the ‘star routes’

“They were both past fifty, wore clean overalls, substantial shoes, and clean-looking blue shirts. A month later I could have classified them correctly as professional bums, too old to ride the trains, satisfied to throw their feet along the ‘star routes,’ or country roads, where food was seldom refused, and to sleep in their bindles, or blankets, under the stars.”

—Jack Black, You Can’t Win, 1926.

my eyes

“There are two vertical furrows between my eyes that make me appear to be wearing a continual scowl. My eyes are wide enough apart and not small, but they are hard, cold, calculating. They are blue, but of that shade of blue farthest removed from the violet.”

—Jack Black, You Can’t Win, 1926.

Purple snowflakes

“Drifting on air without a care
Purple snowflakes
Cover the ground without a sound”

[I]n English they have more than three thousand terms for different colors

“[I]n English they have more than three thousand terms for different colors, yet most people can name eight at best. The average person can recognize the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—though people already begin to have trouble with indigo and violet. It takes a lot of experience to learn to distinguish and name the various shades, and a painter is better at it than, say, a taxi driver, who just has to know the colors of traffic lights.”

—Umberto Eco, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, 2005.

Dark of the invisible moon

“Dark of the invisible moon. The nights now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.”

—Cormac McCarthy, The Road, 2006.

We’re in the Money

With silver you can turn your dreams to gold

“The long lost dollar has come back to the fold,
With silver you can turn your dreams to gold.”

—Al Dubin & Harry Warren, “We’re in the Money”, 1933.

the prisoners they take are fettered in gold

“I tell thee, gold is more plentiful there than copper is with us; and for as much red copper as I can bring, I’ll have thrice the weight in gold. Why, man, all their dripping-pans and their chamber-pots are pure gold; and all the chains with which they chain up their streets are massy gold; all the prisoners they take are fettered in gold.”

—Ben Jonson, John Marston & George Chapman, Eastward Ho, 1605.

Christmas cards for computer geeks

a couple of Verveines

“ ‘She said: “Yes. I’d like to have a different kind of liqueur with my coffee. Something I’ve never heard of. Any suggestions?”
    ‘So I described Verveine; I thought of it because it is the identical green of her eyes. It’s made out of a million-odd mountain herbs; I’ve never found it anywhere outside France and damn few places here. Delicious; but with a kick like bad moonshine. So we had a couple of Verveines, and Kate said: “Yes, indeed. That certainly is different.” ’ ”

—Truman Capote, “Unspoiled Monsters”, Answered Prayers, 1987.