Violet Mathers Quotes

I fear the democratization of plastic surgery, when it's so cheap that everyone - the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker - goes under the knife and winds up looking like these tightly pulled, slightly surprised-looking society and celebrity aliens from Planet Botox. . . . When I was young, I could have bottled up my self-loathing and filled a mile of train cars with it. Now that I'm old, I can't think of anyone I'd rather be than me. . . . That's what we need now: surgeons who can slice away the self-consciousness, the fear, the loneliness, and inject a little hope instead. A little love. Or a doctor who implants only high spirits, penchants for practical jokes, or the ability to cha-cha even to a dirge beat. ~ Lorna Landvik

That's where the importance of nurturing comes in; the already sculpted personality is not recast, but refined. Loving, caring families can sand and polish, but they can't chip away at a lawn ornament and turn it into Michelangelo's David. Or vice versa. Want another analogy? Regarding personality, I am convinced that at birth the cake is already baked. Nurture is the nuts or frosting, but if you're a spice cake you're a spice cake, and nothing is going to change you into an angel food. ~ Lorna Landvik

Aunt Hilda,' Violet ~ Laurel Remington

That was one thing the Divines had taught us: treasure every precious moment. Do the things you've always dreamed of doing. Spend as much time as you can with the ones you love, because tomorrow you might not get the chance. ~ Violet Cross

She could see all of Ferenwood from here: the rolling hills, the endless explosion of color cascading down and across the lush landscape. Reds and blues: Maroon and ceruleans. Yellow and tangerine and violet and aquamarine. Every hue held a flavor, a heartbeat, a life. She took a deep breath and drew it all in. ~ Tahereh Mafi

We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us - and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject. - How beautiful are the retired flowers! how would they lose their beauty were they to throng into the highway crying out, "admire me I am a violet! dote upon me I am a primrose!" ~ John Keats

The magicked dress danced over to the princess. Despite her misgivings, she stood up to receive it- it would have been rude not to. The dress easily smoothed itself over her. Dark green velvet skirts, full and soft, twirled around down to her ankles. Golden buttons fastened themselves up the placket on the bodice and over the elegant, tight sleeves. From her elbows, wisps of dark green mist flowed to the ground for tippets. A collar around her neck drifted out into a cape of the same material.
"Truly, you are the most beautiful princess in the world," a fairy breathed.
Aurora Rose looked at herself in the mirror of dewdrops. She was indeed the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Long neck, golden hair, wide violet eyes, narrow waist, lips perfectly pink and rosy.
She turned, just a little bit, to see how her figure looked from a different angle. The green velvet flowed softly and majestically, making delicious little noises when its folds rippled. As talented as the castle seamstresses were, the princess had never worn anything as elegant or perfect as this. ~ Liz Braswell

Do you like books, Lady Murray?' Lavinia asked.
'Just to read,' Violet said.
'A mistake. A very big mistake. A poorly bound book disintegrates. Where would our learning be then? We need something permanent, solid. We need to treat words with the respect they are due. Treasure them. Adorn the books that contain these words with leather bindings, illuminate their words with gold. We shouldn't treat learning lightly.'
'But I would treat a word scrawled on a scrap of paper with the same respect as one written on an illuminated manuscript. ~ Alice Thompson

He threw up his hands and said, "And you know I fucking love you. So?"
I looked into his right eye, then his left, back and forth.
"Why do you love me?"
I knew what I wanted, but on his side, I didn't want it to be because I could be so bad for him. I didn't want to be a pretty fist that he could bang himself into. I leaned against the wall, my head right by the keypad. "If we're going to take a run at this, it has to be more than good sex and your masochism."
I wasn't sure he was going to answer. I wasn't sure he had a reason, and he could be so hard to read. But then he smiled.
"Because everyone on this shithole planet says a lot of pretty words to make themselves look good while they do awful things", he said. "You're the opposite."
It was a good answer. A good thing to say. I peered from one eye to the other, back and forth, harder than I had looked into Clark's eyes or the gun's. Birdwine's left one was rimmed in black and violet, still swollen. I watched his pupils expand as I leaned up. There was a fair amount of crazy present, sure, but in the darkness of his eyes I saw myself reflected clearly. I was real to him. He saw me all the way down to the bottom and knew every awful thing I'd done. More - he knew all that I was capable of doing, and yet, he looked at me like I was something worthy and good.
"Come upstairs," I said. There was a promise in the words that spoke to more than sex. I thought it was implicit. But he only waited, si ~ Joshilyn Jackson

When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. ~ James Joyce

To see you naked is to remember the Earth,
the smooth Earth, clean of horses,
the Earth without reeds, pure form,
closed to the future, confine of silver.
To see you naked is to understand the desire
of rain that looks for the delicate waist,
or the fever of the broad-faced sea
that cannot find the light of its cheek.
Blood will ring through the bedrooms
and will come with flaming swords,
but you will not know the hiding places
of the violet or the heart of the toad.
Your womb is a struggle of roots.
Your lips are a dawn without contour.
Under the lukewarm roses of the bed
the dead men moan, awaiting their return. ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

Siva's violet eyes flashed at me. "I'm sorry your weekend was ruined."
"I'm sorry your house was trashed," I laughed.
His lips lifted. "Good point."

Siva and Sloane ~ Micalea Smeltzer

Starry, starry night, flaming flowers that brightly blaze, swirling clouds in violet haze reflect Vincent's eyes of china blue. ~ Don McLean

You can't marry her," Araminta insisted.
Benedict turned to his mother. "Is there any reason I need to consult Lady Penwood about this?"
"None that I can think of," Lady Bridgerton replied.
"She is nothing but a whore," Araminta hissed. "Her mother was a whore, and blood runs - urp!"
Benedict had her by the throat before anyone was even aware that he had moved. "Don't," he warned, "make me hit you."
The magistrate tapped Benedict on the shoulder. "You really ought to let her go."
"Might I muzzle her?"
The magistrate looked torn, but eventually he shook his head. ~ Julia Quinn

I stepped closer still. He closed his eyes again and covered my hand with his own. 'You smell of violets. You always smell of violets,' he said. 'You've no idea how many times I have walked these moors and smelled them and thought you were near. On and on I walked, following the scent of you, and you were never there. When I saw you in the hall tonight, I thought I had finally gone mad. ~ Deanna Raybourn

Twisting and wiring and stringing starching and curling, delicately painting spots and shadings on scraps of silk until what had been nothing more than a pile of brightly colored fragments had been transformed into the silk irises, forget-me-not, violets and roses that would adorn the hats of women and girls more fortunate than themselves. ~ Melanie McGrath

Thanks for giving me a place to sleep last night,
and for the extra blanket.
Vi.
-Violet's note to Lincoln ~ Jessica Shirvington

Principles are like prayers; noble, of course, but awkward at a party. ~ Lady Violet

I had low self-esteem. I just really wanted attention and love from somebody. ~ Kim Mathers

By Jove, it's great! Walk along the streets on some spring morning. The little women, daintily tripping along, seem to blossom out like flowers. What a delightful, charming sight! The dainty perfume of violet is everywhere. The city is gay, and everybody notices the women. By Jove, how tempting they are in their light, thin dresses, which occasionally give one a glimpse of the delicate pink flesh beneath!

"One saunters along, head up, mind alert, and eyes open. I tell you it's great! You see her in the distance, while still a block away; you already know that she is going to please you at closer quarters. You can recognize her by the flower on her hat, the toss of her head, or her gait. She approaches, and you say to yourself: 'Look out, here she is!' You come closer to her and you devour her with your eyes.

"Is it a young girl running errands for some store, a young woman returning from church, or hastening to see her lover? What do you care? Her well-rounded bosom shows through the thin waist. Oh, if you could only take her in your arms and fondle and kiss her! Her glance may be timid or bold, her hair light or dark. What difference does it make? She brushes against you, and a cold shiver runs down your spine. Ah, how you wish for her all day! How many of these dear creatures have I met this way, and how wildly in love I would have been had I known them more intimately.

"Have you ever noticed that the ones we would love the most distractedly ~ Guy De Maupassant

She wanted to touch him, to throw her arms around him - but something held her back. Maybe it was the fear that her arms would pass right through him, that she would have come all this way only to find a ghost after all.

As though he'd been able to read her thoughts, he slowly angled toward her. He raised his hands and held his palms out to her. Isobel lifted her own hands to mirror his. He pressed their palms together, his fingers folding down to lace through hers. She felt a rush of warmth course through her, a relief as pure and sweet as spring rain.

He was real. This was real. She had found him. She could touch him. She could feel him. Finally they were together. Finally, finally, they could forget this wasted world and go home.

"I knew it wasn't true," she whispered. "I knew you wouldn't stop believing." He drew her close.
Leaning into him, she felt him press his lips to her forehead in a kiss. As he spoke, the cool metal of his lip ring grazed her skin, causing a shudder to ripple through her.

"You..." His voice, low and breathy, reverberated through her, down to the thin soles of her slippers. "You think you're different," he said. She felt his hands tighten around hers, gripping hard, too hard.
A streak of violet lightning split the sky, striking close behind them.

The house, Isobel thought. It had been struck. She could hear it cracking apart. She looked for only a brief moment, long enough to watch i ~ Kelly Creagh

I pushed passed him. He grabbed my hand and swung me back towards him. Then he pushed me against the wall and ... he kissed me.
He ran his thumb along my jawline and down my throat, hips pinning me to the wall. He kissed me slowly and with intensity, and once I got over the mind-numbing shock and comprehended what was actually happening, it was incredible. I had never been kissed like that before. We melted together. Every movement of mine was somehow perfectly mirrored by his. My heart was pounding so hard I knew he must be able to feel it and I was sure my legs were giving way, but he held me up, pushed me harder against the wall.
I grabbed a handful of his hair, remembering all the times I'd dreamed of doing it. I let my hand drift down his back and pulled him even closer to me. It all happened so quickly. I heard him make a low kind of growl and lean into me. His hand slid down my leg behind my knee, drawing it to him. I moaned and felt him tense. ~ Jessica Shirvington

He sighed, his hands tangling themselves in my already-knotted hair. Violet, don't ever leave me. Whatever happens; however things get, just don't go. Please. ~ Abigail Gibbs

An early spring started one morning in March with a swarm of sudden, glassy, bird cries, and then the cool jewelry of primrose and violet loosened themselves in the dirt. Then summer burst into the world like a gorgeous car accident- opening eyes all over our bodies in the brilliant light. Fall- the smell of pumpkin guts, sluttish and unsweetened. Until winter fell all over us like pieces of heaven, glazed with oxygen or ether, hitting the grounder in small, cold shards. It was like a year in Eden where no Eve had ever lived. ~ Laura Kasischke

Across my life only one work will be written: "waste" _ waste of love, waste of talent, waste of enterprise. ~ Violet Trefusis

On fine summer evenings, at the hour when the warm streets are empty and the maids play shuttlecock in doorways, he would open his window and lean out on the sill. The river, which turns this part of Rouen into a sort of shabby little Venice, flowed by beneath him, yellow, violet or blue between its bridges and its railings. Some workmen were crouched down on the bank, washing their arms in the water. On poles projecting from the lofts up above, skeins of cotton hung out to dry. In front, away beyond the roof-tops, was a pure expanse of sky with a red sun setting. How good it would be over yonder, now! How cool under the beeches! He opened his nostrils to breathe in the wholesome country smells - which failed to reach him here. ~ Gustave Flaubert

As you say, I can feel it and I can smell it, but for me it's still a black rose. ~ Violet Winspear

I myself am quite absorbed by the delicate yellow, delicate soft green, delicate violet of a ploughed and weeded piece of soil. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

I think the King is but a man as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me. ~ William Shakespeare

We who were not so pathologically far out on the spectrum of self-involvement, we dwellers of the visible spectrum who could imagine how it felt to go beyond violet but were not ourselves beyond it, could see that David was wrong not to believe in his lovability and could imagine the pain of not believing in it. How easy and natural love is if you are well! And how gruesomely difficult--what a philosophically daunting contraption of self-interest and self-delusion love appears to be--if you are not! And yet ... the difference between well and not well is in more respects a difference of degree than of kind. Even though David laughed at my much milder addictions and liked to tell me that I couldn't even conceive of how moderate I was, I can still extrapolate from these addictions, and from the secretiveness and solipsism and radical isolation and raw animal craving that accompany them, to the extremity of his. I can imagine the sick mental pathways by which suicide comes to seem like the one consciousness-quenching substance that nobody can take away from you. ~ Jonathan Franzen

What can I do?" Klaus asked.
"You can pray this works," Violet said, but the Baudelaire sisters were so quick with their tasks that there was no time for even the shortest of religious ceremonies. ~ Lemony Snicket

He took blue and red and placed them next to each other, painting the eyes of an angel. And I saw the angel's eyes turn violet ~ Milorad Pavic

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks. ~ Tennessee Williams

We do not suit. You have no genuine interest in botany!"Lady Violet practically yelled her final conclusion. This was the biggest sin of them all. ~ Gail Carriger

Violet, there a reason Joe Callahan is lookin' at me like he wants to rip my head off? ~ Kristen Ashley

The Troubadours Etc."

Just for this evening, let's not mock them.
Not their curtsies or cross-garters
or ever-recurring pepper trees in their gardens
promising, promising.

At least they had ideas about love.

All day we've driven past cornfields, past cows poking their heads
through metal contraptions to eat.
We've followed West 84, and what else?
Irrigation sprinklers fly past us, huge wooden spools in the fields,
lounging sheep, telephone wires,
yellowing flowering shrubs.

Before us, above us, the clouds swell, layers of them,
the violet underneath of clouds.
Every idea I have is nostalgia. Look up:
there is the sky that passenger pigeons darkened and filled -
darkened for days, eclipsing sun, eclipsing all other sound
with the thunder of their wings.
After a while, it must have seemed that they followed
not instinct or pattern but only
one another.

When they stopped, Audubon observed,
they broke the limbs of stout trees by the weight of the numbers.

And when we stop we'll follow - what?
Our hearts?

The Puritans thought that we are granted the ability to love
only through miracle,
but the troubadours knew how to burn themselves through,
how to make themselves shrines to their own longing.
The spectacular was never behind them.

Think of days of those scarlet-breasted, blue-winged ~ Mary Szybist

Hey, did you hear about Brad Miller?" he asked, already forgetting about the Lissie conversation. "He got his car taken away for getting another speeding ticket. Of course he tried to tell his parents it was a setup."
Violet laughed. "Yeah, because the police have nothing better to do than to plan a sting operation targeting eleventh-grade idiots." She was more than willing to go along with this diversion from conversations about Jay and his many admirers.
Jay laughed too, shaking his head. "You're so cold-hearted," he said to Violet, shoving her a little but playing along. "How's he supposed to go cruising for unsuspecting freshmen and sophomores without a car? What willing girl is going to ride on the handlebars of his ten-speed?"
"I don't see you driving anything but your mom's car yet. At least he has a bike," she said, turning on him now.
He pushed her again. "Hey!" he tried to defend himself. "I'm still saving! Not all of us are born with a silver spoon in our mouths."
They were both laughing, hard now. The silver spoon joke had been used before, whenever one of them had something the other didn't.
"Right!" Violet protested. "Have you seen my car?" This time she shoved him, and a full-scale war broke out on the couch.
"Poor little rich girl!" Jay accused, grabbing her arm and pulling her down.
She giggled and tried to give him the dreaded "dead leg" by hitting him with her knuckle in the thigh. But he was too strong, and what used ~ Kimberly Derting

When violet eyes get brighter
And heavy wings grow lighter
I'll taste the sky and feel alive again
And I'll forget the world that I knew
But I swear I won't forget you
Oh if my voice could reach back through the past
I'd whisper in your ear:
Oh darling I wish you were here. ~ Owl City

Here eglantine embalm'd the air, Hawthorne and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Fox-glove and nightshade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Group'd their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain. ~ Walter Scott

Violet couldn't help it - she giggled. Just a little. It was just too much. The whole thing. Jay trying to trick her into revealing her feelings for him. Grady trying to kiss her last night. And then this . . . now . . . she and Jay cuddled up together on her bed . . . making out. It was crazy.
"You think that's funny, huh?" He seemed a little bent that she was laughing at him.
"Joke's on me, I guess," she said, serious now. "I get to sit at home, while you and Lissie Adams go to Homecoming." She tried to sound like it was no big deal, but the truth was that it strung more than she wanted it to.
Jay reached up and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. He pulled her toward him, staring her in the eye as they closed the distance between them. Violet felt an agonizing thrill at just being so near him again. "I called her last night to candle after I dropped you off." His voice was thick and husky, giving her chills. "I told her I was going to the dance with you instead."
Violet thought her heart was going to burst. It was exactly what she'd wanted to hear for weeks, maybe even for months. But she wasn't about to let him off the hook that easily for his devious little game. "Sorry," she offered with mock sincerity. "I have a date already. Besides, I don't remember you asking me."
He narrowed his eyes at her, as if daring her to argue the point. "I'm your date. Grady can go to hell, for all I care. Maybe Lissie'll go with him and he can paw on her ~ Kimberly Derting

The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky ~ Edgar Allan Poe

I stared at the nose I'd seen bleeding only hours before, the violet eyes that had been so filled with pain. "Why?" I asked.
He knew what I meant, and shurugged. "Because when the legends get written, I didn't want to be remembered for standing on the sidelines. I want my future offspring to know that I was there, and that I fought against her at the end, even if I couldn't do anything useful."
I blinked, this time not at the brightness of the sun.
"Because," he went on his eyes locked with mine, "I didn't want you to fight alone. Or die alone."
And for a moment, I remembered that faerie who had died in our foyer, and how I'd told Tamlin the same thing. "Thank you," I said, my throat tight.
Rhys flashed a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. " I doubt you'll be saying that when I take you to the Night Court. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Charlotte Stokehurst," Violet Bridgerton announced, "is getting married."
"Today?" Hyacinth queried, taking off her gloves.
Her mother gave her a look. "She has become engaged. Her mother told me this morning."
Hyacinth looked around. "Were you waiting for me in the hall?"
"To the Earl of Renton," Violet added. "Renton."
"Have we any tea?" Hyacinth asked. "I walked all the way home, and I'm thirsty."
"Renton!" Violet exclaimed, looking about ready to throw up her hands in despair. "Did you hear me?"
"Renton," Hyacinth said obligingly. "He has fat ankles."
"He's - " Violet stopped short. "Why were you looking at his ankles? ~ Julia Quinn

Yeah," Violet says from where she's stooped on the floor. "But those weren't family tears." Whitney rakes her fingers through Hadley's hair. "What were they, then." "Those were boy tears," Violet says with a smile. ~ Jennifer E. Smith

This garden was peaceful and calm. Pink cherry blossoms and violet plum blossoms graced the sweeping trees. The petals fell like snowflakes, dancing and swirling until they touched the soft, verdant grass.
There was something familiar about this place.
Her eyes traveled down the flat stone steps. She knew this path, knew those stones. The third one from the bottom had a crack in the middle- from when she was five and the neighbor's boy convinced her there were worms on the other side of the stones. She'd hammered the stone in half, eager to catch a few worms to play with.
There weren't any, of course, but her mother had helped her find some dragonflies by the pond instead, and they'd spent an afternoon counting them in the garden.
Mulan smiled wistfully at the memory. This can't be the same garden. I'm in Diyu.
Yet no painter could have re-created what she saw more convincingly. Every detail was as she remembered. At the bottom of the stone-cobbled path was a pond with rose-flushed lilies, and a marble bench under the cherry tree. She used to play by the pond when she was a little girl, catching frogs and fireflies in wine jugs and feeding the fish leftover rice husks and sesame seeds until her mother scolded her.
And beyond the moon gate was-
Mulan's hand jumped to her mouth.
Home.
That smell of home- of Baba's incense from the family temple, sharp with amber and cedar; of noodles in Grandmother Fa's special pork broth; of jasmine ~ Elizabeth Lim