Atmospheric Quotes

“It touched me to be trusted with something terrible.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

“It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.”
― Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines

“Roads? Who spoke of roads? We go by the moor and the hills, and tread granite and heather as the Druids did before us.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“The ceilings had set off a ghostly echo, giving all that desperate hilarity the quality of a memory even as I sat listening to it, memories of things I'd never known.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“The lamplight was eerie, and, standing there motionless in our bathrobes, sleepy, with shadows flickering all around, I felt as though I had woken from one dream into an even more remote one, some bizarre wartime bomb shelter of the unconscious.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“A bracing wind swirls about the boy and alights gently upon his shoulder to gape frightfully at droplets of fate joined infirmly to a sweep of atmospheric and lunar forces far beyond their capabilities to resist. He takes a long, deep breath of air—cleansed through its migration—and he closes his eyes.

Scattered waves roll back in to the sea.”
― Ashim Shanker, Don't Forget to Breathe

“It is my conclusion that the human mind and body is essentially a single cell rechargeable battery that is charged from the atmospheric DC voltage and the Earth.”
― Steven Magee, Health Forensics

“On our way we passed a shop where my mother always ordered flowers. As a child I liked to watch the large storefront window awash in a perpetual curtain of water which came sliding down ever so gently, giving the shop an enchanted, mysterious aura that reminded me of how in many films the screen would blur to announce that a flashback was about to occur.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“Night changed the streets.
It dressed them in the mourning clothes named darkness, and applied the makeup called mystery.”
― Hideyuki Kikuchi, A Wind Named Amnesia / Invader Summer

“Aus dem dämmrigen Dunkel der Nacht trat eine feste, schwarze Masse von Gebäuden hervor, die sich über einer gewaltigen Fläche ausbreiteten. Das Dorf Mokroje zählte zweitausend Seelen; um diese Stunde schlief jedoch schon alles, nur hier und da schimmerten spärliche Lichter durch die Dunkelheit.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“The smell of roasting meat rose from the street stalls in a sizzle and a fiddle player begged for coin as he rasped a haunting melody. Life could not be more perfect.”
― Sara Sheridan, On Starlit Seas

“The instruments were all half desired, half forgotten. It was as if they were left behind by a ghost right in the middle of playing.”
― Hannah Lillith Assadi, Sonora

“But as I sat in that bed, the book in my hands, the city outside silent, I had reason to feel as if a hand from some sub-zero hell had reached up and laid itself-oh, very gently-upon my heart.”
― Ray Russell, Haunted Castles: The Complete Gothic Stories

“Dželat mi prilazi i kaže: "Spustite glavu na panj i raširite ruke kad budete spremni, gospo."
Poslušno spuštam ruke na panj i nespretno kleknem na travu. Osećam njen miris pod kolenima. Osećam bol u leđima i čujem krik galebova i nečiji plač. A onda odjednom, baš kad se spremim da spustim čelo na hrapavu površinu panja i raširim ruke da dam znak krvniku da može da udari, odjednom me preplavljuje talas radosti i žudnje za životom, i kažem: "Ne."
Prekasno je, dželat je već zamahnuo sekirom iznad glave, vež je spušta, ali ja kažem: "Ne" i ustajem, pridržavajući se za panj da se osovim na noge.
Osetim strahovit udarac na potiljku, ali gotovo nikakav bol. Silina udarca obara me na zemlju i ja ponavljam "Ne", i odjednom me obuzima buntovnički zanos. Ne pristajem na volju ludaka Henrija Tjudora, ne spuštam krotko glavu na panj i nikada to neću uraditi. Boriću se za svoj život i vičem "Ne!", pokušavajući da ustanem i "Ne", kad osetim novi udarac, "Ne" dok pužem po travi, a krv mi lipti iz rane na vratu i glavi i zaslepljuje me, ali ne guši moju radost u borbi za život iako mi on izmiče, i svedočenju, do poslednje g časa, o zlu koje Henri Tjudor nanosi meni i mojima. "Ne!", vičem. "Ne! Ne! Ne”
― Philippa Gregory, The King's Curse

“There was a shadowy light, not exactly twilight, but an uncertain vivid yet hazy illumination, wherein people walked like spirits, bathed in light and not revealed.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

“I felt I'd walked into a scene from a movie in which someone was going mad, the air heavy with suspense.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“immaculate middle-of-the-night quiet

rainlessness

the late moony sadness
of the one specific mosquito

dear someone

you habituate me to the invisible
I exit through you not as myself”
― Deborah Landau, The Last Usable Hour

“Plötzlich begann er, von Manderley zu erzählen. Er sprach nicht über sein Leben dort, sagte kein Wort über sich selbst, erzählte mir jedoch, wie dort an einem Frühlingsnachmittag die Sonne unterging und auf der Landspitze ein letztes Leuchten hinterließ. Das Meer, noch kalt vom langen Winter, sehe dann aus wie Schiefer, und von der Terrasse aus könne man den Wellenschlag der Flut hören, die in die kleine Bucht strömte.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Today, at any moment, more water rushes through the atmosphere than flows through all the world's rivers combined.”
― Cynthia Barnett, Rain: A Natural and Cultural History

“The following day, the scent Garrance has created is soon dispersed through the restaurant via an electric diffuser---the aromas of citrus, coconut, and ginger hitting me in waves. Ravenous, I set to making a roasted red pepper and garlic hummus, incorporating the urfa biber to see if it really makes a difference. I dip my finger into the dark purplish-brown flakes to taste, and I'm blown away by the earthiness of the flavors. I smack my lips, tasting undertones of raisins, chocolate, and maybe a little coffee.
Even though I've made a crudité platter with some pan-seared padron peppers sprinkled with sea salt and homemade garlic-infused naan, I can't help shoving spoonfuls of the hummus into my eager mouth.”
― Samantha Verant, The Spice Master at Bistro Exotique

“If you fill the atmosphere with toxins, then you really cannot be surprised if the solar radiation transmission through it becomes toxic to humans.”
― Steven Magee, Light Forensics

“The smell of tobacco usually reminded Mirabelle of being a child – coming downstairs in the morning when the dinner party her parents had hosted the night before was cleared away, but the scent of cigars still lingered.”
― Sara Sheridan, Operation Goodwood

“The route started at the station. The first of twelve swings. I stepped into a sheet of water and worked my way downhill. It was a poor part of town -small houses and courts with mailboxes full of spiders, mailboxes hanging by one nail, old women inside rolling cigarettes and chewing tobacco and humming to their canaries and watching you, an idiot in the rain.”
― Lester Young

“There was . . . a mirror that crawled across the wall in a wooden frame. When I go into Miri's room all I can see, all I can think of is that enormous mirror, like a lake on the wall.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, White Is for Witching

“In the torpor of the afternoon the remembered road had the slightly menacing and elusive familiarity of a place in a dream when one thinks: I have been here, yet where is it and what is going to happen?”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“The road into Pines was empty, and Ethan walked down the middle of the double yellow.”
― Black Crouch

“Самое главное – это атмосфера и мгновения.
Это – то прозрачное и величественное, что существует в жизни. И воспоминания состоят именно из этих мгновений, которые, как яркие вспышки, появляются среди мрака прошлого. Когда ты внезапно можешь осознать, что было важным для тебя в то далекое время. И эти воспоминания наполняют тебя сегодняшнего. И как волны бесконечного, движущегося моря памяти приходят на берег жизни.
И ты начинаешь чувствовать себя свободным и бесконечным в своем путешествии по этому морю.”
― Ekaterina Yakovina, Cherez Goroda k Sebe

“Tonight, we celebrate the precious quiet of wintertime,' she said. 'And how lovely is this time of silence and work and anticipation and decay?' She looked up. 'Here at Catherine, we know not to fear death. Because even in death, there is life. Death is not the black night, but its white moon. The honeyed egg of rebirth.'
Her voice was low. She had a slight unplaceable accent.
'So please,' she said, 'let us praise tonight, this room, and each other. Let us feast and be glad in the darkest of times.'
She raised her glass.
'To winter,' she said, 'and to tonight.”
― Elisabeth Thomas, Catherine House

“The first project I'd like to do is create a custom scent for the restaurant---special seasonal recipes to seduce people into entering the establishment, ensuring hunger and lust: vanilla, almond, and coconut; citrus and sandalwood; pepper, ginger, and chili. You'll pipe it onto the terrace and place it in the bathrooms, creating a magical atmosphere. A scent that transports you.”
― Samantha Verant, The Spice Master at Bistro Exotique

“The island of Hawaii is a great place to study atmospheric pollution on atmospheric radiation transmission due to its erupting volcano.”
― Steven Magee