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Roses Quotes

Browse 252 quotes about Roses.

Roses Quotes

“A Garden Epitaph by Stewart Stafford From a verdant birth, Two roses entwined together, A union withered from the earth, Root quest in envenomed weather. Green fingers pruned with ill will, Each barb taken to wounded hearts, Cut natures freed of earthly swill, Two crimson blooms, beyond scars. Master gardener, just hear me, If you see devotion, leave it be, In silent witness, wonders see, Lest you hasten obsequies. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”

GardenRoseGardeningGardenerLove PoemLove PoemsLove PoetryRosesGardensGardeners
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“She'd headed out early, walking the short distance to Kew Gardens and arriving as it opened, taking an hour to explore the grounds before her meeting. The huge expanses of green immediately soothed her as she wandered. She barely scratched the surface of what the great gardens had to offer, but gazed in awe at the spectacular Alpine House, the elegant Nash Conservatory, and sweltered in the giant Victorian glasshouse. She stopped to admire the succulent garden and the giant lilies in the Waterlily House, some of the pads of the Victoria amazonica more than a meter across, before wandering into the Rose Pergola, through a tunnel of blooms, rambling roses--- including the 'Danse Des Sylphes' and the pink-blossomed 'Mary Wallace', she read--- trained to climb in an arch over her head.”

LondonRosesKew Gardens
Book:The Botanist's Daughter
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“Early settlers loved the precious cuttings that they nurtured on long voyages. Able to carry only a few belongings in their boats and wagons, thousands of families packed a living reminder of loveliness alongside the bare necessities. One finds such roses still blooming beside wayside taverns where they stopped. They color long-abandoned wells and broken wagon wheels in pink and white. They flower like yellow sunrise around the doorways of the frontier homes those families built. And along old cart tracks through the woods, they still offer comfort to those who didn't make it. A titled tiny gravestone -- Abigail, aged 2 years, 4 months, 1 day -- and beside it the red rose of never-ending love that blooms again each June.”

LoveLossRoseDevotionRosesSeedSeedling
Book:Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening
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“The garden itself was enjoying the painted-on brightness of the day. The flowers were in full bloom--- the dramatic pink of the Duchess of Sutherland roses and the flesh-colored Madame Audots met Harriet's eye as she stepped out of the house. Flanking those stood the La Reines with their silvery undertones and the cabbage roses to the right. The cabbage roses, though they did not have a grand name, were Harriet's favorite. More layers inside one flower than she could even count. She inhaled the sweet smell of the Duchesses and watched as every last bloom turned to face her as she padded barefoot from the door onto the stone walkway, bordered by lush green moss. Satisfied that Harriet was content, the flowers resumed their nourishing tilt toward the sky. The stones were cool beneath her feet.”

GardenHarmoniousMagical RealismRosesHeirloomsVarietiesPerennials
Book:The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt
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“She carried with her a tender caress for the stems and petals she meant to harvest, thanking them for their beauty and letting them give themselves over to her rather than taking them en masse with reckless haste. She knelt beside the patch of Christmas roses that grew beneath the parlor window. Harriet wondered, as she had a thousand times, how this flower could withstand the colder months with petals so delicate. Small white faces with pale yellow middles turned to look up at Harriet, almost adoringly, and she let their gaze infuse her with warmth. This is how they do it, she thought. They are filled with the magic of love. It was impossible for her to be out in her garden and not feel the love all around, almost consuming her, even on this cold, dreary day.”

GratitudeRosesMagic Of Love
Book:The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt
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“Do you remember those roses that Caitriona used to have in her garden? The great, puffy ones that have layers of petals that open when they bloom?" Elspeth nodded. Freya turned her glass thoughtfully. "Imagine that the outer petals of the rose are all of society--- everyone you don't know. And that the center where the pistil lies is you." "I can never remember which part the pistil is," Elspeth confessed. Freya gave her a look. "How many times did Caitriona explain this to you? The pistil is the part in the center that becomes the rose hip when it's pollinated." Her sister set aside her drink and cupped her hands together. "These are the outside of the rose, the petals that guard against the world that doesn't know you at all." She slowly opened her fingers. "Inside are more petals---they represent your acquaintances. The people whom you greet on the street or whom you might talk to at a ball. They know you, but they probably couldn't tell you that strawberry tart is your favorite pudding." "Ohhh," Elspeth said, "I'm beginning to see." Though she still wasn't sure how the rose pertained to love. "I hope so," Freya said. "But remember that there are even more petals beneath those." She let her hands drop as she smiled at Elspeth ruefully. "I can't demonstrate with my hands, so imagine that rose with all the petals curled each within each other. The third layer are your closest friends and family. The people you live with. The people you grew up with. They know you better than the outer two groups of petals, don't they?" Elspeth nodded. Rings within rings, each smaller than the last, each closer to oneself. "These people know you very well," Freya said. "They know what you like and dislike, they know the type of person you are. But there's a last ring." She wrinkled her nose. "No, not a ring. Perhaps the stamen sitting next to your pistil at the very center of the rose." For some reason, her cheeks pinked as she smiled privately. "That is the person who knows your mind and your soul and your heart.”

True LoveLayersRosesElspeth De MoraySisterly AdviceClose To Your Heart
Book:No Ordinary Duchess
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“Roses?" "It's corny, I know," Hart said. "But I thought maybe you'd like to see the Rose Garden." There was a neat symmetry to this garden, with beds of roses squared off in every corner of the lawn, grouped according to color. Pastel pinks and yellows to one side and the more vibrant, deeper reds and fuchsias to another. Between each segment, taller roses draped over rounded pergolas, creating leafy tunnels. Everywhere she looked, shrubs spilled over messily, brazenly, with more roses than she'd ever seen before. Rose caressed the blooms, which seemed to reach for her touch as much as she reached for theirs. Some of the roses were delicate, with a single row of petals that came in a gradient of color, going from dusty pink at the center to neon magenta at the frilly tips. Others were so jammed with petals, the number of them seemed infinite.”

RosesRose GardenNamesakeColors Of Nature
Book:Of Earthly Delights
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“Roses are beautiful. Classic. Refined. But then they've got this whole other side of them that sort of counteracts all that. Like, they can grow pretty wild. They're tough and thorny. You have to be careful with them because of how fragile they can be, but you'd be surprised how much they can withstand, too." Rose stepped out of the tunnel, no barrier between her and Hart anymore. She liked hearing him describe a rose. And as his eyes gleamed with a warm playfulness, it was easy to believe that he wasn't just talking about a flower anymore. "Sorry," he said. "Rambling about rambling roses." Rose bit her lip to keep from smiling. Corny--- his own word. But she liked it. She cupped a pale pink bloom in her hands, her thumbs brushing its countless velvety folds, like pushing back the fur on a sheepdog's face. She tipped her nose to its center and breathed in deep. Musky. Earthy. Like a soothing dark tea.”

RosesTeen RomanceRambling
Book:Of Earthly Delights
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“My lesson on which blooms to pick and how to do so to preserve their scent is followed by lunch on the stone terrace. We eat flatbreads, warm and patchily charred from the griddle, folded over crumbled white cheese, tearing them apart and dipping the smoky bread and salty cheese into bowls of rose-scented jam.”

RosesLebanonBread And Cheese
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“Direktör Benschop is a semi-double milky-white rose with egg-yolk-yellow stamens bred by German breeder Mateus Tantau in 1939, though not commercially available till after the war. The garden is also home to Alchymist, the crumpled honey, white and gold climber. I have always struggled with the notion of stripping a rose for its petals, though I do occasionally bring one into the kitchen in June, scattering them over an oval platter of raspberries, a sponge cake dusted with icing sugar or, most memorably, a vast fig meringue the size of a hat at a June wedding.”

DessertRosesLebanonRose PetalsVarietiesGarnishes
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“She made her way up the front walk, slowly so her free hand could stroke the peonies' bountiful pink blooms framing the Murdochs' front garden. Nellie murmured sweet lullabies to them as she did, nurturing the flowers the way she would a child of she were ever lucky enough to have one. Turning onto the sidewalk, she eyed her roses- yellow, stunning- which were her pride and joy, and on full display for the neighborhood. Soon she'd have to deadhead them to allow for a second bloom cycle. Roses were a lot of work, but they gave much in return.”

FlowersRosesTender Loving CareGreen Thumb
Book:Recipe for a Perfect Wife
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“Roses, roses! An interminable chain of these royal blossoms, red and white, wreathed by the radiant fingers of small rainbow-winged creatures as airy as moonlight mist, as delicate as thistledown! They cluster round me with smiling faces and eager eyes; they place the end of their rose-garland in my hand, and whisper, "FOLLOW!" Gladly I obey, and hasten onward. Guiding myself by the fragrant chain I hold, I pass through a labyrinth of trees, whose luxuriant branches quiver with the flight and song of birds. Then comes a sound of waters; the riotous rushing of a torrent unchecked, that leaps sheer down from rocks a thousand feet high, thundering forth the praise of its own beauty as it tosses in the air triumphant crowns of silver spray. How the living diamonds within it shift, and change, and sparkle! Fain would I linger to watch this magnificence; but the coil of roses still unwinds before me, and the fairy voices still cry, "FOLLOW!" I press on. The trees grow thicker; the songs of the birds cease; the light around me grows pale and subdued. In the far distance I see a golden crescent that seems suspended by some invisible thread in the air. Is it the young moon? No; for as I gaze it breaks apart into a thousand points of vivid light like wandering stars. These meet; they blaze into letters of fire. I strain my dazzled eyes to spell out their meaning. They form one word—HELIOBAS. I read it. I utter it aloud. The rose-chain breaks at my feet, and disappears. The fairy voices die away on my ear. There is utter silence, utter darkness,—save where that one NAME writes itself in burning gold on the blackness of the heavens.”

WonderBeautyMagicFairyRosesEnchantment
Book:A Romance of Two Worlds
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“Once upon a time in faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle... It was a very good story. It often entertained the women who lay in her black hole of a room, manacled to a hard, cold bed. She had enjoyed its repetition in her mind for years. Sometimes she remembered bits differently: sometimes the rose was pink as a sunset by the sea. But that never resonated as well as red as blood....”

StoriesMadRoseFairy TalesRosesBeauty And The BeastAsylumOne Upon A TimeRed As Blood
Book:As Old as Time
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“Everyone now and again wonders about those questions that have no ready answers: first cause, God's existence, what happens when the curtain goes down and nothing stops it, not kissing, not going to the mall, not the Super Bowl. "Wild roses," I said to them one morning. "Do you have the answers? And if you do, would you tell me?" The roses laughed softly. "Forgive us," they said. "But as you can see, we are just now entirely busy being roses.”

LifeNatureMeaning Of LifeMeaningful LifeRoses
Book:Felicity
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“The next room was a great round ballroom. Its walls were arrayed in gold-painted moldings; its floor was a swirling mosaic of blue and gold; its dome was painted with the loves of all the gods, a vast tangle of plump limbs and writhing fabric. The air was cool, still, and hugely silent. My footsteps were only a soft tap-tap-tap, but they echoed through the room. After that came what seemed like a hundred more rooms and hallways. In every one, the air was different: hot or cold, fresh or stuffy, smelling of rosemary, incense, pomegranates, old paper, pickled fish, cedarwood. None of the rooms frightened me like the first hallway. But sometimes--especially when sunlight glowed through a window--I thought I heard the faint laughter. Finally, at the end of a long hallway with a cherrywood wainscot and lace-hung windows between the doors, we came to my room. I could see why the Gentle Lord called it the "bridal suite": the walls were papered with a silver pattern of hearts and doves, and most of the room was taken up by a huge canopied bed, more than big enough for two. The four posts were shaped like four maidens, coiffed and dressed in gauzy robes that clung to their bodies, their faces serene. They were exactly like the caryatids holding up the porch of a temple. The bed curtains were great falls of white lace, woven through with crimson ribbons. A vase of roses sat on the bedside table. Their red petals had blossomed wide to expose their gold centers, and their musk wove through the air. It was a bed that had been built for pleasure, just like my dress, and as I stared at it I felt hot and cold at once.”

RoomsBedInterior DesignRosesBallroomScentsPalaceSuite
Book:Cruel Beauty
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“Spring bloomed- the air gentle and scented with roses. Still lovely. But there were the front doors he'd sealed me behind. There was the window I'd banged on, trying to get out. A pretty, rose-covered prison. But I smiled, head throbbing, and said through my tears, 'I thought I'd never see it again.' Tamlin was just staring at me, as if not quite believing it, 'I thought you would never, either.”

TearsPrisonSarah J MaasFeyreFeyre ArcheronA Court Of Mist And FuryTamlinRosesSpring Court
Book:A Court of Mist and Fury
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“Normally men don't really listen all that well. You can mention that you like apricots, or The Cure, or kittens, and it just goes out of their heads the minute it's out of your mouth. I personally seize on these clues about people. For example, I know that Sasha loves the smell of violets, and that Rose enjoys novels of a bodice-ripping nature and walks for exercise and has a Siamese cat called Dr. Oodles, but if I'd asked Dan what his best friend had studied at college- where they were roommates- he would have no idea. Anyway, Edward was apparently different, because he'd sent me a gorgeous bouquet of roses that filled the room with an intense, sweetly lemony, rosy smell that was mind-blowing. The roses themselves were a rich cream and stuffed with petals that made them look like roses in paintings. Sasha was looking at me. "Well, you must have done something pretty amazing last night. I've been sketching these since I got in. They're the most gorgeous Madame Hardys I've seen in a long time." I could see she had also been getting her shit together; there were open cartons on her desk, and she'd brought her portfolio to the office. "Aren't they roses?" I was bending down, sniffing deeply. I looked for a card. Sasha laughed. "The name of the rose is Madame Hardy. It's a damask rose, and one of the most famous old roses available these days. Someone knows their flowers.”

RosesPerfect ManThoughtfulnessDamaskMadame Hardy
Book:The Garden of Small Beginnings
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“Of course the rose has plenty of other associations beyond the realm of love and sex. It has served as a royal emblem and national flower. It represents Christian charity, the brevity of life, and hopes for happiness, a time when everything will come up roses. Secular and spiritual roses are often intertwined....”

RosesFlowers Quotes
Book:Blooming Flowers: A Seasonal History of Plants and People
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“I look back on that May morning, and on myself at my pretty play‐work, as Eve must have looked back upon the pastimes of Paradise. I am not separated from that time by any great crime, as she was from the period of her happiness; but I think the yearning regret that filled the universal mother's bosom for the lotos‐scented airs that breathed about the banks of those mystic eastern rivers, was akin to the eager longing (never to be gratified now) with which I inhale in fancy the rough western breezes blowing round old Lestrange. I suppose it rained there in those days; I suppose it snowed, and was foggy, and cold, and dreary there in those days as much as other places—perhaps more; but I cannot realize that now. To me it seems as if those gnarled old trees were always crowned with a glory of green leaves; as if those walls were always sunlit; as if the pinks and the sweet peas and the larkspurs flowered there all the year round. I did not think myself particularly happy in those days. That is the worst of this life—one never tastes its sweets while they are in one's mouth; it is only when they are gone, and we are chewing the bitters, and making wry faces over them, that we recognise them for what they were.”

YouthNostalgiaYearningRoses
Book:Cometh Up As a Flower
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“Why a rose has thorns - thorns protect the rose season after season from intrusion from those who only appreciate its outer beauty and discard it when the leaves begin to fall and the inner beauty is exposed.”

Poetry QuotesWomen EmpowermentBeauty QuotesRosesSelf Love QuotesBlack Women QuotesInner Beauty Quotes
Book:The Heart and Soul of Black Women: Poems of Love, Struggle and Resilience
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“Shattered furniture; shredded bedding; clothes strewn about as if he'd gone looking for me inside the armoire. No one, it seemed, had been allowed in to clean. But it was the vines- the thorns- that had made it unliveable. My old bedroom had been overrun with them. They'd curved and slithered over the walls, entwined themselves amongst the debris. As if they'd crawled off the trellises beneath my windows, as if a hundred years had passed and not months. The bedroom was now a tomb.”

Sarah J MaasFeyreFeyre ArcheronBedroomThornsA Court Of Wings And RuinRosesVinesTombTrashed
Book:A Court of Wings and Ruin
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