grey for work at the typewriter

“I pass through the house, painting a wall through which stains of
humidity show, hanging a lamp where it will throw Balinese shadow
plays, draping a bed, placing logs in the fireplace.
    Every room is painted a different color. As if there
were one room for every separate mood: lacquer red for vehemence, pale
turquoise for reveries, peach color for gentleness, green for repose,
grey for work at the typewriter.”

—Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume One, 1931-1934, 1966.

one hundred accents

“We corresponded. He sent books, and tried to teach me French by
letters. I was not very disciplined. In one letter I wrote two pages
without accents and then added one hundred accents at the bottom and
said: ‘For you to distribute correctly.’”

—Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume One, 1931-1934, 1966.

a tremendously important part of a well-designed layout

bluebottle tennis

“When we got to our room, I sat down on Ruth’s bed, close to the
window—the sun had warmed the blanket—and she sat on mine over by the
back wall. There was a bluebottle buzzing around, and for a minute we
had a laugh playing ‘bluebottle tennis,’ throwing our hands about to
make the demented creature go from one to the other of us. Then it
found its way out of the window, and Ruth said:
    ‘I want me and Tommy to get back together again. Kathy, will you help?’ Then she asked: ‘What’s the matter?’”

—Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, 2005.

The snow was gray

“The snow was gray against the sky, soft on his lashes. It fell without a sound.”

—Cormac McCarthy, Child of God, 1973.

ink trees

“Alone in the empty shell of a house the squatter watched through the
moteblown glass a rimshard of bonecolored moon come cradling up over
the black balsams on the ridge, ink trees a facile hand had sketched
against the paler dark of winter heavens.”

—Cormac McCarthy, Child of God, 1973.

a different colored pair of drawers for every day of the week

“He had eyes for a long blonde flatshanked daughter that used to sit
with her legs propped so that you could see her drawers, She laughed
all the time. He’d never seen her in a pair of shoes but she had a
different colored pair of drawers for every day of the week and black
ones on Saturday.”

—Cormac McCarthy, Child of God, 1973.

night of the large few stars!

“Press close bare-bosomed night—press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.”

—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1892 edition.

one pale star

“Across the narrow, quivering line of water, the delicate budding
branches of young trees were limned black against the gold,
orange,—what word is there to tell the color of that morning sky! And
steeped in the splendor of it hung one pale star; there was not another
in the whole heaven. . . .
    She stayed there motionless upon the brink of the
river till the star melted into the brightness of the day and became
part of it.”

—Kate Chopin, ‘Tante Cat’rinette’, from A Night in Acadie, 1897.

a purple mist

“The excitement was all over, and they were gone. How still it was when
they were gone! Mamzelle Aurélie stood upon the gallery, looking and
listening. She could no longer see the cart; the red sunset and the
blue-gray twilight had together flung a purple mist across the fileds
and road that hid it from her view. She could no longer hear the
wheezing and creaking of its wheels. But she could still faintly hear
the shrill, glad voices of the children.”

—Kate Chopin, ‘Regret’, from A Night in Acadie, 1897.