsSituationTeachMythologyAriseTalesFairyReal WorldFairy TaleMultitudesAnalogiesExaggeratedBlueprintsDistillation
Author:Charles de Lint
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“When you set about your composing, it may be necessary for your ease, and better distillation of wit, to put on your worst clothes, and the worse the better; for an author, like a limbeck, will yield the better for having a rag about him: besides that, I have observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree (which is the surtout of it) to make it bear well; and this is a natural account of the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all men living, ought to be ill clad.”

MenWellsMayNaturalPovertyCuttingTreeWorstPoetBearsOughtClothesArgumentAccountsIllWitEaseYieldUsualGardenerComposingRagsDistillation
Book:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ...: With Notes, Historical and Critical
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“You know, there's an economy in lyric-writing that doesn't afford you, or at least me - I usually start off with nine or 10 verses and then boil it down to two or three that are half the length of the original verses. I think for me it's about what you leave out [rather] than what you put in. I'm not sure that the songs help me figure anything out so much as they're a distillation of the original question.”

ThinkingKnowsWritingTwoHelpingSongThreeHalfEconomyFiguresOriginalsNineNot SureHelp MeLengthVersesDistillation
Author:J Tillman
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“We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: if a man discovers on his wedding night that his bride is not a virgin, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).”

IfsMenNightFatherTeachingJudgingMoralityStonesBrilliantGoldenImpulseEthicalVirginsBridesGolden RuleDoorstepWedding NightDistillation
Author:Sam Harris
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“His conviction of having no purpose in life other than to act as a distillation of poison was part of the ego of an eighteen-year-old. He had resolved that his beautiful white hands would never be soiled or calloused. He wanted to be like a pennant, dependent on each gusting wind. The only thing that seemed valid to him was to live for the emotions--gratuitous and unstable, dying only to quicken again, dwindling and flaring without direction or purpose.”

YearsHandsWantedBeautifulPurposeWhiteEmotionDyingWindEgoConvictionPoisonDependentPurpose Of LifeEighteenUnstableDistillationEighteen Years Old
Book:Spring Snow
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“Because it all derived from Superman. I mean, I love all the characters, but Superman is just this perfect human pop-culture distillation of a really basic idea. He's a good guy. He loves us. He will not stop in defending us. How beautiful is that? He's like a sci-fi Jesus. He'll never let you down. And only in fiction can that guy actually exist, because real guys will always let you down one way or another. We actually made up an idea that beautiful. That's just cool to me. We made a little paper universe where all of the above is true.”

WayHumansMeanLittlesMadeIdeasRealCharacterBeautifulGuyCultureUniverseJesusPerfectFictionPaperDown AndPopsOne WaySci FiPop CultureThat GuyGood GuyDistillation
Author:Grant Morrison
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“With impeccable timing and a fine instinct for the telling detail, Francesca Abbate evokes the plenitudes and the deprivations of human habitation, the nurturing richness of landscape, and the soul-wound wrought by casual defacement. Abbate has a superb capacity for distillation and a mastery of poetic line, and her diction is remarkably flexible, accommodating both the demotic and the lyrical. Her poems are as consistent in quality as they are varied in pacing, surface, and tone. A fine first book.”

FirstsHumansBookSoulLinesQualityFineCapacityInstinctDetailsSurfaceWoundsLandscapeToneConsistentPoeticMasteryTimingFlexibleCasualRichnessNurturingEvokeLyricalDeprivationSuperbImpeccablePacingDictionPlenitudeDistillation
Author:Linda Gregerson
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“Out of the silver heat mirage he ran. The sky burned, and under him the paving was a black mirror reflecting sun-fire. Sweat sprayed his skin with each foot strike so that he ran in a hot mist of his own creation. With each slap on the softened asphalt, his soles absorbed heat that rose through his arches and ankles and the stems of his shins. It was a carnival of pain, but he loved each stride because running distilled him to his essence and the heat hastened this distillation.”

RunningPainBlackSunFireFeetSkyCreationSkinsEssenceHotMirrorsRoseStrikesRanHeatSilverSweatBurnedStemReflectingMistSlapInspirational RunningStrideAnklesArchesMiragesCarnivalsAsphaltPavingDistillation
Author:James Tabor
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“And to use something as elegant as a tree? Imagine this design assignment: Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, makes complex sugars and foods, changes colors with the seasons, and self-replicates. and then why don't we knock that down and write on it?”

WritingSelfUseWaterNatureImagineTreeDesignFoodColorSeasonsDown AndComplexesSugarCarbonElegantOxygenKnockingFixingAssignmentsReplicateNitrogenDistillation
Author:William McDonough
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“This is an age of intellectual sauces, of essence, of distillation. We have conclusions without deductions, abridgments of history and abridgments of science without leading facts. We have animals for literature, Cabinet Encyclopaedias, Family Libraries, Diffusion Societies, and heaven knows what else! What is all this for? Not to add knowledge to the learned, but to tell points to the ignorant, without giving them the trouble to acquire the links. Oh! it is sad work. And the result will be injurious to all classes.”

KnowsGivingFactsAgeLiteratureHeavenAnimalResultsClassTroubleIntellectualEssenceAddLibraryIgnorantConclusionAcquireLinksSauceCabinetsDeductionsDiffusionDistillation
Book:Correspondence and Table-talk: With a Memoir
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“I hear what many of you are saying: We don’t have the time, we are busy. Well Nobody Has Time, Everyone Is Busy. In the time it took you to read this post, your life just got a minute shorter. That is precisely why we read (and why some of us write): because life is short and finite, we want more, and literature is the distillation of all those lives we will not lead.”

WantWritingWellsLife IsLiteratureMinutesBusyPostsFiniteLife Is ShortDistillation
Author:Jessica Zafra
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“In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It's the drowning out of false voices.”

MadeSelfMightCoursesVoiceSpecialCenturyConversationMadnessRegardFinalsMade ItAspireEditingDrowningTwentieth CenturySpecial PlacesDistillation
Author:Don DeLillo
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“The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful. In some strange way, I have tried to do that with manic-depressive illness. It has been a fascinating, albeit deadly, enemy and companion; I have found it to be seductively complicated, a distillation both of what is finest in our natures, and of what is most dangerous.”

WayFirstsBelieveHas BeensBeautifulFoundEnemyDangerousStrangeIllnessComplicatedConquerChineseBeastFascinatingCompanionFinestManicDepressiveDistillation
Book:An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
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