water-coloured jewels with sparks of fire
“The girl who had shaken her head and made all the jewels, the topaz, the aquamarine, the water-coloured jewels with sparks of fire in them dance, now bared her brows and with wide-opened eyes drove a straight pathway over the waves.”
—Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931.
a seven-sided flower
“‘There is a red carnation in that vase. A single flower as we sat here waiting, but now a seven-sided flower, many-petalled, red, puce, purple-shaded, stiff with silver-tinted leaves—a whole flower to which every eye brings its own contribution.’”
—Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931.
the light becomes richer
“‘Look how the light becomes richer, second by second, and bloom and ripeness lie everywhere; and our eyes, as they range round this room with all its tables, seem to push through curtains of colour, red, orange, umber and queer ambiguous tints, which yield like veils and close behind them, and one thing melts into another.’”
–Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931.
The afternoon sun
“The afternoon sun warmed the fields, poured blue into the shadows and reddened the corn.”
—Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931.
a toast
“So here’s to the golden moon
And here’s to the silver sea
But most of all a toast to you and me”
—Don Ho, Tiny Bubbles, 1967.
Butterfly powder
“‘When I am grown up I shall carry a notebook—a fat book with many pages, methodically lettered. I shall enter my phrases. Under B shall come “Butterfly powder.” If, in my novel, I describe the sun on my window-sill, I shall look under B and find butterfly powder. That will be useful.’”
—Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931.
My eyes are hard
“‘My eyes are hard. Jinny’s eyes break into a thousand lights. Rhoda’s are like those pale flowers to which moths come in the evening. Yours grow full and brim and never break.’”
—Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931.
white words
“‘Those are white words,’ said Susan, ‘like stones one picks up by the seashore.’”
—Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931.
Orange juice
Orange juice is actually yellow. Discuss.
Tipping
Tipping ain’t no city in China, denial is not just a river in Egypt, hedging does not always involve bushes, and projection can occur outside of a movie theater.