Flora > Flora's Quotes

“The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“I pictured myself in a Denver bar that night, with all the gang, and in their eyes I would be strange and ragged and like the Prophet who has walked across the land to bring the dark Word, and the only Word I had was 'Wow!”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms”
― E. E. Cummings

“The past is a bad invention that keeps on happening
And it hurts to think about, like an unpaid bill

It's the wind dragging the desert backwards at night
& it burns you, like a pastel whip”
― Hera Lindsay Bird, Hera Lindsay Bird

“On the evenings when my parents held parties, the drawing-room mirrors multiplied to infinity the scintillations of a crystal chandelier. Mama would take her seat at the grand piano to accompany a lady dressed in a cloud of tulle who played the violin and a cousin who performed on a cello. I would crack between my teeth the candied shell of an artificial fruit, and a burst of light would illuminate my palate with a taste of blackcurrant or pineapple: all the colours, all the lights were mine, the gauzy scarves, the diamonds, the laces; I held the whole party in my mouth.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.”
― Philip Larkin, High Windows

“And there was no Camelot now -- now that no Queen was there, all white and gold, under an oaktree with another sunlight sifting itself in silence on her glory through the dark leaves above her where she sat, smiling at what she feared, and fearing least what most there was to fear.
”
― Edwin Arlington Robinson, Collected Poems of Edwin A. Robinson

“But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Master & Commander

“I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It's more important to confirm the least sincere. The clouds get enough attention as it is...”
― Frank O'Hara

“That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.”
― Frank O'Hara

“Elle est retrouvée!
Quoi? -l'Éternité.
C'est la mer allée
Avec le soleil.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, Une saison en enfer suivi de Illuminations et autres textes

“So go, girl. We should have been one person all along, not two.”
― Dorothy Baker, Cassandra at the Wedding

“Valentine Weather

Kiss me with rain on your eyelashes,
come on, let us sway together,
under the trees, and to hell with thunder.”
― Edwin Morgan, A Book of Lives

“When you go,
if you go,
And I should want to die,
there's nothing I'd be saved by
more than the time
you fell asleep in my arms
in a trust so gentle
I let the darkening room
drink up the evening, till
rest, or the new rain
lightly roused you awake.
I asked if you heard the rain in your dream
and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.”
― Edwin Morgan, New Selected Poems

“It’s strange,” Moominmamma thought. “Strange that people can be sad, and even angry because life is too easy. But that’s the way it is, I suppose. The only thing to do is to start life afresh.”
― Tove Jansson, Moominpappa at Sea

“Conventionality is not morality.”
― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

“She cleared her throat once or twice, and said something about poor people should eat a lot of herrings, as they were most nutritious, also she had heard poor people eat heaps of sheeps' heads and she went on to ask if I ever cooked them. I said I would rather be dead than cook or eat a sheep's head; I'd seen them in butchers' shops with awful eyes and bits of wool sticking to their skulls. After that helpful hints for the poor were forgotten.”
― Barbara Comyns, Our Spoons Came from Woolworths

“It is best as one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be almost wholly earth before one dies.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes

“Once again love drives me on, that loosener of limbs, bittersweet creature against which nothing can be done.”
― Sappho

“She wants to be flowers, but you make her owls. You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting.”
― Alan Garner, The Owl Service

“Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden.”
― Ford Madox Ford, Parade's End

“And all you can do is just read," she said. She raised her voice an screamed, "You just read and read and read!" Then she threw herself down on the table and wept.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“I only want to live in peace, plant potatoes and dream!”
― Tove Jansson, Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, Vol. 01

“In Narnia a girl might ring a bell in a deserted temple and feel the chime in her eyes, pure as the freeze that forces tears. Then when the sound dies out, the White Witch wakes. It was like, I want to touch you, and I can touch you, now what next, a dagger?”
― Helen Oyeyemi, White Is for Witching

“I don't understand," says Gerald, alone in his third- class carriage, "how railway trains and magic can go on at the same time."

And yet they do.”
― E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle

“Ladylike is the beastliest word there is, I think. If a girl isn't a lady, it isn't worth while to be only like one, she'd better let it alone and be a free and happy bounder.”
― Edith Nesbit, New Treasure Seekers

“There is nothing more luxurious than eating while you read—unless it be reading while you eat. Amabel did both: they are not the same thing, as you will see if you think the matter over.”
― E. Nesbit, The Magic World

“Of course it's alright for librarians to smell of drink.”
― Barbara Pym, Less Than Angels