Scarlet Hiltibidal Quotes

Isolation and "control" might produce quieter life. But, peace isn't a quiet life, peace is a quiet soul. Peace is the gift of Jesus through the work of Jesus that we can have no matter what's going on in our living rooms or our inboxes or our Facebook feeds. The loudest of lives can't overwhelm the quiet that comes from Christ. ~ Scarlet Hiltibidal

The gospel tells me I can't fix myself.
The gospel tells me I can't protect myself.
But the gospel tells me I can rest, knowing that Jesus walked into this broken, sad, scary place to rescue me and love me and cast out my fear. And He did and He does and He will. ~ Scarlet Hiltibidal

My fears, my failures, my phases, real and imagined and everything in between, do not get to say who I am. They can't. Because Jesus already did. He rose from the dead with new names for me. Forgiven. Approved. Loved. Daughter. Heir. Friend. ~ Scarlet Hiltibidal

Like so many of the other books I read, it never seemed to me like a book, but like a place I had lived in, had visited and would visit again, just as all the people in them, every blessed one – Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Jay Gatsby, Elizabeth Bennet, Scarlet O'Hara, Dill and Scout, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot – were more real than the real people I knew. ~ Anna Quindlen

Her entire life, she'd been told sin was wrong, a black and white interpretation of what is evil and what is holy in the world - colored like a priest's robe and collar - but she never believed it to be true. Sin was colorful: scarlet like rose blood, azure like skin deprived oxygen, violet as bruises, jade as rot; a colorful contradiction to the darkness and blinding light all are taught sin and holiness to be. ~ Madi Merek

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

You are my whole heart, Scarlet. And this is breaking it.'
My heart cracked open and clear dropped out of me. My mouth opened, and I looked round me and stamped my foot. 'Does this look like a good time to tell me that, you damn stupid boy?' I meant to sound mean but my voice wobbled. 'Now?'
He gave a little smile. 'My foul-mouthed warrior. ~ A.C. Gaughen

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 at midnight there came an apparition in hell. A handsome dark-eyed man with a dagger-like beard, in a tailcoat, stepped onto the veranda and cast a regal glance over his domain. They used to say, the mystics used to say, that there was a time when the handsome man wore not a tailcoat but a wide leather belt with pistol butts sticking out from it, and his raven hair was tied with scarlet silk, and under his command a brig sailed the Caribbean under a black death flag with a skull and crossbones.
But no, no! The seductive mystics are lying, there are no Caribbean Seas in the world, no desperate freebooters to sail them, no corvette chases after them, no cannon smoke drifts across the waves. There is nothing, and there was nothing! There is that sickly linden over there, there is the cast-iron fence, and the boulevard beyond it…And the ice is melting in the bowl, and at the next table you see someone's bloodshot, bovine eyes, and you're afraid, afraid…Oh, gods, my gods, poison, bring me poison!... ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

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

Lacing their fingers together, Kai lifted the back of her hand to his mouth. "Was there any reason in particular you wanted to show me this?"
"I'm not sure. I figured you know all about my biological family and the world I was born into, and you've of course had the great pleasure of meeting my adoptive family on numerous occasions, so this was the last piece of the puzzle." She waved her free arm around the room. "The missing link to my past."
Kai looked around one more time. "It's pretty creepy, actually."
"I know."
After another moment of reverent silence, Kai said, "I'm surprised Thorne hasn't asked if he can start leading guided tours down here. I bet you could charge a hefty admission fee."
Cinder snorted. "Please don't plant that idea in his head."
"Scarlet would never allow it anyway. ~ Marissa Meyer

The young man, perched insecurely in the slen­der branches, rocked till he felt slightly drunk, reached down the boughs, where the scarlet beady cherries hung thick underneath, and tore off handful after handful of the sleek, cool-fleshed fruit. Cherries touched his ears and his neck as he stretched forward, their chill fingertips sending a flash down his blood. All shades of red, from a golden vermilion to a rich crimson, glowed and met his eyes under a dark­ness of leaves. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Listen -

You are not a lonesome freeway with a history
of accidents, or the damaged record of
every pair of palms that tried to unravel you. You are
not a regret, not a letdown. Here you are, living
like a scarlet war - no part of you wants to be
real. This is when you need to open like a bud
to the arms that hold you, even if you prefer to run
from the sun into the shadowy sirens that call
your name like a prayer.

Repeat after me - you are a vessel of roses, and
you wont always be in bloom, but I promise that
the frost never stays for long. I promise that the
light will find you. ~ Bianca Sparacino

The grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Further and further afield he travelled. Taking ship, he sailed to a hot and passionate country where gypsy women dressed in scarlet, and their dark skin sweated as they danced tarantellas under a tambourine moon. ~ Geraldine McCaughrean

So from the mould
Scarlet and Gold
Many a Bulb will rise --
Hidden away, cunningly,
From sagacious eyes.

So from Cocoon
Many a Worm
Leap so Highland gay,
Peasants like me --
Peasants like Thee,
Gaze perplexedly! ~ Emily Dickinson

You traitorous bitch!" he yelled. "You goddamn liar!"
I laughed. "You knew I were a bitch and a liar when you married me, Guy. It's your own damn fault for agreeing to it. ~ A.C. Gaughen

I often felt like I was walking around with this Scarlet Letter stitched to my chest from the way that people treated me. ~ Toni Braxton

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

It's all right," said Wolf. "You loved her. I would feel the same if someone wanted to erase Scarlet's identity and give it to Levana's army.
Scarlet stiffened, heat rushing into her cheeks. He certainly wasn't insinuating ...
"Aaaaw," squealed Iko. "Did Wolf just say that he loves Scarlet? That's so cute!"
Scarlet cringed. "He did not
that wasn't
" She balled her fists against her sides. "Can we get back to these soldiers that are being rounded up, please?"
"Is she blushing? She sounds like she's blushing."
"She's blushing," Thorne confirmed, shuffling the cards. "Actually, Wolf is also looking a little flustered
~ Marissa Meyer

I would never tell you what to believe, Daniel, so please don't tell me that my opinion is wrong. We should be allowed a few basic human rights in life: the right to decide what goes into our bodies and the right to have an opinion without feeling shamed for it. ~ Jewel E. Ann

I, too, was walking on air. Lou turned, her mouth a scarlet orb, as I have seen the sunset over Belgium, over the crinked line of shore, over the dim blue mystic curve of sea and sky; with the thought in my mind beating in tune with my excited heart. We didn't miss the arsenal this time. I was the arsenal too. I had exploded. I was the slayer and the slain! And there sailed Lou across the sky to meet me. ~ Aleister Crowley

I've never been much of a fancy smelling product guy, but this woman can drip me in chocolate and roll me in sugar and I'll beg her to do it again. ~ Scarlet Hope

The planet, saved for another day, stokes up
its slow-burning gases and toxic dust, gold rift and scarlet
gash that take our breath away; a world at its interminable
show of holy dying. And we go with it, the old
gatherer and hunter. To its gaudy-day, though the contribution
is small, adding our handsel of warm clay. ~ David Malouf

Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a little longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honor is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake. ~ Emmuska Orczy

Amelia and Poppy both glanced at their younger sister quizzically. "Do you know what we're talking about, Bea?" Amelia asked.
"Yes, of course. Merripen's in love with her. I knew it a long time ago, from the way he washed her window."
"Washed her window?" both older sisters asked at the same time.
"Yes, when we lived in the cottage at Primrose Place. Win's room had a casement window that looked out onto the big maple tree - do you remember? After the scarlet fever, when Win couldn't get out of bed for the longest time and she was too weak to hold a book, she would just lie there and watch a birds' nest on one of the tree limbs. She saw the baby swallows hatch and learn to fly. One day she complained that the window was so dirty, she could barely see through it, and it made the sky look grayish. So from then on Merripen always kept the glass spotless. Sometimes he climbed a ladder to wash the outside, and you know how afraid of heights he is. You never saw him do that?"
"No," Amelia said with difficulty, her eyes stinging. "I didn't know he did that."
"Merripen said the sky should always be blue for her," Beatrix said. "And that was when I knew he … are you crying, Poppy?"
Poppy used a napkin to dab at the corners of her eyes. "No. I just inh-haled some pepper."
"So did I," Amelia said, blowing her nose. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Scarlet, when aware that she was consciously asking her friend for advice and support, felt guilty, for she had come to believe that advice and support were commodities for which you paid professionals, rather as you paid prostitutes for love and bought your vegetables instead of growing them yourself. ~ Alice Thomas Ellis

The Devil's Rose

You would never take a rose from a beast.
If his callous hand were to hold out a scarlet flower, his grip unaffected by pricking thorns, you would shrink from the gift and refuse it. I know that is what you would do.

But the cunning beast will have his beauty.

He hunts not in hopeless pursuit, for fear would have you sprint all the day long. Thus, he turns toward the shadows and clutches the rosebud, crunching and twisting until every delicate petal is detached. One falls not far from your feet, and you notice the red spot in the snow.

The color sparkles in the sunlight, catching your curious eye. No beast stands in sight; there is nothing to fear, so you dare retrieve the lone petal. The touch of temptation is velvet against your thumb. It carries a scent you bring to your nose, and both eyes close to float on a cloud of perfume.

As your lashes lift, another scarlet drop stains the snow at a near distance. A glance around perceives no danger, and so your footprints scar the snowflakes to retrieve another rosy leaflet as soft and sweet as the first. Your eyes shine with flecks of golden greed at the discovery of more discarded petals, and you blame the wind for scattering them mere footprints apart. All you want is a few, so you step and snatch, step and snatch, step and snatch.

Soon, there is enough velvet to rub against your cheek like a silken kerchief. Your collection of one-plus ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The warm afternoon, the garden, the tray of empty glasses on the grass, succeeded in conveying foreboding and dissatisfaction; even the roses seemed to threaten violence, brimming over their plots of earth or arrested, scarlet, on the white wall of the house.

A Place in the Country ~ Shirley Hazzard

Truly, Autumn is my season," the scarlet beast chorted. "Spring and Summer and Winter all begin with such late letters! But Autumn and Fall, I have loved best, because they are best to love. ~ Catherynne M Valente

The blossoms seem unusually lovely this year. There were none of the scarlet-and-white-striped curtains that are set up among the blossoming trees so invariably that one has to come to think of them as the attire of cherry blossoms; there were no bustling tea-stalls, no holiday crowds of flower-viewers, no one hawking balloons and toy windmills; instead there were only the cherry trees blossoming undisturbed among the evergreens, making one feel as though he were seeing the naked bodies of the blossoms. Nature's free bounty and useless extravagance had never appeared so fantastically beautiful as it did this spring. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that Nature had come to reconquer the earth for herself. ~ Yukio Mishima

We were in the autumnlands.
Dim as it was, the forest glowed. The golden leaves flashing by blazed like sparks caught in the updraft of a fire. A scarlet carpet unrolled before us, rich and flawless as velvet. Rising from the forest floor, the black, tangled roots breathed a bluish mist that reduced the farthest trees' trunks to ghostly silhouettes, yet left their foliage's luminous hues untouched. Vivid moss speckled the branches like tarnished copper. The crisp spice of pine sap infused the cool air over a musty perfume of dry leaves. A knot swelled in my throat. I couldn't look away. There was too much of it, too fast. I'd never be able to drink it all in... ~ Margaret Rogerson

Scarlet realized that in the five years since last she'd seen him, she'd come to match her father's height. They stood eye to eye; she burning up on the inside, he frowning as though he wanted to be sorry but couldn't quite grasp the emotion. ~ Marissa Meyer

Then she laughed out loud and hugged him tight with both arms. She smelled like pine trees and lichens and hot sand. How odd, thought Roger, that after all, this is what it took - not a flock of scarlet ibises or golden-crowned kinglets, but just the names of chicken, hovering in the air like the sulpher butterflies at the dump. ~ Bailey White