“
I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.
”
”
Nikos Kazantzakis (Zorba the Greek)
“
Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree.
”
”
George Orwell (1984)
“
Where is he? Bridgerton!" he bellowed.
Three chestnut heads swiveled in his direction. Simon stomped across the grass, murder in his eyes.
"I meant the idiot Bridgerton."
"That, I believe," Anthony said mildly, tilting his chin toward Colin, "would refer to you.
”
”
Julia Quinn (The Duke and I (Bridgertons, #1))
“
Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me--
”
”
George Orwell (1984)
“
Why aren't you in school? I see you every day wandering around."
"Oh, they don't miss me," she said. "I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this." She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard. "Or talking about how strange the world is. Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film-teacher. That's not social to me at all. It's a lot of funnels and lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not. They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball. Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lampposts, playing 'chicken' and 'knock hubcaps.' I guess I'm everything they say I am, all right. I haven't any friends. That's supposed to prove I'm abnormal. But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another. Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
“
You’ll be fine. You’re 25. Feeling [unsure] and lost is part of your path. Don’t avoid it. See what those feelings are showing you and use it. Take a breath. You’ll be okay. Even if you don’t feel okay all the time.
”
”
Louis C.K. (Hopeless (Chestnut Springs, #5))
“
You are like a chestnut burr, prickly outside, but silky-soft within, and a sweet kernel, if one can only get at it. Love will make you show your heart some day, and then the rough burr will fall off.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women (Little Women, #1))
“
How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.
”
”
Nikos Kazantzakis
“
If this were my last moment alive, how would I want it to be?
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
October's Party
October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came -
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
”
”
George Cooper
“
And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours, Claire? I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you."
The wind stirred the leaves of the chestnut trees nearby, and the scents of late summer rose up rich around us; pine and grass and strawberries, sun-warmed stone and cool water, and the sharp, musky smell of his body next to mine.
"Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed."
"That's the first law of thermodynamics," I said, wiping my nose.
"No," he said. "That's faith.
”
”
Diana Gabaldon (Drums of Autumn (Outlander, #4))
“
What the hell is the cowboy hat rule? You wear the hat, you ride the cowboy.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
Save a horse, ride a cowboy.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
Everything's amazing right now, and nobody's happy.
”
”
Louis C.K. (Hopeless (Chestnut Springs, #5))
“
Willa might be a bit of a psycho—after all, she did just push a child into the pool—but the more time I spend with her, the more I feel like she’s my psycho.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
The first of many autumn rains smelled smoky, like a doused campsite fire, as if the ground itself had been aflame during those hot summer months. It smelled like burnt piles of collected leaves, the cough of a newly revived chimney, roasted chestnuts, the scent of a man's hands after hours spent in a wood shop.
”
”
Leslye Walton (The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender)
“
She and I really are binary stars, stuck in each other’s orbit, drawn together by forces we can’t see or understand—but that we can feel.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
Please don’t cry. I fucking hate it when you cry. It’s like a bullet to my chest.” “Taken many bullets, have you?” My voice is weak, and I hate that. “No,” he husks, “but I would. For you, I would.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
You don’t tell a person you love them with the expectation they’ll say it back. You tell them because you want to. You tell them because it’s true.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Hopeless (Chestnut Springs, #5))
“
Life lesson, shithead. Careful who you pick a fight with. Someone insane might love him.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
And I realize in that moment maybe I am heartless after all, because the beautiful girl with the copper hair grinning back at me right now is the one who stole it.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
Dark blue, heavy with emotion, gazed up unblinkingly into wide chestnut. Every movement, every yearning was reflected between the couple's eyes.
”
”
Sylvain Reynard (Gabriel's Rapture (Gabriel's Inferno, #2))
“
You were out there this whole time, and now I know you exist, and I can never go back. Wouldn’t want to if I could.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
It strikes me that perhaps I’m not an easy woman to love, but Theo does it so effortlessly that I feel like I could be. Like I deserve to be.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Reckless (Chestnut Springs, #4))
“
Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint. In her spacious and quiet streets men walked and spoke as they had done in Newman's day; her autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days - such as that day - when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear over her gables and cupolas, exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth. It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamour.
”
”
Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited)
“
I could fucking bury whoever made you believe you’re as unlovable as you seem to think.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Reckless (Chestnut Springs, #4))
“
It means . . . I live you. Like I see you everywhere, you are in everything. Our connection is more than physical.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Reckless (Chestnut Springs, #4))
“
Strikingly tall, broad, a thick head of silky chestnut hair, olive skin and beautiful almond shaped eyes. His was a strong face, masculine, powerful. I disliked it greatly.
”
”
Samantha Young (Slumber (The Fade, #1))
“
Do you want to break Roach’s back?’ ‘Is it Roach? Roach was a bay, and she’s a chestnut.’ ‘All of my horses are called Roach.
”
”
Andrzej Sapkowski (Sword of Destiny (The Witcher, #0.7))
“
Pied Beauty—
"
Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.
”
”
Gerard Manley Hopkins (The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins)
“
Times have changed, Sloane. I’m not scared anymore. You’re not my fucking friend. You’re just mine.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
“
I think people mistake you being in a bad mood when you’re just overwhelmed. I think you needed to lie here for a few minutes with no one needing you. I think you’re overstimulated and even the best of us require some time to collect ourselves.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Reckless (Chestnut Springs, #4))
“
grief is love made homeless,
”
”
Søren Sveistrup (The Chestnut Man)
“
Her spirited blue eyes danced like elves in the night and her chestnut hair shone like the sun on autumn leaves.
”
”
Rowena Kinread (The Missionary)
“
Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, water lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education.
”
”
Luther Burbank
“
And your will shall decide your destiny," he said: "I offer you my hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions."
You play a farce, which I merely laugh at."
I ask you to pass through life at my side--to be my second self, and best earthly companion."
For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by it."
Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be still too."
A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away--away--to an indefinite distance--it died. The nightingale's song was then the only voice of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before he spoke; he at last said -
Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another."
I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and cannot return."
But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to marry."
I was silent: I thought he mocked me.
Come, Jane--come hither."
Your bride stands between us."
He rose, and with a stride reached me.
My bride is here," he said, again drawing me to him, "because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Princess, you look like you were made for me."
"I feel like I was made for you.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams mean everything, but when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees and the misty blue air at the end of the streets they don’t seem half so important.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)
“
Rochester: "I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard…And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?"
Jane: "You are no ruin sir - no lighting-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Don’t you get it, Jas? I’ve seen all the darkest parts of you and I’m still here. I still want more. Stop trying to scare me away. It isn’t going to work.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
“
She felt a little betrayed and sad, but presently a moving object came into sight. It was a huge horse-chestnut tree in full bloom bound for the Champs Elysees, strapped now into a long truck and simply shaking with laughter - like a lovely person in an undignified position yet confident none the less of being lovely. Looking at it with fascination, Rosemary identified herself with it, and laughed cheerfully with it, and everything all at once seemed gorgeous.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tender Is the Night)
“
Willa: You only live once, you know. This is a story you could tell your kids one day. Summer: What the fuck kind of stories do you plan on telling your children, Wils?
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
In a good mood I call my hair Chestnut with Gold Glints. In a bad mood, I call it mousy brown
”
”
Mary Ann Shaffer
“
Have you tried talking to him?” I blink at her. “Talking?” “Yes. You know . . . where you use your mouth to create words that describe what’s going through your head.” “Sounds weird. Sounds awkward. Don’t like it. Not approved by me.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
I don’t care. Don’t you get it? I’m in love with you, Willa. Prickly legs, random carrots in your purse, pregnant, not pregnant. I want you.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
The answer is no. None of that shit matters. Because we’re me and you. We’re us. Unlikely and inevitable all at once. We’re forever.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
“
The story of the young woman whose death I witnessed in a concentration camp. It is a simple story. There is little to tell and it may sound as if I had invented it; but to me it seems like a poem. This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. "I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard," she told me. "In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously." Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, "This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness." Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. "I often talk to this tree," she said to me. I was startled and didn't quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. "Yes." What did it say to her? She answered, "It said to me, 'I am here-I am here-I am life, eternal life.
”
”
Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)
“
Paris had its sweetest smell, the smell of chestnut trees in bloom and of petrol with a few grains of dust that crack under your teeth like pepper. In the darknes the danger seemed to grow. You could smell the suffering in the air, in the silence. Everyone looked at their house and thought, "Tomorrow it will be in ruins, tomorrow I'l have nothing left.
”
”
Irène Némirovsky (Suite Française)
“
And Yet the Books
And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are,” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it's still a strange pageant,
Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
”
”
Czesław Miłosz
“
That night he dreamt of horses in a field on a high plain where the spring rains had brought up the grass and the wildflowers out of the ground and the flowers ran all blue and yellow far as the eye could see and in the dream he was among the horses running and in the dream he himself could run with the horses and they coursed the young mares and fillies over the plain where their rich bay and their rich chestnut colors shone in the sun and the young colts ran with their dams and trampled down the flowers in a haze of pollen that hung in the sun like powdered gold and they ran he and the horses out along the high mesas where the ground resounded under their running hooves and they flowed and changed and ran and their manes and tails blew off of them like spume and there was nothing else at all in that high world and they moved all of them in a resonance that was like a music among them and they were none of them afraid neither horse nor colt nor mare and they ran in that resonance which is the world itself and which cannot be spoken but only praised.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses)
“
No matter what else you came up against, if you could smile and laugh while a monkey did you with chestnuts in a dank concrete basement while somebody took pictures, well, any other situation would be a piece of cake
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Choke)
“
Careful, that one’s got claws,” Cade offers right as Willa shoves a pointy elbow into his ribs. I grin. “That’s okay. I like having my back scratched.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Reckless (Chestnut Springs, #4))
“
I just remembered that he called me the morning after you two first got together. And do you know what he said to me?
He said, ‘Mom, I met her.’ And I said, ‘Who?’ He said, ‘The woman I’m going to marry one day.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Reckless (Chestnut Springs, #4))
“
You’ve got me, Princess. Only you, I promise,
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
Watch your fucking tone when you’re talking to the mother of my child.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Reckless (Chestnut Springs, #4))
“
I'm me," she whispered. "Me"
Nel didn't know quite what she meant, but on the other hand she knew exactly what she meant.
"I'm me. I'm not their daughter. I'm not Nel. I'm me. Me."
Every time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like power, like joy, like fear. Back in bed with her discovery, she stared out the window at the dark leaves of the horse chestnut.
"Me," she murmured. And then, sinking deeper into the quilts, "I want... I want to be... wonderful. Oh, Jesus, make me wonderful.
”
”
Toni Morrison (Sula)
“
I love your freckles,” he murmurs from behind me, the pad of his finger tracing lines across the expanse of my back. “They remind me of all the constellations. Like I could draw lines between them, and pictures would appear.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse. This is not because I fear having missed out on truths that are incapable of statement in prose. There are no such truths; there is nothing about death that Swinburne and Landor knew but Epicurus and Heidegger failed to grasp. Rather, it is because I would have lived more fully if I had been able to rattle off more old chestnuts — just as I would have if I had made more close friends.
”
”
Richard Rorty
“
See, Sloane? You can wear someone else’s ring, but we both know you’ve always been mine.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
“
When I was a kid," Orr replied, "I used to walk around all day with crab apples in my cheeks. One in each cheek."
... A minute passed. "Why?" [Yossarian] found himself forced to ask finally.
Orr tittered triumphantly. "Because they're better than horse chestnuts... When I couldn't get crab apples," Orr continued, "I used horse chestnuts. Horse chestnuts are about the same size as crab apples and actually have a better shape, although the shape doesn't matter a bit."
"Why did you walk around with crab apples in your cheeks?" Yossarian asked again. "That's what I asked."
"Because they've got a better shape than horse chestnuts," Orr answered. "I just told you that."
"Why," swore Yossarian at him approvingly, "you evil-eyed, mechanically aptituded, disaffiliated son of a bitch, did you walk around with anything in your cheeks?"
"I didn't," Orr said, "walk around with anything in my cheeks. I walked around with crab applies in my cheeks. When I couldn't get crab apples I walked around with horse chestnuts. In my cheeks.
”
”
Joseph Heller (Catch-22)
“
Choosing each other. Finding each other. Showing up for each other. And everything about the moment is flawless.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
You have to freak out with me because I need you. And I love you. I love you so much it paralyzes me to think of carrying on without you. You’re not allowed to shut me out. Because you made me need you, and now you have to deal with the consequences.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Reckless (Chestnut Springs, #4))
“
If we’re struggling, we’re still in motion, yeah? Heading somewhere better. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Hopeless (Chestnut Springs, #5))
“
I’m done pretending to be head over heels in love with you because I’m legitimately head over heels in love with you. And acting like I’m not tears me up.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Hopeless (Chestnut Springs, #5))
“
I’ll take a boozy brunch with my bestie and a dirty book in bed by eight for a thousand, Alex.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
Keep talking like that and I’m going to fuck the filth right out of your pretty mouth.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
I don’t know. New sounds scary. It sounds like failure.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
For too long, I was a soft, demure little dove. And then they burned me. Scorched me. Turns out I’m a dragon and I’m fed the fuck up with boys and their bullshit.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
“
You are not a burden. You are not a waste of time. You are very wanted. And anyone who makes you feel you’re anything less deserves Rhett Eaton’s fist to their face. Or yours. You can hit back too, you know? I’ll bail you out every fucking time.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
Beau: Willa doesn’t run my show. Cade: You must be new here. Willa runs everyone’s show.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Hopeless (Chestnut Springs, #5))
“
Hey, Willa?” “Hey, Luke,” I reply dryly, since the be quiet part obviously didn’t register. “Sometimes I wish you were my mom.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
Nah, Sunny. You’re my only girl.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs #3))
“
So. Yes. We're all dying. We're all crumbling into the void, one cell at a time. We are disintegrating like sugar cubes in champagne. But only women have to pretend it isn't happening. Fifty-something men wander around with their guts flopped over their waistbands and their faces looking like a busted tramp's mattress in an underpass. They sprout nasal hair and chasm-like wrinkles, and go 'Ooof!' whenever they stand up or sit down. men visibly age, every day -- but women are supposed to stop the decline at around 37, 38, and live out the next 30 or 40 years in some magical bubble where their hair is still shiny and chestnut, their face unlined, their lips puffy, and their tits up on the top third of the ribcage.
”
”
Caitlin Moran (How to Be a Woman)
“
I must have a stupid smile on my face as I stare back at him because I feel an elbow nudge against mine. “It’s nice to see someone looking at Cade like that. Defending him like that,” Jasper says. “Like they can see him for who he is rather than the man circumstances forced him to become.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
I can’t wait to be old and retired and say things just to see how people will react to get my kicks. That’s the dream right there.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
Sunny, you’re gonna make me lose my mind.” “Good,” I murmur against his mouth. “We’ll be insane together. I’m so tired of doing it alone.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
“
Did Winter say something to you? Do we like her? Do we hate her? Am I supposed to be mad at something with you? Because I will be if you are. Just tell me how to be supportive.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
Sometimes we seize the moment, and sometimes it seizes us.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
You know what I'm sick of, Summer?"
"What's that?"
"Having you think I'm out fucking everything that moves when I've looked at nothing and no one since the first day I laid eyes on you. I stepped into that godforsaken boardroom, and you practically demanded I become obsessed with you.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
We’re often blind to the people we love the most.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
“
One more championship and maybe I'll take my gold buckle and hang up my hat.
Preferably on Summer Hamilton's head.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
Beg.” “Pardon me?” “You heard me.” Her lips don’t even twitch. She’s not joking at all. “Beg.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
My breathing slowed. I shaded her thick chestnut hair resting in a smooth curve against her face, a large bruise blazing across her cheek. I paused, looking over my shoulder to make certain I was alone. I drew her eye makeup, smudged by tears. In her watery eyes I drew the reflection of the commander, standing in front of her, his fist clenched. I continued to sketch, exhaled, and shook out my hands.
”
”
Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray)
“
The Frays had never been a religiously observant family, but Clary loved Fifth Avenue at Christmas time. The air smelled like sweet roasted chestnuts, and the window displays sparkled with silver and blue, green and red. This year there were fat round crystal snowflakes attached to each lamppost, sending back the winter sunlight in shafts of gold. Not to mention the huge tree at Rockefeller Center. It threw its shadow across them as she and Simon draped themselves over the gate at the side of the skating rink, watching tourists fall down as they tried to navigate the ice.
Clary had a hot chocolate wrapped in her hands, the warmth spreading through her body. She felt almost normal—this, coming to Fifth to see the window displays and the tree, had been a winter tradition for her and Simon for as long as she could remember.
“Feels like old times, doesn’t it?” he said, echoing her thoughts as he propped his chin on his folded arms.
She chanced a sideways look at him. He was wearing a black topcoat and scarf that emphasized the winter pallor of his skin. His eyes were shadowed, indicating that he hadn’t fed on blood recently. He looked like what he was—a hungry, tired vampire.
Well, she thought. Almost like old times. “More people to buy presents for,” she said. “Plus, the always traumatic what-to-buy-someone-for-the-first-Christmas-after-you’ve-started-dating question.”
“What to get the Shadowhunter who has everything,” Simon said with a grin.
“Jace mostly likes weapons,” Clary sighed. “He likes books, but they have a huge library at the Institute. He likes classical music …” She brightened. Simon was a musician; even though his band was terrible, and was always changing their name—currently they were Lethal Soufflé—he did have training. “What would you give someone who likes to play the piano?”
“A piano.”
“Simon.”
“A really huge metronome that could also double as a weapon?”
Clary sighed, exasperated.
“Sheet music. Rachmaninoff is tough stuff, but he likes a challenge.”
“Now you’re talking. I’m going to see if there’s a music store around here.” Clary, done with her hot chocolate, tossed the cup into a nearby trash can and pulled her phone out. “What about you? What are you giving Isabelle?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” Simon said. They had started heading toward the avenue, where a steady stream of pedestrians gawking at the windows clogged the streets.
“Oh, come on. Isabelle’s easy.”
“That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.” Simon’s brows drew together. “I think. I’m not sure. We haven’t discussed it. The relationship, I mean.”
“You really have to DTR, Simon.”
“What?”
“Define the relationship. What it is, where it’s going. Are you boyfriend and girlfriend, just having fun, ‘it’s complicated,’ or what? When’s she going to tell her parents? Are you allowed to see other people?”
Simon blanched. “What? Seriously?”
“Seriously. In the meantime—perfume!” Clary grabbed Simon by the back of his coat and hauled him into a cosmetics store that had once been a bank. It was massive on the inside, with rows of gleaming bottles everywhere. “And something unusual,” she said, heading for the fragrance area. “Isabelle isn’t going to want to smell like everyone else. She’s going to want to smell like figs, or vetiver, or—”
“Figs? Figs have a smell?” Simon looked horrified; Clary was about to laugh at him when her phone buzzed. It was her mother.
where are you? It’s an emergency.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
“
Sounds like her loss, because you might be the coolest kid I’ve ever met.” She doesn’t use a sad voice, or a baby voice, she just talks to him like a normal human being. “Fucking hell,” I curse under my breath because she just practically hired herself.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2))
“
If I had grown up in that house I couldn't have loved it more, couldn't have been more familiar with the creak of the swing, or the pattern of the clematis vines on the trellis, or the velvety swell of land as it faded to gray on the horizon, and the strip of highway visible -just barely – in the hills, beyond the trees. The very colors of the place had seeped into my blood: just as Hampden, in subsequent years, would always present itself immediately to my imagination in a confused whirl of white and green and red, so the country house first appeared as a glorious blur of watercolors, of ivory and lapis blue, chestnut and burnt orange and gold, separating only gradually into the boundaries of remembered objects: the house, the sky, the maple trees. But even that day, there on the porch, with Charles beside me and the smell of wood smoke in the air, it had the quality of a memory; there it was, before my eyes, and yet too beautiful to believe.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
“
London. “Look Olivier. Quite a sight isn’t it?” Commandant Auguste Angers stood tall in his stirrups as he pointed out the far distant dome of St. Paul’s. The bronzed roof of the cathedral was glistening in the sun during a brief break in the clouds. The commandant and his colleague and deputy, Captain Olivier Rougemont, had enjoyed a morning’s exhilarating ride in Richmond Park. The commandant was riding his favourite grey, Chloe, and Rougemont was on his boss’s second string, a chestnut Annette.
”
”
Mark Ellis (The French Spy: A classic espionage thriller full of intrigue and suspense)
“
HALLOWE'EN
Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite
All are on their rounds to-night,-
In the wan moon's silver ray
Thrives their helter-skelter play.
Fond of cellar, barn,or stack,
True unto the almanac,
They present to credulous eyes
Strange hobgoblin mysteries.
Cabbage-stomps-straws wet with dew-
Apple-skins, and chestnuts too,
And a mirror for some lass,
Show what wonders come to pass.
Doors they move, and gates they hide,
Mischiefs that on moon-beams ride
Are their deeds, and, by their spells,
Love records its oracles.
Don't we all, of long ago,
By the ruddy fireplace glow,
In the kitchen and the hall,
Those queer, coofllke pranks recall?
Eery shadows were they then-
But to-night they come again;
Were we once more but sixteen,
Precious would be Halloween.
”
”
Joel Benton
“
No, Sunny. I shouldn’t be scared. You’re the least scary thing in my life. You’re not just tattooed on my skin. You’re branded on my heart. Woven into the fiber of my being. The most constant and reassuring person in my life. When I close my eyes, I see you. When you’re away from me, I dream about you. When I need someone to lean on, you are always there for me. God. You’ve loved me when I haven’t even been able to love myself.” My hands squeeze her cheeks and tears seep out over them. But she’s smiling up at me like I hung the moon.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3))
“
Tell me what to do, Summer. Tell me, and I’ll do it. Was I unclear before? Because I want to be crystal clear now. I love you. I loved you the moment you walked into that boardroom and smirked at me like you knew something I didn’t. It bothered me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Wanting to know what you know. I fixated on it, but I think I was just fixated on you.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1))
“
I’m trying to give you what you need. But if you think I don’t like what I see, then I’m not the one who needs his head checked. Because your wellbeing has quickly become my number one priority.”
“Why?”
“Because I fucking adore you. Haven’t you been paying attention?
”
”
Elsie Silver (Reckless (Chestnut Springs, #4))
“
I will go wherever you want. I will wear whatever you want. I will never turn my phone off again. I will always, always be there for you. For Vivi. You don’t need to beg, and you don’t need to say please. For as long as I live, for as long as you need me, you’ll have me. Okay? Never doubt that.
”
”
Elsie Silver (Reckless (Chestnut Springs, #4))
“
Until recently, I believed all horses were alike. They’ve been giant, four-footed animals with ugly dispositions and alarmingly large teeth for so long that it’s a bit startling to notice how different they are from each other. Mara’s mare, for instance, is a chestnut bay except for a wide white blaze down her nose that makes her seem perpetually surprised. My huge plodding mount is a dark brown near to black creature, with the most unruly mane I’ve ever seen. Her shaggy forelock covers her right eye and reaches almost to her mouth.
Mara’s mare head-butts her in the chest. Grinning, Mara plants a kiss between her wide, dumb eyes, then murmurs something.
“Have you named her?” I ask.
“Yes! Her name is Jasmine.”
I grimace. “But jasmine is such a sweet, pretty flower.”
Mara laughs. “Have you named yours?”
“Her name is Horse.”
She rolls her eyes. “If you want to get along with your mount you have to learn each others’ languages. That means starting with a good name.”
“All right.” I pretend to consider. “What about Imbecile? Or Poops A Lot?
”
”
Rae Carson (The Bitter Kingdom (Fire and Thorns, #3))
“
I thought how little we know about the feelings of old people. Children we understand, their fears and hopes and make-believe. I was a child yesterday. I had not forgotten. But Maxim’s grandmother, sitting there in her shawl with her poor blind eyes, what did she feel, what was she thinking? Did she know that Beatrice was yawning and glancing at her watch? Did she guess that we had come to visit her because we felt it right, it was a duty, so that when she got home afterwards Beatrice would be able to say, “Well, that clears my conscience for three months”? Did she ever think about Manderley? Did she remember sitting at the dining room table, where I sat? Did she too have tea under the chestnut tree? Or was it all forgotten and laid aside, and was there nothing left behind that calm, pale face of hers but little aches and little strange discomforts, a blurred thankfulness when the sun shone, a tremor when the wind blew cold? I wished that I could lay my hands upon her face and take the years away. I wished I could see her young, as she was once, with color in her cheeks and chestnut hair, alert and active as Beatrice by her side, talking as she did about hunting, hounds, and horses. Not sitting there with her eyes closed while the nurse thumped the pillows behind her head. “We’ve got a treat today, you know,” said the nurse, “watercress sandwiches for tea. We love watercress, don’t we?
”
”
Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca)
“
A cloud, hitherto unseen, came upon the moon, and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face.The illusion went with it, and the lights in the windows were extinguished. I looked upon a desolate shell, soulless at last, unhaunted, with no whisper of the past about its staring walls.
The house was a sepulchre, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins. There would be no resurrection. When I thought of Manderley in my waking hours I would not be bitter. I should think of it as it might have been, could I have lived there without fear. I should remember the rose-garden in summer, and the birds that sang at dawn.Tea under the chestnut tree, and the murmur of the sea coming up to us from the lawns below.
I would think of the blown lilac, and the Happy Valley. These things were permanent, they could not be dissolved.They were memories that cannot hurt.
”
”
Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca)
“
The ripe, the golden month has come again, and in Virginia the chinkapins are falling. Frost sharps the middle music of the seasons, and all things living on the earth turn home again... the fields are cut, the granaries are full, the bins are loaded to the brim with fatness, and from the cider-press the rich brown oozings of the York Imperials run. The bee bores to the belly of the grape, the fly gets old and fat and blue, he buzzes loud, crawls slow, creeps heavily to death on sill and ceiling, the sun goes down in blood and pollen across the bronzed and mown fields of the old October.
”
”
Thomas Wolfe (Of Time and the River: A Legend of Man's Hunger in His Youth)
“
It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of a chestnut-tree; it stood up, black and riven: the trunk, split down the centere, gasped ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken for each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; through communtiy of vitality was destroyed -- the sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree -- a ruin, but and entire ruin.
'You did right to hold fast to each other,' I said: as if the monster splinters were living things, and could hear me. 'I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more -- never more see birds making nests and singing idylls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you; but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to sympathize with him in his decay.' As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disc was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
I'm happy you're saying that, because... I mean, I always feel like a freak, because I'm never able to move on like... this! You know. People just have an affair, or even entire relationships... they break up and they forget! They move on like they would have changed brand of cereals! I feel I was never able to forget anyone I've been with. Because each person have... their own, specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost. Each relationship, when it ends, really damages me. I never fully recover. That's why I'm very careful with getting involved, because... It hurts too much! Even getting laid! I actually don't do that... I will miss on the other person the most mundane things. Like I'm obsessed with little things. Maybe I'm crazy, but... when I was a little girl, my mom told me that I was always late to school. One day she followed me to see why. I was looking at chestnuts falling from the trees, rolling on the sidewalk, or... ants crossing the road, the way a leaf casts a shadow on a tree trunk... Little things. I think it's the same with people. I see in them little details, so specific to each of them, that move me, and that I miss, and... will always miss. You can never replace anyone, because everyone is made of such beautiful specific details. Like I remember the way, your beard has a bit of red in it. And how the sun was making it glow, that... that morning, right before you left. I remember that, and... I missed it! I'm really crazy, right?
”
”
Céline
“
In praise of mu husband's hair
A woman is alone in labor, for it is an unfortunate fact that there is nobody who can have the baby for you. However, this account would be inadequate if I did not speak to the scent of my husband's hair. Besides the cut flowers he sacrifices his lunches to afford, the purchase of bags of licorice, the plumping of pillows, steaming of fish, searching out of chic maternity dresses, taking over of work, listening to complaints and simply worrying, there was my husband's hair.
His hair has always amazed stylists in beauty salons. At his every first appointment they gather their colleagues around Michael's head. He owns glossy and springy hair, of an animal vitality and resilience that seems to me so like his personality. The Black Irish on Michael's mother's side of the family have changeable hair--his great-grandmother's hair went from black to gold in old age. Michael's went from golden-brown of childhood to a deepening chestnut that gleams Modoc black from his father under certain lights. When pushing each baby I throw my arm over Michael and lean my full weight. When the desperate part is over, the effort, I turn my face into the hair above his ear. It is as though I am entering a small and temporary refuge. How much I want to be little and unnecessary, to stay there, to leave my struggling body at the entrance.
Leaves on a tree all winter that now, in your hand, crushed, give off a dry, true odor. The brass underside of a door knocker in your fingers and its faint metallic polish. Fresh potter's clay hardening on the wrist of a child. The slow blackening of Lent, timeless and lighted with hunger. All of these things enter into my mind when drawing into my entire face the scent of my husband's hair. When I am most alone and drowning and I think I cannot go on, it is breathing into his hair that draws me to the surface and restores my small courage.
”
”
Louise Erdrich (The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year)
“
Instructions for Dad.
I don't want to go into a fridge at an undertaker's. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I got lonely? I promise not to scare you.
I want to be buried in my butterfly dress, my lilac bra and knicker set and my black zip boots (all still in the suitcase that I packed for Sicily). I also want to wear the bracelet Adam gave me.
Don't put make-up on me. It looks stupid on dead people.
I do NOT want to be cremated. Cremations pollute the atmosphere with dioxins,k hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. They also have those spooky curtains in crematoriums.
I want a biodegradable willow coffin and a woodland burial. The people at the Natural Death Centre helped me pick a site not for from where we live, and they'll help you with all the arrangements.
I want a native tree planted on or near my grave. I'd like an oak, but I don't mind a sweet chestnut or even a willow. I want a wooden plaque with my name on. I want wild plants and flowers growing on my grave.
I want the service to be simple. Tell Zoey to bring Lauren (if she's born by then). Invite Philippa and her husband Andy (if he wants to come), also James from the hospital (though he might be busy).
I don't want anyone who doesn't know my saying anything about me. THe Natural Death Centre people will stay with you, but should also stay out of it. I want the people I love to get up and speak about me, and even if you cry it'll be OK. I want you to say honest things. Say I was a monster if you like, say how I made you all run around after me. If you can think of anything good, say that too! Write it down first, because apparently people often forget what they mean to say at funerals.
Don't under any circumstances read that poem by Auden. It's been done to death (ha, ha) and it's too sad. Get someone to read Sonnet 12 by Shakespeare.
Music- "Blackbird" by the Beatles. "Plainsong" by The Cure. "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" by Sufian Stevens. There may not be time for all of them, but make sure you play the last one. Zoey helped me choose them and she's got them all on her iPod (it's got speakers if you need to borrow it).
Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I've got £260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it-lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding-sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don't scare Cal). Spend all the money.
And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you're having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you're out in the garden. I might slip into a dream.
Visit my grave when you can, but don't kick yourself if you can't, or if you move house and it's suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I'd like that.
OK. That's it.
I love you.
Tessa xxx
”
”
Jenny Downham