The white goes on forever

“The music that had been playing in my head has vanished, leaving behind some faint white noise like a taut white sheet on a huge bed. I touch that sheet, tracing it with my fingertips. The white goes on forever.”

—Haruki Marakami, Kafka On The Shore, translated by Philip Gabriel, 2005.

The moon belongs to everyone

“The moon belongs to everyone
The best things in life are free
The stars belong to everyone
They gleam there for you and me”

—Buddy De Sylva, Lew Brown & Ray Henderson, The Best Things In Life Are Free, 1927 song.

A verbal contract

“A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it is written on.”

—Sam Goldwyn, cited by Alva Johnson in The Great Goldwyn, 1937.

That old black magic

“That old black magic has me in its spell
That old black magic that you weave so well”

—Johnny Mercer & Harold Arlen, That Old Black Magic, 1942.

the old grey Donkey

“Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water. ‘Pathetic,’ he said. ‘That’s what it is. Pathetic.’”

—A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926.

whitewash

“There can be no whitewash at the White House.”

—Richard M. Nixon, April 30, 1973.

the purple moor

“The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highway man came riding-Riding-riding-
The highwayman came riding up to the old inn-door.”

—Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1907.

not so red

“Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.”

—Wilfred Owen, Greater Love, from Poems, 1963.

A rose-red sissy

“A rose-red sissy half as old as time.”

—William Plomer, Playboy of the Demi-World, from The Dorking Thigh, 1945.

Night and day

“Night and day, you are the one,
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.”

—Cole Porter, Night and Day, 1932 song.