A Scarlet Pansy Quotes

His body was sweet and clean smelling. As she finished [massaging his dislocated shoulder], Fay bent and gently kissed him on the neck, that part where the skin is so soft abd sensitive, midway between the angle of the jaw and the hair line at the back of the neck. He opened his eyes, startled, then smiled as he murmured, "Oh! It's you. That's all right." He folded his arms about her, bringing her head close to his, then like a contented child sank into a deep sleep. His clean body odor gave her keenest delight. She hesitated to attempt to alter their relationship, and possibly lose him entirely. He had accepted her as a pal, that she would be. ~ Robert Scully

In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practice it much. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Danae and Theano nodded but settled down more comfortably to hear their friend tell it once again. A story passed the time. A story took your thoughs far awar from your own troubles. A story could make you laugh or cry. it could fill you with wonder. And the stories you'd heard already were the best of all, because you knew there would be no disappointment at the end. There would be no unpleasant surprises. Of course, new stories that no one had told before were truly best of all, but they were rare, and hearing one for the first time was like coming across a scarlet flower you didn't recognise hidden in a crevice in the rocks. ~ Adele Geras

Scarlet O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin-that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns. ~ Margaret Mitchell

Under bright scarlet hair, teachers' favorite pigmentation of ink, the awful cast splashed and dripped down his face, a grisly reminder of mistakes bruising that had bruised. ~ Jazz Feylynn

Suddenly William loomed over him, scowling, snarling and bloody, his suit dirt-stained and ripped. "Do you know. How many strands. Of hair I lost. On my way down?"
Whatever. "Math was never my thing, but I'm gonna say you lost…a lot."
Electric-blues glittered with menace. "You are a cruel, sadistic bastard. My hair needs TLC and you…you… Damn you! I've gutted men for less."
"I know. I've watched you." Paris lumbered to his feet and scanned the rocky bank they stood upon, the crimson ocean lapping and bubbling in every direction. The drawbridge was only a fifty-yard dash away. "Don't kill the messenger, but I'm thinking you should change your dating profile to balding."
Masculine cheeks went scarlet as the big bad warrior struggled for a comeback.
…
"One of these days you're going to wake up," William finally said, "and I will have shaved you. Everywhere."
"Won't make a difference. Women will still want me. But you know what else? What I did to you wasn't cruel, Willy." He offered the warrior a white-flag grin. A trick. A lie. "This, however, is."
He grabbed William by the wrist, swung the man around and around before at last releasing him and hurling his body directly onto the bridge. ~ Gena Showalter

Lately, I've been in a constant state of sadness....
I can't tell if it's me or the world who is hurting. ~ Scarlet Jei Saoirse

Part of making a good decision is just making a decision. You can't always sit and weigh the pros and cons. There just isn't time for that. Making a good decision means sticking with your choice and dealing with what comes with it. Being able to deal with the consequences - that's making a good decision. ~ J.X. Burros

The wedding ended, hurriedly, on a surge of masculine bonhomie and relief. Five minutes later, followed by the red-eyed glares of their womenfolk, Buccleuch and his friends and his new-married son had plunged off to join Lord Culter, head of the Crawfords, and Francis Crawford his brother, to fight the English once more. * Sentimentally, Will Scott thought, it made his wedding-day perfect. Cantering, easy and big-limbed, through the bracken of Ettrick-side, with leaves stuck, lime-green and scarlet on his wet sleeves, blue eyes narrowed and fair, red-blooded Scott face misted with rain, he was borne on a vast, angry joy. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Love gives you the strength to face an army, vampire or human ... Love gives you a reason to press on through the storm. Love helps you think clearly and follow the clues ahead, if you know where they lead. ~ J.X. Burros

Little Man turned around and watched saucer-eyed as a bus bore down on him spewing clouds of red dust like a huge yellow dragon breathing fire. Little Man headed toward the bank, but it was too steep. He ran frantically along the road looking for a foothold and, finding one, hopped onto the bank, but not before the bus had sped past enveloping him in a scarlet haze while laughing white faces pressed against the bus windows. Little ~ Mildred D. Taylor

Synchronicity is not a word we have grown up with. The concept may not be firmly in our minds, and because we don't have a label of mental framework for it, we may not notice it. Researchers in communication have found that when we lack a word for an object or a concept, we can't identify it - and this can happen in the most literal of ways. For instance, in China, there is only one word for red - and people literally do not distinguish between rose, crimson, pink, and scarlet. They lack the vocabulary and therefore the perception that red comes in more than once shade. ~ Flowerpower.com

I told them this novel was an American classic, in many ways the quintessential American novel. There were other contenders: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Moby-Dick, The Scarlet Letter. Some cite its subject matter, the American Dream, to justify this distinction. We in ancient countries have our past
we obsess over the past. They, the Americans, have a dream: they feel nostalgia about the promise of the future. ~ Azar Nafisi

The love that loves a scarlet coat Should be more uniform. ~ Honorius Augustodunensis

A trained bus thrower like Gabriel, or Robin Hood wannabe like Scarlet, or a ninja assassin like Tristan ~ Chelsea Fine

Don't hide behind the Constitution or the Bible. If you're against gay marriage, just be honest, put a scarlet 'H' on your shirt, and say, 'I am a homophobe! ~ Henry Rollins

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood. ~ Tanith Lee

The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. They averred, that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight, whenever Hester Prynne walked abroad in the night-time. And we must needs say, it seared Hester's bosom so deeply, that perhaps there was more truth in the rumor than our modern incredulity may be inclined to admit. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Britain can sometimes feel like a very small village, and you're this, I dunno, scarlet woman they're all gossiping about. ~ Sam Taylor-Wood

The roses bloomed, thousands of them in a floral amphitheater, blossoms shading from gold and coral at the top of the garden to scarlet and deep pink on tiers below. At the bottom, in the center of the rosy congregation, the palest apricots and ivories perfumed the air. ~ Allegra Goodman

And now she finally understands what she has always observed on people's faces when they are at the seaside. Years ago, ... she would notice how people's faces turned slightly upward when they stared at the sea, as if they were straining to see a trace of God or were hearing the silent humming of the universe; she would notice how, at the beach, people's faces became soft and wistful, reminding her of the expressions on the faces of the sweet old dogs that roamed the streets of Bombay. As if they were all sniffing the salty air for transcendence, for something that would allow them to escape the familiar prisons of their own skin. In the temples and the shrines, their heads were bowed and their faces small, fearful, and respectful, shrunk into insignificance by the ritualized chanting of the priests. But when they gazed at the sea, people held their heads up, and their faces became curious and open, as if they were searching for something that linked them to the sun and the stars, looking for that something they knew would linger long after the wind had erased their footprints in the dust. Land could be bought, sold, owned, divided, claimed, trampled, and fought over. The land was stained permanently with pools of blood; it bulged and swelled under the outlines of the countless millions buried under it. But the sea was unspoiled and eternal and seemingly beyond human claim. Its waters rose and swallowed up the scarlet shame of spilled blood. ~ Thrity Umrigar

It seemed to him that there was a scarlet thread running through the fabric of life, one that joined events across the years, piercing human hearts and plunging underground, only to reemerge without warning, a thread connecting lives and sometimes dates. ~ Douglas Wynne

He made her laugh always made her taste a strange and exquisite bliss when he held her in his arms. ~ Emmuska Orczy

She had worn a sequined, strapless wedding gown, and left her bridesmaid to wear brightly flowered dresses to fit for a kind of pornographic milkmaid: low-cut and laced up the midriff with a sort of shoelace. What Scarlet O'Hara might have done with a shower curtain, if she were trying to snag a plumber. ~ Lorrie Moore

Good writing is always a breaking of the soil, clearing away prejudices, pulling up of sour weeds of crooked thinking, stripping the turf so as to get at what is fertile beneath. It would be amusing to carry the simile further. Those bulbs that flower in the sand and wither! The gay fiction annual that has to be planted again every year! Those experimental plants from Russia, France, and Greenwich Village that are always getting winter killed - confound 'em! - is it worth while planting them again? The stocky perennial that keeps coming up and coming up - so easy to grow and so ugly. Scarlet sage that gives a touch of fiery sin to the edge of the suburbanite's concrete walk! And then the good flowers - as honest as they are beautiful! The well-ordered gar den! The climbing rose that escapes and is the most beautiful of all! ~ Henry Seidel Canby

CHAPTER XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZE CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY CHAPTER XXII. THE PROCESSION CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

If I look back, my mother was always out. I can remember the perfume and her scarlet chiffon dress and crystal beads, going to a party. She used to play her violin at restaurants later on in life and at old people's homes. She loved the races, which she used to take me to as a child: our carpets were bought with her winnings. Loved her chickens. ~ Celia Imrie

I took a day to search for God, And found Him not. But as I trod By rocky ledge, through woods untamed, Just where one scarlet lily flamed, I saw His foot print in the sod. ~ Bliss Carman

And between them, the little shoe-box glistening with scarlet wallpaper and gilt like a fairy coffin. Inside it, there was the crabbed corpse of a still-born child wreathed in bloody newspaper.

"I hated you so much," she said softly. ~ James Reaney

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills. ~ Bliss Carman

I don't mind the scars." He shrugged, his eyes taking on a mischievous spark. "They hold better memories now than they used to." Scarlet ~ Marissa Meyer

A flower can't choose the place where it blooms, and a child can't choose the parents she's born to ~ Hiro Mashima

Aria: I went to Hollis. Because I was looking for ... you know. Her. She was teaching an art class, so I ran inside, grabbed a paintbrush, and painted a scarlet A across her chest. You know, like that woman in The Scarlet Letter? It was awesome. She didn't know what hit her. And then I said, 'Now everyone will know what you've done'.
Ella: Do you realize that Hester Prynne is supposed to be a sympathetic character? ~ Sara Shepard

Odd's fish, m'dear, would you have me challenge the poor countess to a duel? ~ The Scarlet Pimpernel

Why does Paul spell it out, calling us to consider the width and breadth and depth and height of Christ's love? He is proposing a way to meditate and inviting us to do it. Let's take up his invitation. How wide is the love of God? Think of Isaiah 1:18: "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." Scarlet is the color of blood. This was God's way of saying through Isaiah, "Even if you have killed somebody, even if you have blood-guilt, blood on your hands, my love is wide enough to enfold and embrace you. It doesn't matter who you are or what you have done. It doesn't matter if you have killed people. If Jesus Christ died on the cross so that you are saved by grace alone, then my love is infinitely wide. It is wide enough for you. ~ Timothy Keller

I asked Mincha if he would like to be reincarnated as the beautiful scarlet minivet. Mincha paused for a moment and then pointed out how many insects a minivet consumes in its lifetime. "Killing other creatures causes pain in the world. So from a Buddhist perspective, we must say that the minivet is not to be envied." Besides, he related, there are 500 rebirths separating birds and humans, so a bird rebirth would be a big setback from enlightenment. Back ~ Eric Dinerstein

Tristan followed so close behind her she could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck. Again.
"Ten foot rule," called Nate.
"Bite me!" Tristan hollered back, more hot breath caressing her skin with his words. A wonderful shiver ran through her body. Damn him and his beautiful mouth and hot breath and his leather-smelling shirt. She assumed he was headed to his own room in the basement, but when she walked into the guest bedroom, he followed her inside. She turned around to tell him to leave her alone, but his bright green eyes derailed her words. He was so pretty…
No! No. He was not pretty. He was in danger of dying. Focus on the danger, Scarlet. She glared at him. "What are you doing?"
"I'm sleeping with you."
Was he insane? She lifted a brow. "I thought you were mad at me."
"I'm concerned. Not mad."
"Huh. Well either way you're not sleeping with me."
"Yes, I am."
He was insane. "No," Scarlet repeated. "You're not. You could die, Tristan. We can't touch and we certainly can't…sleep together." She felt her face flush.
A look of amusement crossed his face. "I meant sleep, Scar."
"Oh. Well." She cleared her throat. "I don't want to wake up next to a corpse, so, like…scram. ~ Chelsea Fine

Three blind hummingbirds hang in the air like jewels of iridescent scarlet and cobalt; then, one by one, they fade, all color leeched from them, and fall lifeless into the mists, to be eaten by rats.

Despair feels uncomfortable.

In her world there are so many windows. Each opening shows her an existence that's fallen to her - some only for moments, others for lifetimes. Able at this moment neither to savor them, nor to understand her own disquiet, she stares away from all the windows as she walks. Silent rats run unmindfully over her feet, invisible in the mist.

She misses him.

It is over three hundred years since last she and her brother were alone together. Like a flood, the memories come, and she is drowning in them. Against her will her chest heaves, and she begins to weep: deep, helpless, racking sobs...

No.

Despair places the cold metal barb of her hook onto the surface of her eye. And then she pushes, piercing cornea and lens, and ripping free the aqueous humor and vitreous humor to run like tears down her cheek, into her hand...

The pain distracts her, a little. But still, she remembers... ~ Neil Gaiman

Come here, little one."
"I want to go back."
He hoped she stood there arguing for a time. "Obey your husband."
She wrinkled her nose. "It's broad daylight."
"Keemah, come."
Growing tired of just looking when he could be touching, Hunter cocked his head and let her see him leering. He was awarded a fetching glimpse of slender, creamy thighs and honey gold. She gasped and dropped to her knees as if someone had dealt a blow to the backs of her legs.
Tucking her skirt under her knees, she cried, "Have you no shame?"
His answer was a slow grin. Seizing her wrist, he drew her toward him. "There is no shame. You are my woman."
Pulled off balance, she fell across his chest. Squirming, but halfheartedly, she said, "There's a time and a place for everything, and this isn't it."
"No?" He ran a hand under her blouse. "I say it is a very good time."
She jerked when his fingers scaled her ribs. "That tickles."
Without warning he rolled with her, coming out on top. He kissed her lightly on the lips while he moved his hand from her ribs to her breast. The small mound of warm flesh fit perfectly in his hand, the crest springing taut against his palm. Scarlet flamed on her cheeks. Unable to resist, Hunter lifted her blouse and moved off her to look, one thigh slanted across both of hers to keep her still. He had guessed right; when she was shy, she grew pink all over.
"Hunter!" She tried to shove the leather down. "Someone might come! ~ Catherine Anderson

Vida Winter's appearance was not calculated for concealment. She was an ancient queen, sorceress or goddess. Her stiff figure rose regally out of a profusion of fat purple and red cushions. Draped around her shoulders, the folds of the turquoise-and-green cloth that had cloaked her body did not soften the rigidity of her frame. Her bright copper hair had been arranged into an elaborate confection of twists, curls and coils. Her face, as intricately lined as a map, was powdered white and finished with bold scarlet lipstick. In her lap, her hands were a cluster of rubies, emeralds and white, bony knuckles; only her nails, unvarnished, cut short and square like my own, struck an incongruous tone. ~ Diane Setterfield

It's Nathaniel Hawthorne Month in English. Poor Nathaniel. Does he know what they've done to him? We're reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chewing on its bones.
It's all about SYMBOLISM, says Hairwoman. Every word chosen by Nathaniel, every comma, every paragraph break
these were all done on purpose. To get a decent grade in her class, we have to figure out what he was really trying to say. Why couldn't he just say what he meant? Would they pin scarlet letters on his chest? B for blunt, S for straightforward? ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

Maple leaves in autumn do not suddenly transform into stained glass pendants ... in order to satisfy a human longing for beauty. Their scarlet, ochre, and golden colors emerge as chlorophyll production shuts down, in preparation for sacrificing the leaves that are vulnerable to winter cold, and ensuring the survival of the tree. But the tree survives, WHILE our vision is ravished. The peacock's display attracts a hen, AND it nourishes the human eye. The flower's fragrance entices a pollinator, BUT IT ALSO intoxicates the gardener. In that "while," in that "and," in that "but it also," we find the giftedness of life. ~ Terryl L. Givens

I am made for autumn. Summer and I have a fickle relationship, but everything about autumn is perfect to me. Woolly jumpers, Wellington boot, scarves, thin first, then thick, socks. The low slanting light, the crisp mornings, the chill in my fingers, those last warm sunny days before the rain and the wind. Her moody hues and subdued palate punctuated every now and again by a brilliant orange, scarlet or copper goodbye. She is my true love. ~ Alys Fowler

You belong here, and it's time you realize it. No one put a Scarlet A on your chest. This church is for human beings, not saints and angels. ~ Tiffany Reisz

There is within me a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction ... ~ James Hurst

Sucking in air, Heather said, "Fluffy - Mrs. Allen's ferocious dog - chased me all the way down Pine Street trying to tear me to shreds with his razor fangs. I barely got away."
Scarlet scrunched her face. "Isn't Fluffy a Chihuahua?"
Still panting, Heather said, "Yes. A demon-possessed, human-eating Chihuahua. ~ Chelsea Fine