fd5b097
|
Don't be ashamed to weep; 'tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.
|
|
nature
emotion
sadness
growing
trees
flowers
sunlight
emotions
tears
water
fruit
|
Brian Jacques |
2ec6d17
|
She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims...
|
|
midnight
flowers
|
Arundhati Roy |
ab12b03
|
I felt after I finished Slaughterhouse-Five that I didn't have to write at all anymore if I didn't want to. It was the end of some sort of career. I don't know why, exactly. I suppose that flowers, when they're through blooming, have some sort of awareness of some purpose having been served. Flowers didn't ask to be flowers and I didn't ask to be me. At the end of Slaughterhouse-Five...I had a shutting-off feeling...that I had done what I was supposed to do and everything was OK .
|
|
writing
books
bloom
finished
slaughterhouse-five
book
complete
flowers
awareness
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
3e54ae9
|
What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. ... In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.
|
|
artists
sportsmen
seeing
inspirational
farmer
botanists
fossils
perspective
geologists
sight
flowers
game
|
John Lubbock |
9a04061
|
since the thing perhaps is to eat flowers and not to be afraid
|
|
poetry
flowers
|
E.E. Cummings |
8da8471
|
who wants flowers when youre dead? nobody.
|
|
flowers
|
J.D. Salinger |
3b67cb5
|
Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
|
|
friendship
inspirational
flowers
|
Georgia O'Keeffe |
b02dcb9
|
"What a lovely thing a rose is!" He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects. "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."
|
|
nature
goodness
reason
religion
hope
roses
providence
flowers
|
Arthur Conan Doyle |
0af7ccf
|
who knows if the moon's a balloon,coming out of a keen city in the sky--filled with pretty people? ( and if you and I should get into it,if they should take me and take you into their balloon, why then we'd go up higher with all the pretty people than houses and steeples and clouds: go sailing away and away sailing into a keen city which nobody's ever visited,where always it's Spring)and everyone's in love and flowers pick themselves
|
|
balloon
hot-air-balloon
lunar
spring
flowers
moonlight
luna
|
e.e. cummings |
27d54f2
|
Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.
|
|
death
j-d-salinger
holden-caulfield
flowers
wry-humor
|
J.D. Salinger |
551c18e
|
Butterflies are not insects,' Captain John Sterling said soberly. 'They are self-propelled flowers.
|
|
flowers
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
19bea1e
|
Don't let the tall weeds cast a shadow on the beautiful flowers in your garden.
|
|
friends
motivational
inspirational
weeds
garden
flowers
|
Steve Maraboli |
7f7afb0
|
Creating is living doubly. The groping, anxious quest of a Proust, his meticulous collecting of flowers, of wallpapers, and of anxieties, signifies nothing else.
|
|
creating
wallpaper
marcel-proust
art
flowers
|
Albert Camus |
e53f0f9
|
The beauty of that June day was almost staggering. After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing.
|
|
beauty-in-nature
sunshine
flowers
sunlight
summer
|
Dan Simmons |
53c2547
|
In the village, a sage should go about Like a bee, which, not harming Flower, colour or scent, Flies off with the nectar.
|
|
v-49
buddhist
nonviolence
flowers
|
Anonymous |
bd73414
|
I would far rather have two or three lilies of the valley gathered for me by a person I like, than the most expensive bouquet that could be bought!
|
|
romance
people
friends
love
elizabeth-gaskell
lily-of-the-valley
molly-gibson
wives-and-daughters
flowers
|
Elizabeth Gaskell |
da22d28
|
As soon as I turned the key I saw it hanging, the color of fire and sunset. the colour of flamboyant flowers. 'If you are buried under a flamboyant tree, ' I said, 'your soul is lifted up when it flowers. Everyone wants that.' She shook her head but she did not move or touch me.
|
|
red
flowers
touch
|
Jean Rhys |
653ca37
|
These flowers will be rotten in a couple hours. Birds will crap on them. The smoke here will make them stink, and tomorrow a bulldozer will probably run over them, but for right now they are so beautiful.
|
|
flowers
|
Chuck Palahniuk |
069b726
|
It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.
|
|
goodness
hope
inspirational
blessings
sherlock-holmes
flowers
|
Arthur Conan Doyle |
64d5bb2
|
"In most gardens", the Tiger-lily said, "they make the beds too soft-so that the flowers are always asleep." --
|
|
looking-glass
wonderland
garden
flowers
talking
|
Lewis Carroll |
04d7b68
|
"Roses," she thought sardonically, "All trash, m'dear."
|
|
trash
roses
sardonic
flowers
|
Virginia Woolf |
78f281a
|
"Well, I must endure the presence of two or three caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies. It seems that they are very beautiful. And if not the butterflies- and the caterpillars- who will call upon me? You will be far away. . . as for the large animals- I am not at all afraid of any of them. I have my claws." And, navely, she showed her four thorns. Then she added: "Don't linger like this. You have decided to go away. Now go!" For she did not want him to see her crying. She was such a proud flower. . ." --
|
|
caterpillars
flowers
pride
|
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry |
fddfef4
|
"Eccolo!" he exclaimed. At the same moment the ground gave way, and with a cry she fell out of the wood. Light and beauty enveloped her. She had fallen on to a little open terrace, which was covered with violets from end to end. "Courage!" cried her companion, now standing some six feet above. "Courage and love." She did not answer. From her feet the ground sloped sharply into view, and violets ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts, irrigating the hillside with blue, eddying round the tree stems, collecting into pools in the hollows, covering the grass with spots of azure foam. But never again were they in such profusion; this terrace was the well-head, the primal source whence beauty gushed out to water the earth. Standing at its brink, like a swimmer who prepares, was the good man. But he was not the good man that she had expected, and he was alone. George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her..."
|
|
kiss
romance
violets
first-kiss
italy
flowers
|
E.M. Forster |
5ab42bf
|
"Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud, but I walked numbly through the park, round and round, 40 times for 4 hours just wanting to make it through the day. There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got through and the sky was so blue I couldn't look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk tick tick tick me not making a sound and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely ways but you can not let it. I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use. the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness, thinking it will help but it only feeds the fire and I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me--little me. From nowhere at all. And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again.
|
|
lovely
madness
lovers
new-day
gratitude
drinking
joy
inspiration
sadness
music
songs
happiness
hope
be-okay
fine
panic-attacks
park
starving
panic-attack
chest
sound
ed
okay
self-destruction
wellness
grateful
hopeful
anxiety
alcohol
coffee
spring
well-being
art
singing
hurt
balance
sky
flowers
crying
focus
panic
sing
tears
walking
hopeless
recovery
sad
self-harm
smoking
mental-health
|
Charlotte Eriksson |
4d82a60
|
THE LILIES This morning it was, on the pavement, When that smell hit me again And set the houses reeling. People passed like rain: (The way rain moves and advances over the hills) And it was hot, hot and dank, The smell like animals, strong, but sweet too. What was it? Something I had forgotten. I tried to remember, standing there, Sniffing the air on the pavement. Somehow I thought of flowers. Flowers! That bad smell! I looked: down lanes, past houses-- There, behind a hoarding, A rubbish-heap, soft and wet and rotten. Then I remembered: After the rain, on the farm, The vlei that was dry and paler than a stone Suddenly turned wet and green and warm. The green was a clash of music. Dry Africa became a swamp And swamp-birds with long beaks Went humming and flashing over the reeds And cicadas shrilling like a train. I took off my clothes and waded into the water. Under my feet first grass, then mud, Then all squelch and water to my waist. A faint iridescence of decay, The heat swimming over the creeks Where the lilies grew that I wanted: Great lilies, white, with pink streaks That stood to their necks in the water. Armfuls I gathered, working there all day. With the green scum closing round my waist, The little frogs about my legs, And jelly-trails of frog-spawn round the stems. Once I saw a snake, drowsing on a stone, Letting his coils trail into the water. I expect he was glad of rain too After nine moinths of being dry as bark. I don't know why I picked those lilies, Piling them on the grass in heaps, For after an hour they blackened, stank. When I left at dark, Red and sore and stupid from the heat, Happy as if I'd built a town, All over the grass were rank Soft, decaying heaps of lilies And the flies over them like black flies on meat...
|
|
nature
flowers
childhood
|
Doris Lessing |
a5f2b5f
|
If it were not for collectors England would be full, so to speak, of rare birds and wonderful butterflies, strange flowers and a thousand interesting things. But happily the collector prevents all that, either killing with his own hands or, by buying extravagantly, procuring people of the lower classes to kill such eccentricities as appear. ... Eccentricity, in fact, is immorality--think over it again if you do not think so now--just as eccentricity in one's way of thinking is madness (I defy you to find another definition that will fit all the cases of either); and if a species is rare it follows that it is not Fitted to Survive. The collector is after all merely like the foot soldier in the days of heavy armour-he leaves the combatants alone and cuts the throats of those who are overthrown. So one may go through England from end to end in the summer time and see only eight or ten commonplace wild flowers, and the commoner butterflies, and a dozen or so common birds, and never be offended by any breach of the monotony.
|
|
butterflies
flowers
england
|
H.G. Wells |
734f235
|
An enemy is like a man's most prized flower. It brings him joy to see it buried in the ground.
|
|
enemy
flowers
|
David Gemmell |
7a18fb6
|
Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in sketching fancy vignettes representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rock; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disc; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn bloom.
|
|
sketching
drawing
jane-eyre
flowers
|
Charlotte Brontë |
ae7aa5c
|
"How did these organs of plant sex manage to get themselves cross-wired with human ideas of value and status and Eros? And what might our ancient attraction for flowers have to teach us about the deeper mysteries of beauty - what one poet has called "this grace wholly gratuitous"? Is that what it is? Or does beauty have a purpose? (64)"
|
|
plants
flowers
|
Michael Pollan |
e72ba53
|
Cerulean left. I wondered if she was from Flower Planet. Blue flowers were rare - one might take a name from that.
|
|
cerulean
flowers
healer
|
Stephenie Meyer |
c970422
|
But I know Jesus arose. I feel his presence now, here, with me. I see the evidence of his Word everyday. From creation forth, the whole world is witness to God's plan revealed through his Son. From the beginning, he prepared us. In the passing of the seasons; in the way flowers spring forth, die, and drop seeds for life to begin again; in the sunset and sunrise. Jesus' sacrifice is reenacted every day of our lives if we but have the eyes to see.
|
|
seasons
jesus
sacrifice
god
witness
sunset
evidence
flowers
die
eyes
sunrise
|
Francine Rivers |
293b1c4
|
It must be a real betrayal, when your body turns against you. I wonder if she likes flowers. All the bits of you that can go wrong... I don't like flowers, not really. I like growing them, but that's only because I like seeing them blossom, and seeing them die... But oh, how I love to play God.
|
|
god
flowers
|
Neil Gaiman |
fd76746
|
How is it you can talk so nicely?' Alice said, hoping to get it into a better temper by a compliment. 'I've been in many gardens before, but none of the flowers could talk.' 'Put your hand down, and feel the ground,' said the Tiger-lily. 'Then you'll know why.' Alice did so. 'It's very hard,' she said, 'but I don't see what that has to do with it.' 'In most gardens,' the Tiger-lily said, 'they make the beds too soft - so that the flowers are always asleep.
|
|
humor
plants
flowers
|
Lewis Carroll |
9512b82
|
Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants. I'll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Sunday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower or some leaves or berries always in it and books...books..books.
|
|
library
passion
life
flowers
|
Betty Smith |
45a93f8
|
She grew up in the ordinary paradise of the English countryside. When she was five she walked to school, two miles, across meadows covered with cowslips, buttercups, daisies, vetch, rimmed by hedges full of blossom and then berries, blackthorn, hawthorn, dog-roses, the odd ash tree with its sooty buds.
|
|
nature
english-garden
flowers
description
england
|
A.S. Byatt |
ca9979d
|
The bougainvillea hung about it, purple and magenta, in livid balloons.
|
|
bougainvillea
games-at-twilight
magenta
purple
flowers
|
Anita Desai |
9be9bc4
|
Also I could hear Amanda's voice: Why are you being so weak? Love's never a fair trade. So Jimmy's tired of you, so what, there's guys all over the place like germs, and you can pick them like flowers and toss them away when they're wilted. But you have to act like you're having a spectacular time and every day's a party.
|
|
love
germs
jimmy
ren
flowers
party
|
Margaret Atwood |
313d5bf
|
"With the first jolt he was in daylight; they had left the gateways of King's Cross, and were under blue sky. Tunnels followed, and after each the sky grew bluer, and from the embankment at Finsbury Park he had his first sight of the sun. It rolled along behind the eastern smokes -- a wheel, whose fellow was the descending moon -- and as yet it seemed the servant of the blue sky, not its lord. He dozed again. Over Tewin Water it was day. To the left fell the shadow of the embankment and its arches; to the right Leonard saw up into the Tewin Woods and towards the church, with its wild legend of immortality. Six forest trees -- that is a fact -- grow out of one of the graves in Tewin churchyard. The grave's occupant -- that is the legend -- is an atheist, who declared that if God existed, six forest trees would grow out of her grave. These things in Hertfordshire; and farther afield lay the house of a hermit -- Mrs. Wilcox had known him -- who barred himself up, and wrote prophecies, and gave all he had to the poor. While, powdered in between, were the villas of business men, who saw life more steadily, though with the steadiness of the half-closed eye. Over all the sun was streaming, to all the birds were singing, to all the primroses were yellow, and the speedwell blue, and the country, however they interpreted her, was uttering her cry of "now. " She did not free Leonard yet, and the knife plunged deeper into his heart as the train drew up at Hilton. But remorse had become beautiful."
|
|
travel
blue
remorse
flowers
|
E.M. Forster |
e18bb92
|
Somewhere on the world was the Emperor's palace, set amid one hundred square miles of natural soil, rainbowed with flowers.
|
|
garden
colors
flowers
|
Isaac Asimov |
6860106
|
"This time of year, the purple blooms were busy with life- not just the bees, but butterflies and ladybugs, skippers and emerald-toned beetles, flitting hummingbirds and sapphire dragonflies. The sun-warmed sweet haze of the blossoms filled the air. "When I was a kid," said Isabel, "I used to capture butterflies, but I was afraid of the bees. I'm getting over that, though." The bees softly rose and hovered over the flowers, their steady hum oddly soothing. The quiet buzzing was the soundtrack of her girlhood summers. Even now, she could close her eyes and remember her walks with Bubbie, and how they would net a monarch or swallowtail butterfly, studying the creature in a big clear jar before setting it free again. They always set them free. As she watched the activity in the hedge, a memory floated up from the past- Bubbie, gently explaining to Isabel why they needed to open the jar. "No creature should ever be trapped against its will," she used to say. "It will ruin itself, just trying to escape." As a survivor of a concentration camp, Bubbie only ever spoke of the experience in the most oblique of terms."
|
|
insects
summertime
bubbie
eva-johansen
magnus-johansen
isabel-johansen
butterflies
nature-s-beauty
flowers
memory
|
Susan Wiggs |
45f7195
|
"..."The Emersons who were at Florence, do you mean? No, I don't suppose it will prove to be them. It is probably a long cry from them to friends of Mr. Vyse's. Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, the oddest people! The queerest people! For our part we liked them, didn't we?" He appealed to Lucy. "There was a great scene over some violets. They picked violets and filled all the vases in the room of these very Miss Alans who have failed to come to Cissie Villa. Poor little ladies! So shocked and so pleased. It used to be one of Miss Catharine's great stories. 'My dear sister loves flowers,' it began. They found the whole room a mass of blue -- vases and jugs -- and the story ends with 'So ungentlemanly and yet so beautiful.' It is all very difficult. Yes, I always connect those Florentine Emersons with violets."..."
|
|
travel
violets
florence
italy
flowers
|
E.M. Forster |
c67d21c
|
"Now I understand why you grow so many flowers." She shifted her head, not understanding. I said, "To cover the stink of sulphur."
|
|
flowers
|
John Fowles |
69520e6
|
"Nothing...They're from nothing,' he said. 'They came in the book...I found the book and inside were these flowers...They were in the book when I bought it... I bought it used...Because they meant something." 'To someone else.' 'To someone."
|
|
books
flowers
|
Aimee Bender |
9c417fc
|
A small grove of linden trees grew on the far side of the lake, below the palace. Dortchen made her way there carefully, not wanting to be seen so close to the King's residence. The trees were in full blossom, bees reeling drunkenly from the pale-yellow flowers that hung down in clusters below the heart-shaped leaves. Dortchen harvested what she could reach, breathing the sweet scent deeply, then picked handfuls of the wild roses that grew in a tangled hedge along the path. She would crystallise the petals with sugar when she got home, or make rose water to sell in her father's shop. She plucked some dandelions she found growing wild in a clearing, and then some meadowsweet, and at last reached the ancient old oak tree she knew from her last foray into the royal park. Here she found handfuls of the sparse grey moss, and she hid it deep within her basket, beneath the flowers and herbs and leaves.
|
|
herbs
flower-picking
forest
flowers
|
Kate Forsyth |
575d100
|
Tulips were a tray of jewels.
|
|
metaphor
e-m-forster
howards-end
figurative-language
tulips
flowers
description
|
E.M. Forster |
9d01ef4
|
Tropical trees had been planted throughout the room, along with bright flowering plants that were busy committing the olfactory floral equivalent of aggravated assault.
|
|
funny
smell
flowers
|
Jim Butcher |
a490da4
|
Don't you just love the idea of cooking flowers? I imagine them bursting into bloom, right in the pan.
|
|
flowers
food
|
Ruth Reichl |
2701b20
|
The estate looked vast and prosperous- on the surface, at least. Bella Vista was stunningly lovely, the orchards well tended and clearly productive. If there was a place in the world that was closer to heaven, she wasn't aware of it. Bella Vista- Beautiful View. A panorama view of the orchards, herb and flower fields radiated outward from the patio. The scents of ripe apples, lavender and roses rode the breeze, mingling with the mind-melting aroma of Isabel's fresh-baked croissants.
|
|
estate
fields
orchards
scents
flowers
|
Susan Wiggs |
b05faa6
|
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.
|
|
jess-and-george
neighborhoods
colors
flowers
|
Allegra Goodman |
21a9af6
|
... and she was awed to see that vibrant life still struggled to thrive despite such destruction.
|
|
metaphor
wisdom
inspirational
garden
flowers
|
Lois Lowry |
07a5bbd
|
June would always be Charlotte's favorite month on Quinnipeague. She loved the frothy roil of the sea as it recovered from a day of rain, and in those early mornings, before the fog lifted and sun warmed the island, there was nothing, nothing better than a wood fire, wool socks, and hot chocolate made from scratch.
|
|
nature-s-beauty
june
quinnipeague
flowers
ocean
|
Barbara Delinsky |
8146056
|
French toast? Frittata? Definitely frittata. Leaving the table again, she transferred a small packet from freezer to fridge. It was salmon, home-smoked on the island and more delicious than any she had ever found elsewhere. Smoked salmon wasn't Cecily's doing, but the dried basil and thyme she took from the herb rack were. Taking a vacuum-sealed package of sun-dried tomatoes from the cupboard, she set it on the counter beside the herbs. Frittata, hot biscuits, and fruit salad. With mimosas. And coffee. That sounded right. Eaten out on the deck maybe? No, not on the deck, unless the prevailing winds turned suddenly warm. They would eat here in the kitchen, with whatever flowers the morning produced. Surely more lavender. A woman could never have enough lavender- or daylilies or astilbe, neither of which should bloom this early, but both of which had looked further along than the lavender, yesterday morning, so you never knew.
|
|
frittata
ingredients
nicole-carlysle
table-setting
flowers
|
Barbara Delinsky |
dcea791
|
A few locks of dry white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock.
|
|
hair
flowers
|
Raymond Chandler |