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Poppies Quotes

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Poppies Quotes

“It is a field as big as a football stadium carpeted every inch with bright-red poppies. The red is like the kind of color that you see only in oversaturated photos, the kind that doesn't seem to truly exist in real life. Thousands and thousands of poppies stretch out in front of us, one right after the other, as though if you squinted, it would look like a giant red blanket had been laid on top of thousands of gangly green weeds. Dense olive trees line the edges of the field, and behind them, sloping green hills take over the skyline against a cloudless blue sky. I bend down and pick up a poppy, its inky-black center surrounded by delicate red petals clustered and fanning out. It is all so dreamy.”

ItalyPoppiesIn The MomentUmbriaRed Colour
Book:Recipe for Second Chances
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“Every November of my boyhood, we put on red poppies and attended highly patriotic services in remembrance of those who had 'given' their lives. But on what assurance did we know that these gifts had really been made? Only the survivors—the living—could attest to it. In order to know that a person had truly laid down his life for his friends, or comrades, one would have to hear it from his own lips, or at least have heard it promised in advance. And that presented another difficulty. Many brave and now dead soldiers had nonetheless been conscripts. The known martyrs—those who actually, voluntarily sought death and rejoiced in the fact—had been the kamikaze pilots, immolating themselves to propitiate a 'divine' emperor who looked (as Orwell once phrased it) like a monkey on a stick. Their Christian predecessors had endured torture and death (as well as inflicted it) in order to set up a theocracy. Their modern equivalents would be the suicide murderers, who mostly have the same aim in mind. About people who set out to lose their lives, then, there seems to hang an air of fanaticism: a gigantic sense of self-importance unattractively fused with a masochistic tendency to self-abnegation. Not wholesome. The better and more realistic test would therefore seem to be: In what cause, or on what principle, would you risk your life?”

WarDeathReligionCausesChristianityPrinciplesSacrificeChildhoodFriendsSuicideTorturePatriotismUglinessFanaticismNovemberSoldiersMartyrdomBoyhoodPoppiesTheocracyMasochismOrwellConscriptionSelf ImportanceMartyrsComradesMemorialsKamikazeSuicide AttackSelf AbnegationChristian Martyrs
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“In November, when our nation remembers her fallen soldiers and honours the lost youth of my generation, the Prime Minister, government leaders and the hollow men of business affix paper poppies to their lapels and afford the dead of war two minutes' silence. Afterwards, they speak golden platitudes about the struggle and the heroism of that time. Yet the words they speak are meaningless because they have surrendered the values my generation built after the horrors of the Second World War.”

WarValuesSacrificeRemembranceWorld War 2PoppyPoppies
Book:Harry's Last Stand: How the world my generation built is falling down, and what we can do to save it
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“People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris.”

WritingIdeasInspirationCreativityTravelFranceParisAsiaOpiumPoppiesBurmaOpiatesWriter S BlockSaffronExpatriateExpatsParisiansOpiateExpatriot
Book:Crepuscule
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“As he went along the path he stopped to look at the plants. He paused by the kitchen plot to pick leaves from the aromatic herbs and rub them in his hands. He lingered among the flower beds, bending to smell or to touch the petals. When he got to the statue hidden by the yew bushes he laughed, then backed off to see it from a bit farther away. He shifted his head from side to side, then, imitating the figure, he lifted his hands to play an imaginary flute and raised one knee in a Bacchic dance. When Celia heard Dennis laughing near the statue she came to greet him and introduce himself. "Oh, you caught me dancing with this faun fellow! I am so glad to finally meet you," he said. "Your plume poppies are glorious," he said. "The whole garden is. I hope you will walk me through it when there's time." "Of course I will." Celia almost hugged him for his appreciation. "I'm glad you like the poppies. I can give you some if you like, but they are complete thugs. Hooligans! They escape wherever you put them, they multiply and take over. You really have to keep an eye on them.”

PoppiesStatueMidsummer Nights DreamFaun
Book:The Garden Party: A Novel
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“Mrs Darley, I noticed, always had her corn dolly amidst an arrangement of cornflowers and poppies (albeit they were artificial!). The corn, I was to later understand, represented the God, the red poppies his sacrificial blood and the blue cornflowers his death and this is something I still adhere to today.”

PaganismPoppiesSamhainMoon MagicPagansMrs DarleyPagan WhispersBeltaneCarole CarltonPagan BookMrs Darley S Pagan WhispersMrs Darley Series Of BooksIrish CeltsPagan FestivalsImbolcLughnasadhCorn DollsCorn DollCorn DollyCornflower
Book:Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
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“Go along, go along quickly, and set all you have on the table for us. We don't want doughnuts, honey buns, poppy cakes, and other dainties; bring us a whole sheep, serve a goat and forty-year old mead! And plenty of vodka, not vodka with all sorts of fancies, not with raisins and flavorings, but pure foaming vodka, that hisses and bubbles like mad.”

WantYearsWholePureTablesMadPlentyFancyFortyCakeHoneyBubblesSheepGoatsVodkaPoppiesDoughnutMeadBunsRaisinsForty Years Old
Book:The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol
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“I love color. It must submit to me. And I love art. I kneel before it, and it must become mine. Everything around me glows with passion. Every day reveals a new red flower, glowing, scarlet red. Everyone around me carries them. Some wear them quietly hidden in their hearts. And they are like poppies just opening, of which one can see only here and there a hint of red petal peeking out from the green bud.”

HeartArtPassionMinesColorFlowerRedGreenOpeningCarrieSubmitHere And ThereHintsBudGlowingPetalsScarletPoppiesPeeking
Author:Paula Modersohn-Becker
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“I'm not guilty. You're the one that's guilty. The lawmakers, the politicians, the Colombian drug lords, all you who lobby against making drugs legal. Just like you did with alcohol during Prohibition. You're the one who's guilty. I mean, c'mon, let's kick the ballistics here: ain't no Uzi's made in Harlem. Not one of us in here owns a poppy field. This thing is bigger than Nino Brown. This is big business. This is the American way.”

WayMeanMadeBigsLordFieldsLike YouPoliticianDrugBiggerAlcoholGuiltyKicksBrownProhibitionBig BusinessHarlemPoppiesNot GuiltyLawmakersBallistics
Author:Wesley Snipes
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“I always found the extraordinary loss of life in the First World War very moving. I remember learning about it as a very young child, as an eight- or nine-year-old, asking my teachers what poppies were for. Every year the teachers would suddenly wear these red paper flowers in their lapels, and I would say 'What does that mean?'”

WorldYearsFirstsMeanChildrenDoeWarRememberMovingYoungFoundLossTeacherFlowerPaperRedAskingExtraordinaryEightNineWar Of The WorldsYoung ChildrenNine YearsPoppiesFirst World WarVery MovingPaper Flowers
Author:Tom Hiddleston
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“Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare, And left the flushed print in a poppy there: Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came, And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame. With burnt mouth red like a lion's it drank The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank, And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine When the eastern conduits ran with wine.”

EarthLeftSunFireBloodWindSummerMouthsRedWineShiningLipsCupsGrassRanFlamesPrintLionsEasternDrankBosomsPoppiesFlapping
Book:God: thoughts in an age of uncertainty
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“A sea captain when he stands upon the bridge, or looks out from his deck-house, thinks much about God and about the world. Away in the valley yonder among the corn and the poppies men may well forget all things except the warmth of the sun upon the face, and the kind shadow under the hedge; but he who journeys through storm and darkness must needs think and think.”

ThinkingMenWorldNeedsWellsLooksKindMayFacesHouseForgetDarknessSunJourneySeaShadowAll ThingsStormBridgesWarmthValleysCaptainsSailingCornDeckPoppiesSailing And The SeaWarmth Of The Sun
Book:The Celtic Twilight
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“I was told by journalists who can't publish it that there are in Mexico, close to the U.S. border, big areas that used to be devoted to agriculture that are now devoted to poppies. They say you can't get in there because they're guarded, first by the cartels, but also by the army, which goes hand in hand with the cartels.”

FirstsHandsBigsUsedAreasArmyUsed To BeJournalistBordersMexicoDevotedAgriculturePublishHand In HandGuardedPoppiesCartels
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“Five years after Boston 1967, I went to the Munich Olympics. I realized that major sponsorship could help me create the opportunity. I wrote a big proposal to Avon cosmetics on how creating a global series of women's races could lead to getting women in the Olympic marathon. People thought I was smoking poppy at the time. The longest event in the Olympic Games was 800m.”

PeopleYearsHelpingBigsOpportunityGamesRaceFiveEventsCreatingMajorsSeriesI RealizedFive YearsSmokingHelp MeOlympicsBostonMarathonProposalCosmeticsOlympic GamesPoppiesMunichSponsorshipAvon
Author:Kathrine Switzer
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“The Red Poppy The great thing is not having a mind. Feelings: oh, I have those; they govern me. I have a lord in heaven called the sun, and open for him, showing him the fire of my own heart, fire like his presence. What could such glory be if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters, were you like me once, long ago, before you were human? Did you permit yourselves to open once, who would never open again? Because in truth I am speaking now the way you do. I speak because I am shattered.”

IfsWayMindHumansHeartLongFeelingsSpeakHeavenMy OwnLordSunFireBrotherGloryRedGreat ThingsLike MeMy BrotherPermitLong AgoBrothers And SistersShatteredPoppies
Author:Louise Glück
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“I believe there is something of the divine mystery in everything that exists. We can see it sparkle in a sunflower or a poppy. We sense more of the unfathomable mystery in a butterfly that flutters from a twig--or in a goldfish swimming in a bowl. But we are closest to God in our own soul. Only there can we become one with the greatest mystery of life. In truth, at very rare moments we can experience that we ourselves are that divine mystery.”

BelieveSoulMomentsI BelieveMysteryDivineSwimmingButterflyClosestBowlsSparkleUnfathomableMystery Of LifePoppiesSunflowerTwigsGoldfishRare Moments
Author:Jostein Gaarder
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