Urban Gardens Quotes

I believe in magic. Writing is my magic wand, and through my magic I create my own secret world, away from all these worries and responsibilities. Love, honesty and humanity is essential to enter this beautiful world of magic. I dwell among White magical peacocks, glowing unicorns, fire breathing turquoise dragons, talking trees, flying horses, talking wise jackals and wolves, crystal water falls, secret pathways hidden in urban gardens and books with doorways to secret worlds. You need to believe in magic to experience it. ~ Ama H. Vanniarachchy

That's my little piece of heaven. Go ahead."
Ciro followed Remo through the open door to a small enclosed garden. Terra-cotta pots positioned along the top of the stone wall spilled over with red geraniums and orange impatiens. An elm tree with a wide trunk and deep roots filled the center of the garden. Its green leaves and thick branches reached past the roof of Remo's building, creating a canopy over the garden. There was a small white marble birdbath, gray with soot, flanked by two deep wicker armchairs.
Remo fished a cigarette out of his pocket, offering another to Ciro as both men took a seat. "This is where I come to think."
"Va bene," Ciro said as he looked up into the tree. He remembered the thousands of trees that blanketed the Alps; here on Mulberry Street, one tree with peeling gray bark and holes in its leaves was cause for celebration. ~ Adriana Trigiani

I'd like to say it could have been worse. I'm sure lots of people hate their job, or their boss, or the people they work with. I just couldn't relate to those people. They have options. They can quit their job, move out of town, or drop off the grid. The only option I had was a guaranteed one-way ticket to Hell when I died, and that didn't include dental. ~ H.D. Smith

London is a friend whom I can leave knowing without doubt that she will be the same to me when I return, to-morrow or forty years hence, and that, if I do not return, she will sing the same song to inheritors of my happy lot in future generations. Always, whether sleeping or waking, I shall know that in Spring the sun rides over the silver streets of Kensington, and that in the Gardens the shorn sheep find very green pasture. Always the plaited threads of traffic will wind about the reel of London; always as you up Regent Street from Pall Mall and look back, Westminster will rise with you like a dim sun over the horizon of Whitehall. That dive down Fleet Street and up to the black and white cliffs of St. Paul's will for ever bring to mind some rumour of romance. There is always a romance that we leave behind in London, and always London enlocks that flower for us, and keeps it fresh, so that when we come back we have our romance again. ~ Stella Benson

The expression 'three is a crowd' holds true for both romance and politics. A three-way race is a disaster, because it splits the ballots, making it almost impossible to gain a majority of the votes. It usually results in a runoff. ~ Evette Davis

Each of the Iraqi children killed by the United States was our child. Each of the prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib was our comrade. Each of their screams was ours. When they were humiliated, we were humiliated. The U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq - mostly volunteers in a poverty draft from small towns and poor urban neighborhoods - are victims just as much as the Iraqis of the same horrendous process, which asks them to die for a victory that will never be theirs. ~ Arundhati Roy

Break open
A cherry tree
And there are no flowers;
But the spring breeze
Brings forth myriad blossoms. ~ Ikkyu

In an urban environment, a church building is a thing of the past. ~ Mark Batterson

It is easier for me to take ten good pictures in an airplane bathroom than in the gardens at Versailles. ~ Sally Mann

The process of simplifying man's environment and rendering it increasingly elemental and crude has a cultural as well as a physical dimension. The need to manipulate immense urban populations - to transport, feed, employ, educate and somehow entertain millions of densely concentrated people - leads to a crucial decline in civic and social standards. A mass concept of human relations - totalitarian, centralistic and regimented in orientation - tends to dominate the more individuated concepts of the past. Bureaucratic techniques of social management tend to replace humanistic approaches. All that is spontaneous, creative and individuated is circumscribed by the standardized, the regulated and the massified. The space of the individual is steadily narrowed by restrictions imposed upon him by a faceless, impersonal social apparatus. Any recognition of unique personal qualities is increasingly surrendered to the manipulation of the lowest common denominator of the mass. A quantitative, statistical approach, a beehive manner of dealing with man, tends to triumph over the precious individualized and qualitative approach which places the strongest emphasis on personal uniqueness, free expression and cultural complexity. ~ Murray Bookchin

I pulled Thanos in for a kiss, surprising him. I wasn't sure if it was our bond or the fear this might be my last kiss, but I didn't hold anything back. I let him in. He took full advantage, plundering my mouth as if I were the last woman on Earth, which could have been a result of him being trapped in a desolate wasteland for the last five hundred years - but I decided not to overthink it. ~ H.D. Smith

Still,he noticed that though the house was in poor shape, the gardens were perfect. The paths were well lined, the flower beds filled with roses and lilacs, the trees well trimmed.
He smiled darkly.His beautiful little angel of trouble must have run out of time. ~ Karen Hawkins

Small pleasures must correct great tragedies, therefore of gardens in the midst of war I bold tell. ~ Vita Sackville-West

It's easy to blame the nature-deficit disorder on the kids' or the parents' back, but they also need the help of urban planners, schools, libraries and other community agents to find nature that's accessible. ~ Richard Louv

Now, what is food? Why is food so important? Why do human beings need so much of it - three times a day, every day, year after year? Why do they live on food instead of on something else? Wouldn't it be better if human beings didn't need food at all? Wouldn't it be better if they could live on air, for instance? Get stronger and bigger by breathing sea air, or the air of the mountains, or the forests, or the meadows, or the vineyards and orchards, the wheat fields, the gardens all over the world? Wouldn't that be a better way for men to stay alive?
(spoken by 10-year-old Aram Saroyan) ~ William, Saroyan

What I find more remarkable, however, is how readily many people in our society believe outlandish and unsubstantiated urban myths and conspiracies (Pop Rocks and Coke, JFK assassination, AIDS is man-made, etc.), yet disregard thousands of personal and consistent testimonies of miracles and near-death experiences from people throughout all cultures and religions. ~ Mary C. Neal

Urban evangelism requires immersion in the various cultures' greatest hopes, fears, views, and objections to Christianity. ~ Timothy Keller

Another agricultural trend of growing concern is the increased nutrient content of coastal waters resulting from fertilizer runoff in agricultural regions. Augmented by urban sewage discharge in some situations, this results in huge algal blooms, which, as they die and decay, deplete the oxygen content in the water, leading to the death of the fish. ~ Lester R. Brown

Where are they now? she thought. Her iPod, her iPhone, her iPad, the I-ness of her life? Her mind stretched around in its memories, searching for her things: She saw her phone on the hotel bedside table in Paris; her iPad in her Louis Vuitton urban satchel; her iPod slipping from her pocket in the restaurant, the night before she ran away. ~ Jaclyn Moriarty

Unclaimed or abandoned bodies. There could be no stronger definition of loneliness. ~ David Grant Urban

Love and hate aren't as far apart as you think. ~ Lisa Kessler

I decided to have a regular childhood and not pursue [acting] until I left school, although I wrote plays, directed plays, and got involved in theatre at school. When I left school I decided that's that I was going to pursue and gave it a crack. ~ Karl Urban

It is no disparagement to the garden to say it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns ... It will remain a garden only if someone does all these things to it ... If you want to see the difference between [the garden's] contribution and the gardener's, put the commonest weed it grows side by side with his hoes rakes, shears, and a packet of weed killer; you have put beauty, energy, and fecundity beside dead, steril things. Just so, our 'decency and common sense' show grey and deathlike beside the geniality of love. ~ C.S. Lewis

People's souls are like gardens. You can't turn your back on someone because his garden's full of weeds. You have to give him water and lots of sunshine. ~ Nancy Farmer

Teach for America recruits top recent college grads, young professionals, people we believe are the U.S.'s most promising future leaders, and asks them to commit two years to teach in high-need urban and rural communities. ~ Wendy Kopp

In Asian gardens you could look at rock and imagine water, you could gaze at a still pool and believe it had the hardness of rock. ~ Michael Ondaatje

Later that year, the Voting Rights Act opened the door for thousands to register for the first time. ~ Junius Williams

Sleep," he commanded.
"You need to rest after being jumped."
"You could jump me. ~ Erin Kellison

She wonders sometimes if it's a sort of flaw or lack in her - the inability to lose herself in someone else ... she's never quite understood how people could trade in quiet spaces and solitary gardens and courtyards, thoughtful walks and the delicious rhythms of work, for the fearful tumult of falling in love. ~ Diana Abu-Jaber

You got the list?" Lewis asked.
"What the hell is the deal with the temperature?"
"Razel is not allowed to sweat," Maximo answered. "If she does,
fanatics will appear from nowhere like mischievous sprites and bottle
each drop and then sell it on eBay for millions. ~ Elizabeth Morgan

Visitation Street is urban opera writ large. Gritty and magical, filled with mystery, poetry and pain, Ivy Pochoda's voice recalls Richard Price, Junot Diaz, and even Alice Sebold, yet it's indelibly her own. ~ Dennis Lehane

pushed her hair behind her ear and cleared her throat. "I guess we ought to get on with Tuffie's checkup. So you can get back to saving the world and everything. ~ Paige Tyler

We stared at each other, bound by common experience, but each looking at the other through the steady crosshairs of inherent distrust. ~ David Grant Urban

June!" I call out. She turns into my stunpike and shudders as the electricity dumbs down her muscles. That's how I steal their cook.
Cassius finds me running with June over my shoulder through their gardens.
"What the hell?"
"She's a cook!" I explain.
He laughs so hard he can barely breathe. ~ Pierce Brown

She killed to get the dream she wanted, then found out it didn't want her back. ~ Robyn Hugo McIntyre

Urban survival rule 22: Never annoy an armed man. ~ Kelley Armstrong

I figured even the most jaded and cynical inhabitant might report a bloody girl in a party dress carrying a severed head by its hair. ~ Faith Hunter