#mel

It was her first book, an indigo cover with a silver moonflower, an art nouveau flower, I traced my finger along the silver line like smoke, whiplash curves. ... I touched the pages her hands touched, I pressed them to my lips, the soft thick old paper, yellow now, fragile as skin. I stuck my nose between the bindings and smelled all the readings she had given, the smell of unfiltered cigarettes and the espresso machine, beaches and incense and whispered words in the night. I could hear her voice rising from the pages. The cover curled outward like sails. ↗

— Janet Fitch

#silver #smell #wanting #art

You’re scaring the dog,” Trish pointed out. She rarely called me by name. They do that in prisoner of war camps, I’ve heard. Depersonalization. ↗

— Garth Stein

#prison #art

The Taj Mahal rises above the banks of the river like a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time. ↗

— Rabindranath Tagore

#taj-mahal #timeless #wonder #art

I only wanted absolute quiet to think out why I had developed a sad attitude toward sadness, a melancholy attitude toward melancholy and a tragic attitude toward tragedy — why I had become identified with the objects of my horror or compassion. ↗

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

#sadness #tragedy #attitude

No one's happy here, you know that. But I am content, and maybe that's enough for me. ↗

— Melissa de la Cruz

#contentment #happiness #hell #lost-in-time #melissa-de-la-cruz

Sweet weeping baby Jesus he has a six-pack to beat all six-packs! ↗

— P.C. Cast

#male-beauty #melia #sex-appeal #warrior-rising #beauty

When I realized I was going to die, the only thing I could think about was you and what an idiot I’d been for not telling you how I felt about you. I think I’ve loved you from the moment you lifted that awful blindfold off my face. I opened my eyes, and there you were, the bravest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. You set me free Natalie. In so many ways, you set me free. ↗

— Pamela Clare

#i-team #pamela-clare #romance #beauty

I wish we could see perfumes as well as smell them. I'm sure they would be very beautiful. ↗

— L.M. Montgomery

#beauty

I worry about Lily, sluggish as she is. Will she see Carter's truths? Will he tell her? God knows she won't hear them. She's moving too fast to hear anyone's music but her own. She's so set, but I know he could make her settled. I tried to sync their noise into music, but they both pushed back. Too obdurate to be oblong. Silly Lily. How can she resist someone who brings gum and sounds like math? ↗

— Emily McKay

#music

It's better to have nothing,' the children were saying. ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#homelessness #poetic-fiction #beauty