Bouquet Presentation Quotes

One hand was behind his back, and he held it out, presenting a bouquet of white and smoky purple lilies. “They’re straight from the underworld, by the way. They are everlasting. They won’t die.

The idea of the supernatural as being something over and above the natural is a killing idea. In the Middle Ages this was the idea that finally turned that world into something like a wasteland, a land where people were living inauthentic lives, never doing a think they truly wanted to because the supernatural laws required them to live as directed by their clergy. In a wasteland, people are fulfilling purposes that are not properly theirs but have been put upon them as inescapable laws. This is a killer.... The spirit is really the bouquet of life. It is not something breathed into life, it comes out of life. This is one of the glorious things about the mother-goddess religions, where the world is the body of the Goddess, divine in itself, and divinity isn't something ruling over and above a fallen nature.... Our story of the fall in the Garden sees nature as corrupt; and that myth corrupts the whole world for us. Because nature is thought of as corrupt, every spontaneous act is sinful and must not be yielded to. You get a totally different civilization and a totally different way of living according to whether your myth presents nature as fallen or whether nature is in itself a manifestation of divinity, and the spirit is the revelation of the divinity that is inherent in nature.

Language signifies when instead of copying thought it lets itself be taken apart and put together again by thought. Language bears the sense of thought as a footprint signifies the movement and effort of a body. The empirical use of already established language should be distinguished from its creative use. Empirical language can only be the result of creative language. Speech in the sense of empirical language - that is, the opportune recollection of a preestablished sign – is not speech in respect to an authentic language. It is, as Mallarmé said, the worn coin placed silently in my hand. True speech, on the contrary - speech which signifies, which finally renders "l'absente de tous bouquets" present and frees the sense captive in the thing - is only silence in respect to empirical usage, for it does not go so far as to become a common noun. Language is oblique and autonomous, and if it sometimes signifies a thought or a thing directly, that is only a secondary power derived from its inner life. Like the weaver, the writer works on the wrong side of his material. He has only to do with the language, and it is thus that he suddenly finds himself surrounded by sense.

May we stalk the borders and margins, accepting our own deputized call to carry good news to the poor. ... May we always be willing to present a bouquet of flowers, even to those who may not yet know that they desire beauty.

Her sense of artistry reached even as far as her plating and presentation... arranging her tarts in a woven basket like a bouquet of flowers. The sight of her bringing them to us was like a scene straight out of a fairy tale! Yes... she too... is like a character straight from fantasy. A fairy godmother who casts her spells on ordinary ingredients... ... turning them into beautiful and delicious princesses of food! All who take a bite of her apples... ... fall under her spell... ... and are transported into a land of dreams!

I wish you the sweetness of sticky kisses, the fragrance of muddy bouquets of weeds, the simplicity of macaroni necklaces, the warmth of bedtime snuggles, the promise of beautiful tomorrows. I wish you the hope to carry your heart through the hard times, the grace to forgive your inevitable mistakes, the strength to start again every morning, the wisdom to enjoy the journey. I wish you enough joy and laughter in the present to fill the silence that comes too soon when life grows quiet and rooms grow still and your heart beats in constant prayer for the once-small feet that now choose their own path guided by the whisper of their childhood.

The first thing she did when she became management was get rid of unnecessary company dinners, retreats, and workshops. She guaranteed maternity and paternity leave. She said she’d never forget how proud she felt when she presented a bouquet of flowers as a welcome-back present to one of her team members, who returned from a year-long maternity leave for the first time in the company’s history.

To have a man kiss you in a women’s jail is a gift better than any birthday or Christmas present. It’s better than a bouquet of roses. It’s better than a warm shower. I could imagine living in this jail for years and living for every workshop day and that male kiss on my cheek. That kiss was rain, sunshine, and the sweet air of outside. Yes. I knew I’d even sit there and glue stupid things onto cardboard sheets just to get that kiss again.

By day I taught Sahjara, who brought me unceasing small presents ranging from orange flower cakes to bouquets of jolly red berries; by night, I imagined my employer making the sort of inappropriate advances which would have made most governesses flee the estate forthwith, and in graphic detail, complete with bare thighs and calloused fingers and the diagonal notches which rest so sweetly above the hipbones when a gentleman is in training, as I had no doubt whatsoever Mr. Thornfield was.

Toward the end of that session at the Hudson, our instructor split us into two long lines and took out a bouquet of multicolored feathers. 'I would normally give the feathers to the ladies,' she explained as she passed them out, 'but we will have to make do.' Out of fifty or so front-of-the-house employees present, there were maybe six or seven women. 'The point of this dance is to think about giving and receiving,' she said, pressing play on her tiny boom box. A slow and stately march started playing through tinny speakers, a march to which we learned a simple dance: stepping up to our partner to give him the feather, stepping back to a bow, taking his hand, turning around, receiving the feather again, and stepping back to the line. 'Are you starting to feel each other's sense of space?' she called out. Someone sneezed. As the dance went on, we grew more comfortable with one another, fighting and roughhousing over the props. 'I've been defeathered!' 'Giveth the feather backeth or I will have to unsheathe my sword!

It is over. The long Occupation that created Israeli generations born in Israel and not knowing another ‘homeland’ created at the same time generations of Palestinians strange to Palestine; born in exile and knowing nothing of the homeland except stories and news. Generations who posses an intimate knowledge of the streets of faraway exiles, but not of their own country. Generations that never planted or built or made their small human mistakes in their own country. Generations that never saw our grandmothers quarter in front of the ovens to present us with a loaf of bread to dip in olive oil, never saw the village preacher in his headdress and Azhari piety hiding in a cave to spy on the girls and the women of the village when they took of their clothes and bathed, naked, in the pool of ‘Ein al-Deir. The Occupation has created generations without a place whose colours, smell, and sounds they can remember; a first place that belongs to them, that they can return to in their memories in their cobbled-together exiles. There is no childhood bed for them to remember, a bed on which they forgot a soft cloth doll, or whose white pillows - once the adults had gone out of an evening were their weapons in a battle that had them shirking with delight. This is it. The Occupation has created generations of us that have to adore an unknown beloved; distant, difficult, surrounded by guards, by walls, by nuclear missiles, by sheer terror. The long Occupation has succeeded in changing us from children of Palestine to children of the idea of Palestine. I have always believed that it is in the interests of an occupation, any occupation, that the homeland should be transformed in the memory of its people into a bouquet of ’symbols’. Merely symbols, they will not allow us to develop our village so that it shares features with the city, or to move without city into a contemporary space. The Occupation forced us to remain with the old. That is its crime. It did not deprive us of the clay ovens of yesterday, but of the mystery of what we could invent tomorrow.

And, should anyone here present know of any reason that this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony,” Archbishop Callaghan said as he neared the end of the wedding ceremony. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.” There wasn’t even a slight pause when a voice rang out from behind. “Grant! No! I love you!” Vanessa Bennet came running down the aisle, her eyes glazed over. She was also wearing a full-length wedding gown. “You can’t marry her! You love me.” “Cazzo!” Frankie rolled her eyes. “Hold this,” she shoved her bouquet at Grant and picked up her skirts, intending to give Vanessa a piece of her mind. Who the hell wears white to another woman’s wedding? Before Frankie could even began walking towards the aisle, Vanessa let out a pained shriek as a fist connected with her jaw, sending her sprawling to the ground. “You. Will. Not. Ruin. This. Day!” Callista declared, her voice edged with danger as she rubbed her fist. Alynna guffawed loudly from her seat on the groom’s side. “Wow. I guess Callista’s not too classy to smack a biatch either.

DICAEOPOLIS Why, what has happened? AMPHITHEUS I was hurrying to bring your treaty of truce, but some old dotards from Acharnae(1) got scent of the thing; they are veterans of Marathon, tough as oak or maple, of which they are made for sure—rough and ruthless. They all started a-crying: "Wretch! you are the bearer of a treaty, and the enemy has only just cut our vines!" Meanwhile they were gathering stones in their cloaks, so I fled and they ran after me shouting. f(1) The deme of Acharnae was largely inhabited by charcoal-burners, who supplied the city with fuel. DICAEOPOLIS Let 'em shout as much as they please! But HAVE you brought me a treaty? AMPHITHEUS Most certainly, here are three samples to select from,(1) this one is five years old; take it and taste. f(1) He presents them in the form of wines contained in three separate skins. DICAEOPOLIS Faugh! AMPHITHEUS Well? DICAEOPOLIS It does not please me; it smells of pitch and of the ships they are fitting out.(1) f(1) Meaning, preparations for war. AMPHITHEUS Here is another, ten years old; taste it. DICAEOPOLIS It smells strongly of the delegates, who go around the towns to chide the allies for their slowness.(1) f(1) Meaning, securing allies for the continuance of the war. AMPHITHEUS This last is a truce of thirty years, both on sea and land. DICAEOPOLIS Oh! by Bacchus! what a bouquet! It has the aroma of nectar and ambrosia; this does not say to us, "Provision yourselves for three days." But it lisps the gentle numbers, "Go whither you will."(1) I accept it, ratify it, drink it at one draught and consign the Acharnians to limbo. Freed from the war and its ills, I shall keep the Dionysia(2) in the country. f(1) When Athens sent forth an army, the soldiers were usually ordered to assemble at some particular spot with provisions for three days. f(2) These feasts were also called the Anthesteria or Lenaea; the Lenaem was a temple to Bacchus, erected outside the city. They took place during the month Anthesterion (February).

My intellectual depravity kept me from completely enjoying what surrounded me. I am sure that, in what little I might have tried to say, I was going to ridicule, diminish and materialize everything. In that strange and almost indescribable scenery, so superior to what I was normally able to see, I imagined—obviously an effect of my blind rudeness—that I came across things that faintly resembled the most beautiful things I had contemplated on the sublunary globe. I believed I saw a flower: I beheld something like large woods whose trees were only flowers; nothing but petals, corollas and calyces, fragrant and cradled by a breeze that itself was plainly perfumed with floral breaths—and just as sweet. All the nuances of the rose adorned these gigantic fluttering bouquets. Some of the roses, brown-lipped roses, were so unbelievably arousing and voluptuous—if I can speak like this—that I felt like they rejuvenated my soul. A flower often stood alone, as big as a tree—and with such a divine form, such an embracing scent—that’s the only word that translates, a little ridiculously, what I felt—that the air wafting around it would kill a normal human being with excessive pleasure. Because I was disembodied, I could breath it in with no harm—and even blend myself, overcome by joy, with its intoxicating, incarnadine cloud. Large, flashy birds flew among the heights of the flower-trees where they sometimes alit like snuggling light. Their slow-noted songs evoked a magical past more enticing even than this splendid present. The sky was pink and gold. Pink fountains flowed there, flashing with gold—whose music could only be compared to harps that had —absurdly—crystal strings—and to go further in absurdity: living crystal. All this nature seemed enshrouded—and at the same time penetrated—with a tender cheerfulness. I floated in the pink perfumes of the woods, in the soothing radiance of the glades, in all that gentleness and beauty that felt like an infinite bounty manifested by transportive images and by an immaterial well being… And even though I desperately did not want to leave this atmosphere of delights—which I can give no real idea of—I felt unbalanced, brutal and out of place among the ethereal sweetness. A charitable, sorrowful force (I felt it) chased me away almost in spite of itself in order to cut me off from these joys I was unworthy of.

The very next morning It was Valentine’s Day! They grabbed all their cards and went on their way. The classroom was decked out in red, pink, and white, with balloons and streamers, so festive and bright. Someone dropped by with a giant bouquet addressed to the teacher, who blushed right away. The card was signed “From a secret admirer,” but everyone knew it was Mr. O’Meyer! They played pin the heart and won goofy toys, and girls ran away from kissy-face boys. The art teacher came and painted kids’ faces. She put hearts on cheeks and sillier places! At last it was time to deliver the cards. Look! One for Lisa, Jim, and Bernard. They opened them up, read them and smiled, and laughed at the cards that were totally wild. Then they ate goodies, sweet cherries, and grapes, and drank punch with ice cubes in little heart shapes. And just when they thought the party was done, a knock on the door came at quarter past one. When what to their wondering eyes should appear, but the principal himself dressed in full Cupid gear! His arrows--how golden! His bow--curved and tight! The wig that he wore was a comical sight. He spoke not a word and was gone in a minute, leaving a present behind. Now what could be in it? They read Cupid’s note as he leapt down the hall: “Happy Valentine’s Day-- to one and to all!

After her unexpected breakfast with Sullivan this morning, Alice clipped stems for a petite arrangement of carnations and crimson-tipped roses, with a few sprays of purple wildflowers thrown in for good measure. She breathed in deeply, and the fragrance brought back the magic of the first Valentine's flowers she received from a crush back in high school. It was one of the many things she loved about flowers---their ability to pull you out of the present and into the past, then back into the present once more, better for having remembered something so lovely.

She'd found a smutty novel she'd already read and loved in one of the trunks Elain had packed, and had laid it on the desk. She'd said to the air, 'I found this for you. It's a present.' The book had vanished into nothing. But in the morning, she'd found a bouquet of autumnal flowers upon her desk, the glass vase bursting with asters and chrysanthemums of every colour.

My mother used to grow roses in her garden. We'd pick them together every morning." She fell silent, remembering how she'd carried on the tradition with her papa after her mother died. One by one they'd cut the flowers, each still so fresh that dew glistened on its petals and trickled down her trembling fingers. "Eight pink roses, seven white ones, and three sprigs of myrtle," she murmured, pointing at the pink and white roses in the line of bushes. "What is that?" "It's what I would always bring Mama- the same arrangement my father presented to her when he'd asked her to marry him." The story of their courtship had been her favorite, one Papa had told her over and over. She'd never tired of it, never stopped asking him to tell it to her. Before her mother had died, he'd always ended the story with a smile, saying, "Your mother is my true love." Once she was gone, his expression became solemn, shadows sinking into the lines of his brow, his teeth clenched tight to keep from grimacing. Then he would say, "Your mother was my true love." So Cinderella had learned how one word could change everything. And she had stopped asking her father for the story.

Chloe’s mom opened the door for Kim, then stared at her. She wore a black felt hat pulled tightly down to cover her ears and loose black jeans with a frumpy black sweater, like she was trying to disguise her whole body, not just her head. Round Lennon-style sunglasses with thick red lenses hid her slitted eyes. She stuck a gloved hand out and presented Anna King with a bouquet of flowers. “Here. I hope this is an acceptable hostess gift. Thank you for inviting me to the party. I’ve never been to one before.