about that orange
“‘Maybe it was just the way we felt then, but I think the sun set differently that night, filtering through the clouds like a big paintbrush making the top of the town all orange. And suddenly I thought what if the tops of our houses were that kind of orange, what a world it would be, Howard, and my God, that orange stayed until the last drop of light was left in it. . . . The feeling we had about that orange, Howard, that was ours and that’s what I’ve tried to bring to every house, the way we felt that night.’”
—Max Apple, from The Oranging of America, 1974. And so the orange Howard Johnson’s roof was born.
all the beautiful green eyes you’ve ever known
“You move a few steps so that the light from the candles won’t blind you. The girl keeps her eyes closed, her hands at her sides. She doesn’t look at you at first, then little by little she opens her eyes as if she were afraid of the light. Finally you can see that those eyes are sea green and that they surge, break to foam, grow calm again, then surge again like a wave. You look into them and tell yourself it isn’t true, because they’re beautiful green eyes just like all the beautiful green eyes you’ve ever known. But you can’t deceive yourself: those eyes do surge, do change, as if offering you a landscape that only you can see and desire.”
—Carlos Fuentes, from the short story Aura, 1965.
The sky is neither high nor low
“Sitting on the bed, you try to make out the source of that diffuse, opaline light that hardly lets you distinguish the objects in the room, and the presence of Aura, from the golden atmosphere that surrounds them. She sees you looking up, trying to find where it comes from. You can tell from her voice that she’s kneeling down in front of you.
‘The sky is neither high nor low. It’s over us and under us at the same time.’”
—Carlos Fuentes, Aura, 1965.
the bright snowy night
“The moon was sailing higher and higher and the frost was tightening its grip in the bright snowy night.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn, from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1978; translated from the Russian by H.T. Willetts, 1991.
a little lamp
“All the lamps were dim, and the huts cast black shadows. The entrance to the mess hut was up four steps and across a wide porch, also now in the shadows. But a little lamp swayed above it, squeaking in the cold. Frost, or dirt, gave every lightbulb a rainbow-coloured halo.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn, from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1978; translated from the Russian by H.T. Willetts, 1991.
crossed beams
“The mist in the frosty air took your breath away. Two big searchlights from watchtowers in opposite corners crossed beams as they swept the compound. Lights were burning around the periphery, and inside the camp, dotted around in such numbers that they made the stars look dim.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn, from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1978; translated from the Russian by H.T. Willetts, 1991.
a greenish light
“It was still dark, although a greenish light was brightening in the east. A thin, treacherous breeze was creeping in from the same direction.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn, from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1978; translated from the Russian by H.T. Willetts, 1991.
‘the mystery of mysteries’
“Many modern flags that include green are those of Muslim countries, since the cloak and banner of Mohammed were said to be green, and in the Qur’an . . . the Blessed in Paradise were to wear green silk robes. A fourteenth-century Persian theologian, Alaoddwa Semanani, held that Mohammed himself was a shining green in his role as the Divine Centre, since this was the colour most appropriate to ‘the mystery of mysteries’.”
—John Gage, from Color in Art, 2006. Pictured is the national flag of Saudi Arabia. The Arabic text reads ‘There is no God, but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet.’
Shellfish purple
“Shellfish purple was the most highly valued dyestuff in the ancient world because of its exceptionally laborious and hence costly processing, and its unrivalled light-fastness and durability. These characteristics made purple—at least in theory—for many centuries the legally enforced prerogative of the imperial household and government; and throughout the Middle Ages, and even in modern times, it has continued to be an emblem of royalty. But the colour purple remains a mystery, because the early literature suggests not only that it was classed as a type of red, but also that the best purple-red cloth looked dark by reflected light, but a fiery-red by transmitted light, and also had a much-admired surface sheen. . . . The erosion of the surface and modern lighting make this original sheen very hard to appreciate now.”
—John Gage, from Color in Art, 2006.
white as the whitest vanilla ice cream
“And there on the dummy in the center of the room was the phosphorescent, the miraculously white-fired ghost with the incredible lapels, the precise stitching, the neat buttonholes. Standing with the white illumination of the suit upon his cheeks, Martinez suddenly felt he was in church. White! White! It was white as the whitest vanilla ice cream, as the bottled milk in tenement halls at dawn. White as a winter cloud all alone in the moonlit sky late at night. . . . Shutting his eyes, he could see it printed on his lids. He knew what color his dreams would be this night.”
—Ray Bradbury, from The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, 1958.