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Flowers Quotes

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Flowers Quotes

“Last to check was her namesake: a rampion or bellflower, Campanula rapunculus-- little turnip. All by itself in a beautiful Spanish clay pot with a bright blue glaze. Its blooms were pinky-purple stars, tiny but perfect and delicate. Sometimes, if she was feeling down, Rapunzel would secretly break off a leaf and chew it, the sour/bitter taste comforting her through the worst of the drab winter months when nothing else grew.”

“Kore stood amidst the the sheaves of barley to wave Demeter over, then crouched again and poked her finger into the soil. Dark green leaves shot out in every direction, and she circled her wrist upward, raising a stalk out of the earth. She stood slowly. The plant crept toward her hand. Kore splayed her fingers wide and a purple blossom sprang from the thorny stalk. "Oh, Kore, if you grow a thistle in the barley field, someone might prick their finger." "Wait," Kore said, smiling. "Just watch." A fiery copper butterfly fluttered on the warm breeze and alighted on the blossom. Demeter smiled. "You see? I saw her wandering in the barley and made her a home. You don't mind, do you?" "My sweet, clever girl, of course I don't." Demeter hugged Kore. The butterfly folded its wings, fed and content. "My thistle won't interfere with the harvest, will it?" Kore knit her brows. "Not in the slightest." The butterfly spread its wings, sunlight catching them as they fanned. "I don't think she will be alone for long. Surely a good mate will come looking for her.”

“Escoffier set the table. He'd found a Japanese kimono, an obvious prop from some theater production, to use as a tablecloth. Paris had secretly fallen in love with all things oriental. It was red silk brocade, covered with a flock of white flying cranes, and made from a single bolt of fabric. The neckline and cuffs were thickly stained with stage makeup but the kimono itself was quite beautiful. It ran the length of the thin table. The arms overhung one end. Outside the building he'd seen a garden with a sign that read "Please do not pick." But it was, after all, for a beautiful woman. Who would deny him? And so Escoffier cut a bouquet of white flowers: roses, peonies and a spray of lilies, with rosemary stalks to provide the greenery. He placed them in a tall water glass and then opened the basket of food he'd brought. He laid out the china plates so that they rested between the cranes, and then the silver knives, forks and spoons, and a single crystal glass for her champagne. Even though it was early afternoon, he'd brought two dozen candles. The food had to be served 'à la française'; there were no waiters to bring course after course. So he kept it simple. Tartlets filled with sweet oysters from Arcachon and Persian caviar, chicken roasted with truffles, a warm baguette, 'pâté de foie gras,' and small sweet strawberries served on a bed of sugared rose petals and candied violets.”

“Each layer was a clean, crisp white. Marzipan over rich Vienna cream icing, edged with sugar lace, a delicate spidery web of lines, the perfect allusion of the bobbin lace that Princess Rose liked to weave. Or at least claimed she wove as a useful anecdote. His notes stated that she gave biannual speeches as patron of the City of London Arts and Crafts Guild. Flowers wound up the side of the cake, the blooming vine of a fairy tale. He studied the effect with distaste. A tap of the leftmost flower, and the petals changed color from an iridescent pink to a deep, brooding blood purple, almost black in tone. He swept his hand in front of the cake. One after another, the edges of the peony poppies bled, thee dark color leaching over the celestial pink. Still fairy tale, but with the inevitable malevolent element. Better. Also better suited to a dungeon or coffin than a reception table, but from the impression he got of the bride, the Tim Burton vibe was strongly in her wheelhouse.”

“Ordering online was all about ticking boxes. Species. Color. Size. Number. Grade of quality. Degree of openness. But there was something miraculous about seeing the flowers she'd imagined brought to life. Roses from Columbia. Chrysanthemums from Ecuador. Orchids from Thailand. Anemones and agapanthus from Spain. Stargazers and parrot tulips from the vast Dutch flower fields.”

“Mindfulness is not the path of chasing. It is the path of beautification. When flowers blossom, the fragrance spreads, and the bees come.”

“Your father has a fondness for orchids." Could she know my father's affinity for orchids is in direct correlation with his affinity for my mother? "Much too finicky for me. I prefer azaleas. When I was a little girl, I used to drink the nectar from the flowers." I brighten a little. "I did that, too." Mom had azalea plants all over our property. She taught me how to pull the blossom from the stem and slurp from the tip of the flower like her mother had shown her. I always thought it was something unique to us, to our family. But maybe it was more. A connection to Japan, an invisible tether. "Is there a variety you prefer? I quite enjoy the omurasaki." I've caught her attention. "It is a lovely bloom," she says.”

“Gene had already cleared the soil, or had someone do it for him, who knows, and brought in a load of plants and flowers, which were sitting around in their pots. The colors were all over the place, no great scheme there, but he'd gone for scent in a big way. I only recognized a few of the flowers, but they all smelled wonderful. Lisa ticked them off for me, her mouth full of pepperoni. "Jasmine, freesia, lavender, sweet peas, alyssum, night-scented stock, scented phlox, clematis of course, and some fancy tuberose." She looked over at Gene. "You picked well. These should give her fragrance for most of the year, in turns. And some nice evening scents, too.”

“No matter how right or how beautiful your path is, never try to impose your path on others! Remember that flowers by no means pull bees by force to their world! Your path is your poem; if people like your poem, they will fondly join you in your path!”

“Tonight, her dress was designed to mimic the flower trellis in her mother's garden, where she'd saved Marisol's wedding. But no one looking at her would think about that. The base of Evangeline's bodice was nude silk, making her look as if she were wrapped in nothing but the crisscrossing cream-velvet ribbons that went to her hips. There, pastel flowers began to appear, growing denser until every inch of her lower skirts were covered in a brilliant clash of silk violets, jewelled peonies, tulle lilies, curling vines, and sprays of gold crawling paisleys.”

“The main rectangular swimming pool ran perpendicular to the house, which you wouldn't know because it was almost completely covered in a cloud of white. I walked closer, stunned at the beautiful lotus and water lily blooms floating beneath my feet. A glass aisle was laid across the center. You felt like you were walking---or sitting--- in a Monet painting. Complementary flowers lined the sides of the aisles, with chairs extending on either side of the now-concealed pool deck. I had no idea what wizardry kept the central flowers from floating freely, but my sister would walk down the aisle above a lush bed of white blossoms. Beside it, the ornamental gardens had been tented for the reception. Cedric had managed to integrate the existing stone sculptures (French, Greek, and Italian antiques, of course) into the design. Tables dotted the scene, covered in custom cream linens with Italian lace overlays. Cut crystal stemware and antique silverware donned each place setting and would sparkle later that evening from the glow cast down from the crystal chandeliers overhead. And the flowers. The all-white flowers also created a table-runner effect that filled the entire length of each table and spilled over and down the sides. A backdrop and stage had been erected at the end opposite the house, then covered in a cascade of white peonies and roses and mirrored by florals draped around the doorframes and windows of the back of our house. It was an enchanted garden, rivaling that of a royal wedding.”

“I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.”

“Late February has brought crocuses to cheer us in the melancholy of winter. The petals-- white, lilac, mauve and gold-- are perfect against a grey-white sky. We planted a thousand small, hairy corms and a couple of hundred have come up. Plucky little flowers, they must fight against the rain, mice, squirrels and sparrows, all of which seem hell-bent on their destruction. Most welcome are the luminous white Jeanne d'Arc, which have swan-like petals with a tuft of egg-yolk-orange stamens. Others include Orange Monarch, a deep saffron and mauve, and a few Pickwick, the palest lilac with a delicate feathering of mauve. Common varieties, but none the worse for it.”

“This is God's universe and he is the master gardener of all. If we were to eliminate all colors in his garden,then what would be a rainbow with only one color? Or a garden with only one kind of flower? Why would the Creator create a vast assortment of plants, ethnicities, and animals, if only one beast or seed is to dominate all of existence?”

“At first she felt overwhelmed by the house, its airy symmetry its silence. Now she was accustomed to the place, but she caught herself wondering, Is this still Berkeley? George's neighborhood felt as far from Telegraph as the hanging gardens of Babylon. You could get a good kebab in Jess's neighborhood, and a Cal T-shirt, and a reproduction NO HIPPIES ALLOWED sign. Where George lived, you could not get anything unless you drove down from the hills. Then you could buy art glass, and temple bells, and burled-wood jewelry boxes, and dresses of hand-painted silk, and you could eat at Chez Panisse, or sip coffee at the authentically grubby French Hotel where your barista took a bent paper clip and drew cats or four-leaf clovers or nudes in your espresso foam. You returned home with organic, free-range groceries, and bouquets of ivory roses and pale green hydrangeas, and you held dinner parties where some guests got lost and arrived late, and others gave up searching for you in the fog. That was George's Berkeley, and even in these environs, his home stood apart, hidden, grand, and rambling; windows set like jewels in their carved frames, gables twined with wisteria of periwinkle and ghostly white.”

“She closed her eyes and listened to the drone of bees as they moved lazily among the flowering bursts of deep pink hydrangea and delicate tendrils of sweet pea that wound through the basket-bed borders. Although she was still very weak, it was pleasant to sit in warm lethargy, half-drowsing like a cat. She was slow to respond when she heard a sound from the doorway... a single light rap, as if the visitor was reluctant to disrupt her reverie with a loud knock. Blinking her sun-dazzled eyes, Annabelle remained sitting with her legs tucked beneath her. The mass of light speckles gradually faded from her vision, and she found herself staring at Simon Hunt's dark, lean form. He had leaned part of his weight on the doorjamb, bracing a shoulder against it in an unselfconsciously rakish pose. His head was slightly tilted as he considered her with an unfathomable expression. Annabelle's pulse escalated to a mad clatter. As usual, Hunt was dressed impeccably, but the gentlemanly attire did nothing to disguise the virile energy that seemed to emanate from him. She recalled the hardness of his arms and chest as he had carried her, the touch of his hands on her body... oh, she would never be able to look at him again without remembering! "You look like a butterfly that's just flown in from the garden," Hunt said softly.”

“Much as I'd always enjoyed the balm of the plants and flowers, it had never occurred to me to aspire to work in here. I suppose I've been so single-mindedly committed to the animals, with their flesh-and-blood needs and their inescapable demands, that these other gentler living things have been obscured to me. I regret that now. There was always so much more than I have allowed myself to see.”

“Well, I would leave the laundry out; it added a certain atmosphere of neglect, as did the lily pad pond overtaken by ivy, the roses choked with weeds. A few hydrangea blossoms hung brown and dry on the shrubs, rattling sadly in the breeze. It was well hidden, the splendor of what had been, and that was fine with me. I could still remember Gran's garden out back the way it used to be- goldfish in the pond; hydrangea blooms heavy and blue, the color of the sky; sunflowers bent down upon themselves.”

“Even in its ragged state, the garden is astonishingly beautiful. The untended, untouched look of it--- and the ivy-covered walls that protect it on three sides--- only add to the air pf enchantment, of mystery, that rises from it like a shimmer of heat. It looks like something from a fairy tale, like it could have been torn from one of the picture books my mother read to me when I was a child. Here and there wishing the tangle of green, I spot flashes of purple. Is this the lavender that I caught a hint of earlier when I stepped out of my truck? I breathe in. Yes. The scent is as gentle, as soothing, as a warm bath. There are other scents, too... alluring notes that drift toward me in soft waves. Viburnum. Honeysuckle. Sage. Phlox. Roses, so many roses...”

“What if I had made different choices from the start? What if I had stuck around to watch another year of seasons spin here in Oxford, staying to see the daffodils bloom or to wander beneath the privet tunnel hand in hand with Fisher? What if we had kept right on kissing until the naked ladies emerged near the Osage orange? What if I had lingered long enough to see cape jasmine arrive, her voluptuous white bundles an aromatic call for summer love? Or even longer, when the spider lilies burst open in the fall and the yellow autumn light fell low among missy roots? What if I had stayed through winter, forming snow angels with my lover beneath the icy cedar boughs? What if I had not let fear defeat me after Fisher knelt before me in my mother's backyard garden, ring in his hand and happy-ever-after in his heart?”

“What if I had made different choices from the start? What if I had stuck around to watch another year of seasons spin here in Oxford, staying to see the daffodils bloom or to wander beneath the privet tunnel hand in hand with Fisher? What if we had kept right on kissing until the naked ladies emerged near the Osage orange? What if I had lingered long enough to see cape jasmine arrive, her voluptuous white bundles an aromatic call for summer love? Or even longer, when the spider lilies burst open in the fall and the yellow autumn light fell low among mossy roots? What if I had stayed through winter, forming snow angels with my lover beneath the icy cedar boughs? What if I had not let fear defeat me after Fisher knelt before me in my mother's backyard garden, ring in his hand and happy-ever-after in his heart?”

“MOTHER IS WATER I wish I could Shower your head with flowers And anoint your feet with my tears, For I know I have caused you So much heartache, frustration and despair – Throughout my youthful years. I wish I could give you The remainder of my life To add to yours, Or simply erase The lines on your face, And mend all that has been torn. For next to God, You are the fire That has given light To the flame in each of my eyes. You are the fountain That nourished my growth, And from your chalice – Gave me life. Without the wetness of your love, The fragrance of your water, Or the trickling sounds of Your voice, I shall always feel thirsty.”

“At first, he talked about the flowers in the garden behind his country house in Surrey. His voice still had its Midlands accent but was soft now and barely audible. He knew the plants by name and took a few minutes with each of them: ageratum, coreopsis, echinacea, rudbeckia. The yarrow, he said, had rose-red flowers on two-foot stems. Achillea millefolium, the plant Achilles used to heal wounds.”

“It was Friday, so the farmers' market was in full autumnal swing, a sea of potted chrysanthemums and bushel after bushel of apples, pears, Fauvist gourds, and pumpkins with erotically fanciful stems. On one table stood galvanized buckets of the year's final roses; on another, skeins of yarn in muted, soulful purples and reds. Walter loved this part of the season- and not just because it was the time of year his restaurant flourished, when people felt the first yearnings to sit by a fire, to eat stew and bread pudding and meatloaf, drink cider and toddies and cocoa. He loved the season's transient intensity, its gaudy colors and tempestuous skies.”

“I am not interested in having the world revolve around me; that's too boring of an idea. I would rather revolve around the world and try to leave my fingerprints, everywhere. My fingerprints mingled in with all the other fingerprints and all the laughter and all the beautiful things like gratitude, grace, faithfulness and flowers.”

“Have you ever given anyone a red rose?" Grant asked. I looked at him as if he was trying to force-feed me foxglove. "Moss rose? Myrtle? Pink?" he pressed. "Confession of love? Love? Pure love?" I asked, to make sure we shared the same definitions. He nodded. "No, no, and no." I picked a pale blush-colored bud and shredded the petals one at a time. "I'm more of a thistle-peony-basil kind of girl," I said. "Misanthropy-anger-hate," said Grant. "Hmm." I turned away. "You asked," I said. "It's kind of ironic, don't you think?" he asked, looking around us at the roses. They were all in bloom, and not one was yellow. "Here you are, obsessed with a romantic language- a language invented for expression between lovers- and you use it to spread animosity.”