Wilting Quotes

I'm not a wilting flower, unless that gets me extraspecial treats. ~ Rachel Caine

i reached for the last bouquet of flowers you gave me now wilting in their vase one by one i popped their heads off and ate them ~ Rupi Kaur

you look just like your mother

i guess i do carry her tenderness well

you both have the same eyes

cause we are both exhausted

and the hands

we share the same wilting fingers

but that rage your mother doesn't wear that rage

you're right
this rage is the one thing
i get from my father ~ Rupi Kaur

While the train flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it is like to spend one's childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said. ~ Willa Cather

No question. I admit, you're not what I expected, but you're exactly what I want."
"What did you expect?"
"A sweet, reserved girl who wouldn't provoke my brother into stabbing her a hundred times."
"A wilting violet? Oh, come on, Key. You'd run all over her and forget about her in a week."
"I see that now." He grinned at her. "I keep trying to run all over you, but you're just so . . . stabby. ~ Trinity Faegen

When she had first held Jacob in her arms and pressed her lips to his tender, fragile scalp, it had felt as though she were being brought back to life, like a wilting plant being watered. ~ Liane Moriarty

I've never been the wilting flower. I've never been the girl who's subservient to a man. ~ Leven Rambin

To the Kathakali Man these stories are his children and his childhood. He has grown up within them. They are the house he was raised in, the meadows he played in. They are his windows and his way of seeing. So when he tells a story, he handles it as he would a child of his own. He teases it. He punishes it. He sends it up like a bubble. He wrestles it to the ground and lets it go again. He laughs at it because he loves it. He can fly you across whole worlds in minutes, he can stop for hours to examine a wilting leaf. Or play with a sleeping monkey's tail. He can turn effortlessly from the carnage of war into the felicity of a woman washing her hair in a mountain stream. From the crafty ebullience of a rakshasa with a new idea into a gossipy Malayali with a scandal to spread. From the sensuousness of a woman with a baby at her breast into the seductive mischief of Krishna's smile. He can reveal the nugget of sorrow that happiness contains. The hidden fish of shame in a sea of glory. ~ Arundhati Roy

He looks like the rich-boy villain in an '80s teen movie - the one who bullies the sensitive misfit, the one who will end up with a pie in the puss, the whipped cream wilting his upturned collar as everyone in the cafeteria cheers. ~ Gillian Flynn

You know, Micah, that first night, when I saw you on Bridge Street, I wanted to kill you. I wanted to cut your throat and watch your blood soak into the dirt. I wanted to wrap a strangle cord around your neck and throttle you while you kicked and messed yourself."
"I'm shaking in my boots," Micah said, looking Han dead in the eyes.
Han stood and took a step toward him. "I'm what's hiding in the side street when you walk home from The Four Horses," he said. "I'm the shadow in Greystone Alley when you go out to take a piss. I'm the foot pad in the corridor when you visit the girlie at Grievous Hall."
Micah's eyes narrowed, his self-assurance wilting a bit. Han could tell he was going back over a hundred suspicious sights and sounds. "You've been following me?"
"I can come and go from your room, any time I want," Han said. "I can tell you what you say when you talk in your sleep. I know what your down low girlie whispers in your ear." He laughed...
Michah licked his lips. "Perhaps you take some kind of perverse pleasure in stalking me... ~ Cinda Williams Chima

he could feel his hope wilting. ~ Anthony Doerr

The presumption took hold and grew ever firmer that it was the business of government to find solutions to all such problems. Any minister who sought to say that there was nothing that he could or should try to do about them was at once forced on to his defensive back foot by media and parliamentary pressure. At the same time, more citizens were ready to complain about the shortcomings of existing services, and more numerous and competent pressure groups, like the claimants' unions I had come across in supplementary benefits, arose to pursue their complaints. To cap it all, the courts began, and went on to widen, the practice of subjecting the administrative decisions of ministers to judicial review. No wonder that the ministers themselves, also wilting (as their American and French counterparts were not) under the pressures of increasing parliamentary business, found themselves in difficulties. ~ Richard Wilding

Once a blooming red rose, full of streaming life in its veins.
Now a wilting black petal rupturing with death and pain. ~ Jessica Sorensen

Some women feel the need to act like they're never scared, needy or hurt; like they're as hardened as a man. I think that's dishonest. It's ok to feel delicate sometimes. Real beauty is in the fragility of your petals. A rose that never wilts isn't a rose at all. ~ Crystal Woods

Lawrence probes the sensitivity and psychological detachment that man often feels towards his penis -- it does indeed seem to have a will of its own, an ego beyond its size, and is frequently embarrassing because of its needs, infatuations, and unpredictable nature. Men sometimes feel that their penis controls *them*, leads them astray, causes them to beg favors at night from women whose names they prefer to forget in the morning. Whether insatiable or insecure, it demands constant proof of its potency, introducing into a man's life unwanted complications and frequent rejection. Sensitive but resilient, equally available during the day or night with a minimum of coaxing, it has performed purposefully if not always skillfully for an eternity of centuries, endlessly searching, sensing, expanding, probing, penetrating, throbbing, wilting, and wanting more. Never concealing its prurient interest, it is a man's most honest organ. ~ Gay Talese

Dried out and curled up in a ball, me, I am like tea. Waiting to be immersed. Willing to unfold. Wanting to unfurl. Wailing silently to be exposed. Whimpering till that day. It seems I'm wilting and withering away. ~ Dharlene Marie Fahl

In Paul's day, instead of giving gold medals for winning first place in an Olympic event, a crown of olive or laurel leaves was placed on the winner's head. By the time the athlete went home that night, the wreath would already be wilting and falling apart. Think of that. All that energy expended for a wreath that didn't last beyond a day. ~ Bill Hybels

Yes, this was love, this ridiculous bouncing of the buttocks, and the wilting of the poor, insignificant, moist little penis. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Here's my problem. On Valentine's Day the flowers are wilting and so am I. ~ David Letterman

Obedient to no man, dependent only on weather and season, without a goal before them or a roof above them, owning nothing, open to every whim of fate, the homeless wanderers lead their childlike, brave, shabby existence. They are the sons of Adam, who was driven out of Paradise; the brothers of the animals, of innocence. Out of heaven's hand they accept what is given them from moment to moment: sun, rain, fog, snow, warmth, cold, comfort, and hardship; time does not exist for them and neither does history, or ambition, or that bizarre idol called progress and evolution, in which houseowners believe so desperately. A wayfarer may be delicate or crude, artful or awkward, brave or cowardly - he is always a child at heart, living in the first day of creation, before the beginning of the history of the world, his life always guided by a few simple instincts and needs. He may be intelligent or stupid; he may be deeply aware of the fleeting fragility of all living things, of how pettily and fearfully each living creature carries its bit of warm blood through the glaciers of cosmic space, or he may merely follow the commands of his poor stomach with childlike greed - he is always the opponent, the deadly enemy of the established proprietor, who hates him, despises him, or fears him, because he does not wish to be reminded that all existence is transitory, that life is constantly wilting, that merciless icy death fills the cosmos all around. ~ Hermann Hesse

Why Roses Crave Thorns"

Petals detach from a wilting bud - a single stem plucked before fully blossomed. They descend in hesitant swirls, too soft and limp to shatter like teardrops. One by one they light to blanket a single shadow below.

She is a rose, young and innocent, with beauty incomparable to shame all others. She has flowered enough to stop the observer in his tracks, awestruck. He is compelled to reach out and touch. The petals delight at a silken caress, her bud everything desirable but defenseless - without a sharp edge to make an admirer pause, to warn the intrusive hand. 'Stay back! Stay back!'

His fingers curl around the stem to tug, and suddenly the rose craves a thorn.

It is madness not to want her and yet madness to cut her down. Let the flower thrive and blush to someday flaunt layers of silken favors! But the world will not have it. A single stem is severed in a selfish moment of desire - a yearning to hold and possess.

Alone and forgotten her petals cry, raining in hesitant swirls where they accumulate to blanket her shadow below. Dry, withered, craving the thorns. Beautiful no more. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I am a runaway, lost at sea.
I am a broken bird, yearning to fly free.
I am a sinner, unworthy and unholy.
I am a rose, wilting slowly.
I am a raindrop, touching your cheek.
I am a child who plays hide and seek.
I am nothing, and yet I am everything.
I am contradictions and complexities.
I am a face with a hundred entities.
I am love and I am hate.
I am the voice that cannot communicate.
I am a melody, haunting and sad.
I am a soul that has slowly gone mad.
I am death in a living body.
I am a dangerous opium poppy.
I am rage, running through my veins.
I am pain, bound in chains.
I am isolation, imprisoned in my mind.
I am abandoned and left behind.
I am tenderness, soft and kind.
I am trust, naïve and blind.
I am remorse, shattered and frozen.
I am the path I have not chosen.
I am sadness, drowning in an ocean.
I am faith, yearning for devotion.
I am madness, rebellious and wild.
I am sanity, safely filed.
I am wisdom, cursed and blessed.
I am a name that will burn in your chest. I am a journey, destination unknown.
I am a heart turned to stone.
I am forever alone. ~ Mina Alexia

I think a funny picture would have a caption that read, "Believe in yourself," with an accompanying image of a wilting flower. ~ Jarod Kintz

Don't ever walk by a wilting plant. Get water on it right away. ~ Jack Dangermond

A Washington summer is a physical being: a shaggy, slobbering beast; relentless, inescapable, forever panting its heavy, humid breath into the face of each citizen and pushing its weight against the wilting populace, demanding attention-a constant, unwelcome companion. ~ Jennifer Bort Yacovissi

Love, he has abandoned me,
do with me as you will.
Love, he left - unceremoniously,
why must I love him still?
The best of me I gave to him -
the years, the days, the hours.
Precious little, in turn he'd given,
like dew to a wilting flower.
Love, he sheared away tenderly,
my beauty, my strength, my mind,
the gifts that were bestowed to me -
were swallowed in his pride.
Love, has he forgotten me?
Please tell me what you've heard,
I guard his memory jealously -
with him I'd place my worth. ~ Lang Leav

Love, time doth change."

The rose was red,
The color of love,
Its petals vibrant,
A sign of your love.
Its stem did twine,
Around my heart,
But it couldn't keep it pumping,
One day it failed to start.
As clouds parted,
Oceans apart,
We only had our memories,
To remember,
Our love would last.
But time went on,
Your love did change,
And so the rose,
Began to change.
Thorns grew wild,
Petals did fade,
My rose was wilting,
Showing its age.
Red was no more,
Black was the hue,
Without your love,
What was I to do?
I tended my garden,
The thoughts in my mind,
For you were still my love,
For me in my mind. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

Oh, I was so not a wilting flower. I'd let a man pick me up and carry me because I couldn't handle the price of using magic when I was dead. Again. ~ Devon Monk

I mean, when a man reaches ... a certain age," he tried again, "he knows the world is never going to be perfect. He's got used to it being a bit, a bit ... " "Manky?" Nobby suggested. Tucked behind his ear, in the place usually reserved for his cigarette, was another wilting lilac flower. "Exactly," said Colon. "Like, it's never going to be perfect, so you just do the best you can, right? But when there's a kid on the way, well, suddenly a man sees it different. He thinks: my kid's going to have to grow up in this mess. Time to clean it up. Time to make it a Better World. He gets a bit ... keen. Full of ginger. ~ Terry Pratchett

[On the cities of Venice and Varanasi]

Everywhere you look there is evidence of the enchantment of decay, of a kind of beauty that can only be revealed by a long, slow fading. ~ Amitav Ghosh

Jake, she whispered, the hot blast of her exhalation making him groan. He gave in and fisted his hands in her hair.
She opened to him at once, her body melting against his, wilting into his embrace so that it felt like his light pressure on her cheeks was all that held her upright. But her mouth was a hungry thing, her tongue diving in to tangle with his while her arms wound around his shoulders. He slanted his head to plunder her as deeply as he could, ravenous to explore every inch of her mouth.
Forget kissing. They were eating each other alive. ~ Cari Quinn

Van Gogh's sunflowers, it seems, are wilting, just like their real-life counterparts did. ~ Kassia St. Clair

Every moment in a woman's life was a deal, a deal for her body: first for its blooming and then for its wilting; first for her bleeding and then for her virginity and then for her bearing (counting only the sons) and for her widowing. ~ Shobha Rao

Okay," I say at last. "But you have to teach me how to do animals. I can't keep myself from wilting when I'm a plant, so I've been afraid to try a living form."
She laughs and shifts into the shape of a large golden retriever and almost licks me to death before I can make her stop. ~ Margaret Maron

She saw how he was staring at it, the bright red hue beneath her bonnet. She could not bear to see the way he was looking at her - right through her - without seeing her. He did not see a woman. He did not see Jane, the woman he had been so passionate with two days before. He saw ... Jane swallowed hard and looked
away, hating the weakness of her spirit. She was more than this, a wilting flower. She was stronger than this. But damn it, this hurt.
It hurt because he was the man responsible for making her burn. For making her feel like a woman. It hurt because it had been a trick. An illusion. And it hurt most of all because he did not see her, the woman she was behind the unfashionable spectacles and garish hair. ~ Charlotte Featherstone

The flames scorch the edges of her leather gloves, but she comes away with a small white flower the shape of a teardrop. When touched it expands and darkens to the color of blood before wilting and turning to ash. I've never seen anything like it. Nor do I particularly give a piss about the showmanship. It's too cold for that. ~ Pierce Brown

The last begonias wilting in the chalet's hanging baskets laced the air with a lemon and cinnamon fragrance. ~ Stephen Lloyd Jones

Did fear drive her? Fear of the gray, not just in the strands of her hair and her wilting cheeks, but the gray that ran deeper, to the bone, so that she thought she might turn into a fine dust and simply sift away in the wind ... She cooked and cleaned, and cooked and cleaned, and found herself further consumed by the gray, until even her vision was muted and the world around her drained of color. ~ Eowyn Ivey

I think people are a little bit intimidated by me. You know, I'm not exactly a wilting flower, so I think they're a little bit scared of me sometimes. ~ Sandra Bernhard