August 2008 Archives

“The water washed round the piles at the end of the pier, dark poison-bottle green, mottled with seaweed, and the salt wind smarted on his lips.”

—Graham Greene, Brighton Rock, 1938.

“Behind the woman’s head the Brighton lamps beaded out towards Worthing. The last sunset light slid lower in the sky and the heavy indigo clouds came down over the Grand, the Metropole, the Cosmopolitan, over the towers and domes.”

—Graham Greene, Brighton Rock, 1938.

“To begin with, she had always seen herself in her own interior mirror, as a child woman, too small. And then this little bag of poison she carried within, the poison of melancholdy and dissatisfaction she always felt must be apparent in her coloring, must produce a grey tone, or brown (the colors she wore in preference to others, the sackcloth robes of punishement.)”

—Anais Nin, Winter of Artifice, 1948.

“When she entered his house which was all in brown, brown wood on the walls, brown rugs, brown furniture, she though of Spengler writing about brown as the color of philosophy.”

—Anais Nin, Winter of Artifice, 1948.

“Renate’s eyes were sea green and tumultuous like a reduction of the sea itself. When they seemed about to overflow with emotion, her laughter would flutter like windchimes and form a crystal bowl to contain the turquoise waters as if in an aquarium, and then her eyes became scenes of Venice, canals of reflections, and gold specks swam in them like gondolas.”

—Anais Nin, Collages, 1964.

“‘There was a painter who was asked to send his best painting to an exhibition and he accepted on condition that it would be curtained off until the day of the opening. This condition was accepted. The crowd came, quite a large one. His painting was the only one hidden behind a curtain in a box, and the last to be exposed. When the curtain was finally parted, the painting was a large square canvas, pure blank. Blank! The public was outraged. There were insults: “Surrealist! Dadaist! Beatnik! Mutant!” Then the painter came forward and explained that he had painted a self-portait and that his dog had found it such an exact likeness that he had licked it all off. But there had been a portrait, and this was merely the proof of the faithfulness of the likeness. And so . . . for those who are interested in progress, twenty years ago painting was judged by critics, and today it is judged by a dog. This is the state of painting today.’”

—Anais Nin, Collages, 1964. (This is for you, Lindsay!)

“[T]he country weareth her sun by day as a diamond on a Queen’s brow; and the stars by night as necklaces of gold beads; whereas the town’s sun is smoky paste, and no diamond, and the town’s stars are pinchbeck and not gold.”

—Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852.

“There are some strange summer mornings in the county, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the fields, and be wonder-smitten with the trance-like aspect of the green and golden world. Not a flower stirs; the trees forget to wave; the grass itself seems to have ceased to grow; and all Nature, as if suddenly become conscious of her own profound mystery, and feeling no refuge from it but silence, sinks into this wonderful and indescribable repose.”

—Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852.

“[N]othing can more vividly suggest luxuriance of life, than the idea of green as a color; for green is the peculiar signet of all-fertile Nature herself.”

—Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852.

“Wondrous fair of face, blue-eyed, and golden-haired, the bright blonde, Lucy, was arrayed in colours harmonious with the heavens. Light blue be they perpetual colour, Lucy; light blue becomes thee best. . . .”

—Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852.

“All the waves in Lucy’s eyes seemed waves of infinite glee to him. And as if, like veritable seas, they did indeed catch the reflected irradiations of that pellucid azure morning; in Lucy’s eyes, there seemed to shine all the blue glory of the general day, and all the sweet inscrutableness of the sky. And certainly, the blue eye of woman, like the sea, is not unifluenced by the atmosphere. Only in the open air of some divinest, summer day, will you see its ultramarine,—its fluid lapis lazuli.”

—Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852.

“He did not see that there is no such thing as a standard for the creative spirit; that no one great book must ever be separately regarded, and permitted to domineer with its own uniqueness upon the creative mind; but that all existing great works must be federated into the fancy; and so regarded as a miscellaneous and Pantheistic whole. . . .

—Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852.

“Deep, deep, and still deep and deeper must we go, if we would find out the heart of a man; descending into which is as descending a spiral stair in a shaft, wthout any end, and where that endlessness is only concealed by the spiralness of the stair, and blackness of the shaft.”

—Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852.

“The food of thy soul is light and space; feed it then on light and space.”

—Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852.

“‘Don’t let us stop here,’ cried Isabel. ‘Look, let us go through there! Bell must go through there! See! see! out there upon the blue! yonder, yonder! far away—out, out!—far, far away, and away, and away, out there! where the two blues meet, and are nothing—Bell must go!’”

—Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852.

“I want a joy that takes simple colors, street organs, ribbons, flags, not a joy that takes one’s breath away and throws one into space.”

—Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume Three, 1939-1944, 1969.

“Typesetting is like film cutting. The disciplilne of typesetting and printing is good for the writer.”

—Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume Three, 1939-1944, 1969.

“A flesh-colored moon, as ripe as any ‘vine-ripe’ tomato, was skinny-dipping in a lake of its own light. Leaning back, Lisa watched it slowly swim out of sight, languid, naked, and unashamed. The occasional stars were like inflamed eyeballs, spying on the swimmer—and the bather—through peepholes in an anthracite curtain.”

—Tom Robbins, Villa Incognito, 2003. Lisa is taking a bath, and merging with the universe.

“As anybody who knows anything about the Unknowable well knows, ‘God’ and ‘gods’ are interchangeable. The exclusivistic patriarchal Jehovah/Allah freaks are not incorrect then whey insist that there is but one Supreme Being and that ‘he’ is immutable and absolute. However, neither are the wide-eyed inclusive pagans and primitives wrong when they recognize gods of fire alongside gods of rivers; honor a moon goddess, a crocodile spirit, and deities who reside in, among countless other places, tree trunks, rain clouds, peyote buttons, and neon lighting (especially the flashing whites and the greens).”

—Tom Robbins, Villa Incognito, 2003.

“A yellow cab, like a smoker’s tooth in the cottony mouth of morning, flashed into view.”

—Tom Robbins, Villa Incognito, 2003.

“He regarded me with his embarrassing eyes, supercandid cornflower blue, the kind made fashionable by the first wave of technicolor American filmstars.”

—Martin Amis, Money, 1984.

“Alec Llewellyn wore the low colour of fear on his face. It’s yellow, just like they say—yellow, sallow, sowlike, big-pored.”

—Martin Amis, Money, 1984.

“My body craved darkness and silence but the sun’s controls were all turned up full blast as I screamed for cabs in the yellow riot of Broadway.”

—Martin Amis, Money, 1984.

“I am that fleeing train that goes screaming past you in the night. Though travelling nowhere I have hurtled with blind purpose to the very end of my time. I have lived headlong at a desperate rhythm. I want to slow down now, and check out the scenery, and put in a stop or two. I want some semi-colons.”

—Martin Amis, Money, 1984.

“Reading takes a long time, though, don’t you find? It takes such a long time to get from, say, page twenty-one to page thirty. I mean, first you’ve got page twenty-three, then page twenty-five, then page twenty-seven, then page twenty-nine, not to mention the even numbers. Then page thirty. Then you’ve got page thirty-one and page thirty-three—there’s no end to it.”

—Martin Amis, Money, 1984.

“Switters turned from the misty void and was instantly confronted with its opposite: namely, a well-defined object of lurid coloration. It was the pumpkin, only its orangeness had become so intense it seemed to be undergoing spontaneous combustion right there on the library table. Switters didn’t know whether to reach for a fire extinguisher or fall down and worship. The thing was blazing—and spinning, as well. At least, it appeared to be, for minute or two. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Then he remembered.
    He had forgotten about ingesting the XTC. It was starting to come on, and come on strong.”

—Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, 2000.

“Hector Sumac’s drug of choice, at least for that October evening, was a clean, beige, relatively mild form of Andean cocaine.”

—Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, 2000.

“The stars were as big and bright as brass doorknobs, and so numerous they jostled one another for twinkle space.”

—Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, 2000.

“As the ambience, sky and water alike, gradually turned a single shade of teal, Bobby slumped low in his patio chair, his battered boots propped on the ice chest. He appeared lost in thought.
    Teal is an unfriendly color, and the air had an unfriendly feel.”

—Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, 2000.

“The sun was low but the air was still balmy, and the sea was the shade of blue that black could have been if it hadn’t stepped over the line.”

—Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, 2000.

“Other, seemingly more profound, thoughts took over his brain, thoughts such as, To what extent would a given quantity of catnip have affected quantum mechanics in Schrodinger’s theoretical catbox? and Why was C selected to symbolize the speed of light when Z is obviously the fastest letter in the alphabet?”

—Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, 2000.

‘[L]et us reach into the inkwell jewel box and withdraw two sets of exquisite superscript signs—” for the right ear, ” for the left—and hang them from the lobes on either side of the word nuns. Like so: “nuns.” This, of course, is not for purposes of ornamentation, although these apostrophic clusters possess an understated, overlooked beauty that transcends the merely chic. (Do they not resemble, say, the widnblown teardrops of fairy fold, commas on a trampoline, tadpoles with stomach cramps, or human fetuses in the first days folloiwng conceptiion?)’

—Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, 2000.

‘He was convinced that the Vatican attorney (perhaps earrings— “ ” —are needed here, perhaps not) was armed.’

—Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, 2000.

“Graphically, single letters are a problem.”

—Charles Bigelow, quoted by Caroline Winter in “Me, Myself and I”, August 3, 2008.

“The drawing room curtains at Windy Corner had been pulled to meet, for the carpet was new and deserved protection from the August sun. They were heavy curtains, reaching almost to the ground, and the light that filtered through them was subdued and varied. A poet—none was present—might have quoted ‘Life like a dome of many coloured glass,’ or might have compared the curtains to sluice-gates, lowered against the intolerable tides of heaven. Without was poured a sea of radiance; within, the glory, though visible, was tempered to the capacities of man.”

—E.M. Forster, A Room with a View, 1911.

“Though she was hopeless about pictures, and though she dressed so unevenly—oh, that cerise frock yesterday at church!—she must see some beauty in life, or she could not play the piano as she did.”

—E.M. Forster, A Room with a View, 1911.

“‘My father . . . says that there is only one perfect view—the view of the sky straight over our heads, and that all these views on earth are but bungled copies of it.’
    ‘I expect your father has been reading Dante,’ said Cecil. . . .”

—E.M. Forster, A Room with a View, 1911.

“‘[I]f you are interested in life it never lets you down. I am interested in the blueness of the cheese. You don’t do crosswords, do you, Mr Wormold? I do, and they are like people: one reaches an end. I can finish any crossword within an hour, but I have a discovery concerned with the blueness of cheese that will never come to a conclusion—although of course one dreams that perhaps a time might come . . . One day I must show you my laboratory.’”

—Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, 1958.

“‘Your code number is 59200 stroke 5.’ He added with pride, ‘Of course I am 59200. You’ll number your sub-agents 59200 stroke 5 stroke 1 and so on. Got the idea?’”

—Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, 1958.

“‘There’ll be wine, won’t there?’
    ‘Look at the table.’ Small individual milk-bottles stood by every place. ‘Didn’t you read your invitiation? An American blue-plate lunch in honour of our great American allies.’
    ‘Blue-plate?‘
    ‘Surely you know what a blue-plate is, man? They shove the whole meal at you under your nose, already dished up on your plate—roast turkey, cranberry sauce, sausages and carrots and French fried. I can’t bear French fried, but there’s no pick and choose with a bue-plate.’
    ‘No pick and choose?’
    ‘You eat what you’re given. That’s democracy, man.’”

—Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, 1958.