Lilac Quotes

• The spring is fresh and fearless
  And every leaf is new,
  The world is brimmed with moonlight,
  The lilac brimmed with dew.
  
  Here in the moving shadows
  I catch my breath and sing -
  My heart is fresh and fearless
  And over-brimmed with spring.

  Sara Teasdale

  Spring, Moving, Heart

  Sara Teasdale (1915). “Rivers to the Sea”

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• The smell of moist earth and lilacs hung in the air like wisps of the past and hints of the future.

  Margaret Millar

  Spring, Past, Air

  Margaret Millar (1947). “Experiment in Springtime: A Novel”, New York : Random House

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• Lilacs are May in essence.

  Jean Hersey

  Essence, May

  Jean Hersey (1967). “The Shape of a Year”

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• Now that the lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room

  T. S. Eliot

  Rooms, Bowls

  T. S. Eliot, “Portrait Of A Lady”

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• I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be

  Nina Simone

  Heart, Wine, Tree

  Song: Lilac Wine

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• April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.

  T. S. Eliot

  Memories, Spring, Rain

  The Waste Land l. 1 (1922)

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• The last unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Woods, Lasts, Unicorn

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The Last Unicorn”, Roc

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• the smell of lilacs crept poignantly into the room like a remembered spring.

  Margaret Millar

  Spring, Smell, Rooms

  Margaret Millar (2015). “Vanish in an Instant”, p.33, Soho Press

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• Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart; I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses, as at twenty years ago.

  Victor Hugo

  Spring, Heart, Winter

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• In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd palings, Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, with many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle - and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with its flower I break.

  Walt Whitman

  Strong, Flower, Heart

  Walt Whitman (2013). “The Poems of Walt Whitman: Patriotic Poems”, p.22, eBookIt.com

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• Nothing is more wistful than the scent of lilac, nor more robust than its woody stalk, for we must remember that it is a tree as well as a flower, we must try not to forget this.

  Stevie Smith

  Flower, Tree, Trying

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• The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. (“A Story About The Most Important Thing”)

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Flower, Important, Blooming

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• I cannot understand why my arm is not a lilac tree.

  Leonard Cohen

  Tree, Arms

  Leonard Cohen (2011). “Beautiful Losers”, p.75, Vintage

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• A faint smell of lilac filled the air. There was always lilac in this part of town. Where there were grandmothers, there was always lilac.

  Laura Miller

  Grandmother, Air, Smell

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• Just now the lilac is in bloom
  All before my little room.

  Rupert Brooke

  Spring, Littles, Rooms

  1914 and Other Poems (1915) "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester"

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• Philosophy: a purple bullfinch in a lilac tree.

  T. S. Eliot

  Philosophy, Purple, Tree

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• Lilacs, False Blue, White, Purple,
  Colour of lilac,
  Your great puffs of flowers
  Are everywhere in this my New England ...
  Lilacs in dooryards
  Holding quiet conversation with an early moon;
  Lilacs watching a deserted house; ...
  Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom,
  You are everywhere.

  Amy Lowell

  Spring, Flower, Moon

  Amy Lowell, “Lilacs”

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• Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands"; (slowly twisting the lilac stalks) "You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see." I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea.

  T. S. Eliot

  Drinking, Hands, Tea

  T. S. Eliot (2012). “The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems”, p.13, Courier Corporation

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• what you don't know, you don't miss

  Cecelia Ahern

  Missing, Twists, Joy Luck Club

  Cecelia Ahern (2005). “Rosie Dunne”, Wheeler Pub Incorporated

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• Others said May was best, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens along Main Street were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips.

  Alice Hoffman

  Sweet, Garden, May

  Alice Hoffman (2001). “The River King”, p.202, Penguin Group

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• Love is the hardest thing in the world to write about. So simple. You've got to catch it through details, like the early morning sunlight hitting the gray tin of the rain spout in front of her house. The ringing of a telephone that sounds like Beethoven's "Pastoral." A letter scribbled on her office stationery that you carry around in your pocket because it smells of all the lilacs in Ohio.

  Billy Wilder

  Morning, Rain, Writing

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• Yes, I heard my people singing!-in the glow of parlor coal-stove and on summer porches sweet with lilac air, from choir loft and Sunday morning pews-and my soul was filled with their harmonies. Then, too, I heard these songs in the very sermons of my father, for in the Negro's speech there is much of the phrasing and rhythms of folk-song. The great, soaring gospels we love are merely sermons that are sung; and as we thrill to such gifted gospel singers as Mahalia Jackson, we hear the rhythmic eloquence of our preachers, so many of whom, like my father, are masters of poetic speech.

  Paul Robeson

  Summer, Song, Sweet

  Paul Robeson (1998). “Here I Stand”, p.15, Beacon Press

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• L.A. kills people.' Jacaranda said. 'You're lucky you're leaving. You'll be able to write.' She looked paler, going through another depression, smoking in bed in her lilac room. The walls were the color of her veins. She was getting too thin, even for the modeling. . .Jacaranda died last winter when the flowering trees were bare. You couldn't even tell which ones once cried the purple blossoms she named herself after.

  Francesca Lia Block

  Wall, Writing, Winter

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• When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd / And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, / I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

  Walt Whitman

  Stars, Spring, Night

  "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" l. 1 (1881)

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• The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.

  Truman Capote

  Love, Dream, Children

  Truman Capote (2007). “Other Voices, Other Rooms”, p.120, Vintage

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