Lilac Quotes - Page 2

• I opened the large central window of my office room to its full on the fine early May morning. Then I stood for a few moments, breathing in the soft, warm air that was charged with the scent of white lilacs below.

  Angus Wilson

  Morning, Air, Breathing

  Angus Wilson (2015). “The Old Men at the Zoo”, p.7, Faber & Faber

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• When you're on top and you lead the parade, everyone's there throwing lilies and lilac water on your head. But when those parades have gone by and there's a storm in your heart, there are very few people that are going to sit there and listen to you bemoan life.

  Sylvester Stallone

  Heart, People, Water

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• I remember, I remember
  The roses, red and white,
  The violets, and the lily-cups,
  Those flowers made of light!
  The lilacs, where the robin built,
  And where my brother set
  The laburmum on his birthday,-
  The tree is living yet.

  Thomas Hood

  Birthday, Brother, Flower

  Thomas Hood (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hood (Illustrated)”, p.306, Delphi Classics

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• The wind is tossing the lilacs,
  The new leaves laugh in the sun,
  And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
  But for me the spring is done.
  Beneath the apple blossoms
  I go a wintry way,
  For love that smiled in April
  Is false to me in May.

  Sara Teasdale

  Wall, Spring, Fall

  Sara Teasdale (1911). “Helen of Troy, and Other Poems”

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• A black cat among roses, phlox, lilac-misted under a quarter moon, the sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock. The garden is very still. It is dazed with moonlight, contented with perfume.

  Amy Lowell

  Sweet, Cat, Moon

  Amy Lowell (2010). “Che ore sono?: poesie”, p.133, G. D'Ambrosio Angelillo

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• Budapest in late May is a city of lilacs. The sweet, languid, rather sleepy smell of lilacs wafts everywhere. And it is a city of lovers, many of them quite middle-aged. Walking with their arms around each other, embracing and kissing on park benches. A sensuousness very much bound up (it seems to me) with the heady ubiquitous smell of lilacs.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Sweet, Kissing, Cities

  Joyce Carol Oates (1988). “(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities”, E P Dutton

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• When you chopped logs with the ax and they split open they smelled beautiful, like Christmas. But when you split someone's head open it smelled like abattoir and quite overpowered the scent of the wild lilacs you'd cut and brought into the house only this morning, which was already another life.

  Kate Atkinson

  Beautiful, Morning, Cutting

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• O months of blossoming, months of transfigurations,
  May without cloud and June stabbed to the heart,
  I shall not ever forget the lilacs or the roses
  Nor those the spring has kept folded away apart.

  Louis Aragon

  Summer, Spring, Heart

  Louis Aragon (1945). “Aragon: Poet of the French Resistance”

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• I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for me.

  Oscar Wilde

  Garden, Thinking, Air

  Oscar Wilde (1961). “DE PROFUNDIS”, p.33, VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS

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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.

  Paul Robeson

  Summer, Sweet, Morning

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

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• The American spring is like the country itself: abundant, rich, flowing over you like a full tide. ... Azaleas were suddenly ablaze. White dogwoods stood like brides in the wood - these trees of all colors were new to me; one does not meet them in Europe, and dogwood cannot even be transplanted to other continents. White and pink magnolias, yellowish rhododendrons, all of them lived happily side by side with our ordinary lilacs and lilies of the valley - the Russian symbols of spring.

  Svetlana Alliluyeva

  Country, Spring, Azaleas

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• I imagine the earth when I am no more: Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Song, Book, People

  Czeslaw Milosz, “And Yet The Books”

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• The chestnut's proud, and the lilac's pretty, The poplar's gentle and tall, But the plane tree's kind to the poor dull city - I love him best of all.

  E. Nesbit

  I Love Him, Cities, Tree

  Edith Nesbit, “Child's Song In Spring”

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• in time of daffodils(who know the goal of living is to grow) forgetting why,remember how in time of lilacs who proclaim the aim of waking is to dream, remember so(forgetting seem) in time of roses(who amaze our now and here with paradise) forgetting if,remember yes in time of all sweet things beyond whatever mind may comprehend, remember seek(forgetting find) and in a mystery to be (when time from time shall set us free) forgetting me,remember me

  e. e. cummings

  Dream, Sweet, Goal

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• He walked by instinct along one white road, on which early birds hopped and sang, and found himself outside a fenced garden. There he saw the sister of Gregory, the girl with the gold-red hair, cutting lilac before breakfast, with the great unconscious gravity of a girl.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Girl, Cutting, Garden

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.283, Simon and Schuster

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• Like restless birds, the breath of coming rain
  Creeps, lilac-laden, up the village street

  John McCrae

  Rain, Bird, Village

  John McCrae (2015). “In Flanders Fields and Other Poems”, p.30, Dundurn

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• There is an infinity of landscape here, caused by the purity of the atmosphere. It has been said that there is a lack of colour. It is not so obvious as the greenness of England, but it is infinitely more varied and more delicate in tone. The landscape is a pinky mauve, a lilac, and the reflection of the sun of the particles of the atmosphere is a warm amber. So I should say our colour scheme is amber and lilac.

  Hans Heysen

  Reflection, Atmosphere, Amber

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• The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Fall, Eye, Night

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

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• And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices in the lost lilac and the lost sea voices and the weak spirit quickens to rebel for the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell quickens to recover.

  T. S. Eliot

  Heart, Sea, Voice

  "Ash-Wednesday" l. 195 (1930)

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• The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

  Oscar Wilde

  Summer, Garden, Light

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.7, First Avenue Editions

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• There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing ... The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low to the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Autumn, Two, Giving

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2012). “Norte e Sul: North and South: Edição bilíngue português - inglês”, p.544, Editora Landmark LTDA

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• Through the window of my mask I see a wall of coral, its surface a living kaleidoscope of lilac flecks, splashes of gold, reddish streaks and yellows, all tinged by the familiar transparent blue of the sea.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Nature, Wall, Blue

  Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1978). “Life and death in a coral sea”

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• On the first of May, with my comrades of the catechism class, I laid lilac, chamomile and rose before the altar of the Virgin, and returned full of pride to show my blessed posy. My mother laughed her irreverent laugh and, looking at my bunch of flowers, which was bringing the may-bug into the sitting-room right under the lamp, she said: Do you suppose it wasn't already blessed before?

  Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

  Mother, Blessed, Flower

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• my mind is a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and chipping with sharp fatal tools in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of chrome and ex -ecute strides of cobalt nevertheless i feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am becoming something a little different, in fact myself hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet bellowings

  e. e. cummings

  Taste And Smell, Sight, Agony

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• He just seems as cool as ever. I can smell him. Even on the other side, there is smell. Like, when babies are born, there's two smells-one is chicken soup, which is the flesh, and the other is lilacs, which is coming from the spiritual garden. The spirit has a lilac smell.

  Carlos Santana

  Spiritual, Baby, Garden

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