a tombstone white

“And at the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: ‘A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.’”

—Rudyard Kipling, The Naulahka, 1892.

the green fuse

“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.”

—Dylan Thomas, The Force that through the Green Fuse drives the Flower, 1934.

green and dying

“Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”

—Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill, 1946.

happy as the grass was green

“Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green.”

—Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill, 1946.

the Only Animal that Blushes

“Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.”

—Mark Twain, Following The Equator, 1897.

yellow polkadot bikini

“She wore an itsy bitsy teenie weenie, yellow polkadot bikini.”

—Paul Vance & Lee Pockriss, Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie, Yellow Polkadot Bikini, 1960.

what beautiful diamonds!

“‘Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!’

‘Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.’”

—Mae West, in Night After Night, 1932.

I used to be Snow White

“I used to be Snow White . . . but I drifted.”

—Mae West, quoted in Joseph Weintraub’s Peel Me A Grape, 1975.

a purple glow

“There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.”

—W.B. Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, 1892.

great black oxen

“The years like great black oxen tread the world,
And God the herdsman goads them on behind,
And I am broken by their passing feet.”

—W.B. Yeats, The Countess Cathleen, 1895.