Grapefruit Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Grapefruit. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Life... is like a grapefruit. Well, it's sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast.
Douglas Adams (So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #4))
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
« He squeezed his hands into fists. I picked up a grapefruit-sized rock and handed it to him. It went flying. Home run, Beast Lord style. 
Ilona Andrews (Magic Rises (Kate Daniels, #6))
Breakfast is the only meal of the day that I tend to view with the same kind of traditionalized reverence that most people associate with Lunch and Dinner. I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas or at home — and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed — breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked.
Hunter S. Thompson
Hide until everybody goes home. Hide until everybody forgets about you. Hide until everybody dies.
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
Mirror becomes a razor when it's broken. A stick becomes a flute when it's loved.
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
Austin and I proceeded to knock back a couple of Ketel One and grapefruit juices, which happened to be my drink of the moment. Someone told me that grapefruit was a great detoxifier and I decided I wanted to start cleaning out my liver WHILE I was having a cocktail.
Chelsea Handler (Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea)
By God, I could make myself bring her that economically halved grapefruit, that sugarless breakfast.
Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
Imagine the clouds dripping Dig a hole in your garden to put them in
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
Yellow is a very favorable vibration for mental or intellectual activity, as it promotes a clear state of mind. Yellow heightens your awareness and alleviates depression, sadness, or any kind of despondency. Yellow vibration foods are: pineapples, bananas, grapefruit, lemons and corn.
Tae Yun Kim (The First Element: Secrets to Maximizing Your Energy)
Squirrels always eat nuts with two hands, always two hands, "arararar", and occasionally, they stop and go, oh, uh, ah, as if they're going, "Did I leave the gas on? No! I'm, no I'm a fucking squirrel!" And occasionally they go, "Fucking nuts! Fed up with them always. I long for a grapefruit.
Eddie Izzard
His lyrical whistle beckoned me to adventure and forgetting. But I didn't want to forget. Hugging my grudge, ugly and prickly, a sad sea urchin, I trudged off on my own, in the opposite direction toward the forbidding prison. As from a star I saw, coldly and soberly, the separateness of everything. I felt the wall of my skin; I am I. That stone is a stone. My beautiful fusion with the things of this world was over. The Tide ebbed, sucked back into itself. There I was, a reject, with the dried black seaweed whose hard beads I liked to pop, hollowed orange and grapefruit halves and a garbage of shells. All at once, old and lonely, I eyed these-- razor clams, fairy boats, weedy mussels, the oyster's pocked gray lace (there was never a pearl) and tiny white "ice cream cones." You could always tell where the best shells were-- at the rim of the last wave, marked by a mascara of tar. I picked up, frigidly, a stiff pink starfish. It lay at the heart of my palm, a joke dummy of my own hand. Sometimes I nursed starfish alive in jam jars of seawater and watched them grow back lost arms. On this day, this awful birthday of otherness, my rival, somebody else, I flung the starfish against a stone. Let it perish.
Sylvia Plath (Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose and Diary Excerpts)
More than a catbird hates a cat, Or a criminal hates a clue, Or the Axis hates the United States, That's how much I love you. I love you more than a duck can swim, And more than a grapefruit squirts, I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore, And more than a toothache hurts. As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea, Or a juggler hates a shove, As a hostess detests unexpected guests, That's how much you I love. I love you more than a wasp can sting, And more than the subway jerks, I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch, And more than a hangnail irks. I swear to you by the stars above, And below, if such there be, As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes, That's how you're loved by me.
Ogden Nash
She gave his fake boob a poke. "What the hell is in here?" He laughed and pulled the top down part of the way to reveal a grapefruit. She groaned onto her hands. "Hey, I know it's been a while since I've seen a real tit up close, but I think I remember the basic shape. What would you have used?" "Oh, hell, Michael,I have no idea what a man uses to stuff a maid's uniform. Where did you get it anyways?" Another of his shit-eating grins lit his face. "From the plus sized section of the lingerie store in Sweedesboro. I'm a woman's extra large." He was so proud of the fact that she laughed until her side ached.
R.E. Butler (Jason & Cadence (The Wolf's Mate, #1))
I look like a watermelon with a great slice hacked out. I say to myself, it's just another border post on the frontier between medicine and greengrocery; growths and tumour seem always to be described as "the size of a plum" or "the size of a grapefruit".
Hilary Mantel (Ink in the Blood: A Hospital Diary)
Goddamnit I've never been the "pretty friend..." She's the one who wears the perfect eyeliner, it never gathers like a crowd in her tear ducts to create a grapefruit-size ebony eye booger. The one who can wear a bodysuit, sit down in it, and not have rolls of fat cascading over her belt. The one who can eat a sandwich or hamburger and not wind up with lipstick on the bun or on her chin. The one who can actually eat in front of other people and not have food, like coleslaw, hanging from her lip or shooting out of her mouth, landing on the plates of other diners. She never spits when she talks. She sleeps with her mouth shut and never drools. She doesn't pick at her face. And she never, ever has to take a shit.
Laurie Notaro (The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life)
Almonds. Apricots. Avocadoes. Some peaches I don't know. Grapefruit. Lemones. Probably oranges.
Jane Smiley (Moo)
Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast.
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
Your mother rolls her eyes at the cat lapping grapefruit juice, says, "Everything that comes into this house is crazy - whether we choose them for that or they get that way, I don't know.
Mary Karr (Cherry)
St. Germain elderflower liqueur, gin, and white Lillet mixed with grapefruit juice create this classic effervescent aperitif. Chin-chin!
Kevin Kwan (China Rich Girlfriend (Crazy Rich Asians, #2))
But somewhere in America, between the freeways and the Food-4-Less, between the filling stations and the 5-o-'clock news, behind the blue blinking light coming off the TV, there is a space, an empty space, between us, around us, inside us, that inevitable, desperate, begs to be filled up. And nothing, not shame, not God, not a new microwave, not a wide-screen TV or that new diet with grapefruits, can ever, ever fill it. Underneath all that white noise there's a lack.
Andrea Portes (Hick)
Human beings do dumb shit. You do dumb shit. She does dumb shit. Everyone does dumb shit. Then, every once in a while, we have a moment where we don’t do dumb shit, and then we throw a goddamned parade and we forget all the dumb shit we did. So what I’m saying to you is, don’t do something, or not do something, to punish someone because you think they did something dumb. Do what you want to do, because it’s what you want to do. Also, bring me a grapefruit from the kitchen and some salt and pepper.
Justin Halpern (I Suck at Girls)
Give death announcements each time you move instead of giving announcements of the change of address. Send the same when you die.
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
Feeding teenage boys was like filling a bathtub with a grapefruit spoon.
Harlan Coben (The Stranger)
Eating as a simple means of ending hunger is one of the great liberties of being alone ... It is a pleasure to not have to take anyone else's tastes into account or explain why I like to drink my grapefruit juice out of the carton." - Ann Patchett, "Dinner for One, Please, James
Jenni Ferrari-Adler (Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone)
avocado—score it, spritz with lemon or olive oil, sprinkle with salt and cumin, and eat it like a grapefruit.
Frank Lipman (The New Health Rules: Simple Changes to Achieve Whole-Body Wellness)
A grapefruit is ionly a lemon that saw an oppurtunity and took advantage of it.
Oscar Wilde
A great way to avoid useless accuracy, and to dodge the Curse of Knowledge, is to use analogies. Analogies derive their power from schemas: A pomelo is like a grapefruit. A good news story is structured like an inverted pyramid. Skin damage is like aging. Analogies make it possible to understand a compact message because they invoke concepts that you already know.
Chip Heath (Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck)
The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Nazis and, inexplicably, I got a real charge out of watching it. Though I wasn't exactly charmed by their deeds, I didn't find them unsympathetic either, nor I might add did most of the members of the audience. One of the Nazis, in a rare display of humor, even juggled grapefruits and, delighted, I sat up in bed and clapped.
Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho)
Eating as a simple means of ending hunger is one of the great liberties of being alone, like going to the movies by yourself in the afternoon or, back in those golden days of youth, having a cigarette in the bathtub. It is a pleasure to not have to take anyone else's tastes into account or explain why I like to drink my grapefruit juice out of the carton. Eating, after all, is a matter of taste, and taste cannot always be good taste. The very thought of maintaining high standards meal after meal is exhausting. It discounts all the peanut butter that is available in the world.
Ann Patchett (Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone)
Quoyle remembered purple-brown seckle pears the size and shape of figs, his father taking the meat off with pecking bites, the smell of fruit in their house, litter of cores and peels in the ashtrays, the grape cluster skeletons, peach stones like hens' brains on the windowsill, the glove of banana peel on the car dashboard. In the sawdust on the basement workbench galaxies of seeds and pits, cherry stones, long white date pits like spaceships. . . . The hollowed grapefruit skullcaps, cracked globes of tangerine peel.
Annie Proulx
Think that snow is falling Think that snow is falling everywhere all the time When you talk with a person, think that snow is falling between you and on that person Stop conversing when you think the person is covered by snow
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
Black vomit came gushing out Samantha’s mouth, adding to the puddle already on the floor. Samantha was covered in a sheen of sweat, crouched on all fours on the wooden hallway floor, like an animal. Her thick yellow fingernails made deep scratches in the wood as her body convulsed with each new expulsion of the black vomit. Her hair was long and thick and full; thicker and fuller than he had ever seen it. It reminded him of a lion’s mane. Her skin was a sickly pale grey with disturbing red boils the size of grapefruit and weeping puss-filled black blotches where others had burst. Spider webs of blue veins were visible under the skin all over her body.
Joseph M. Chiron (Tagged: The Apocalypse)
TIME PAINTING Make a painting in which the color comes out only under a certain light at a certain time of the day. Make it a very short time. 1961 summer
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
Listen to the sound of the earth turning.
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
Oh, mother of grapefruits, what have I done!
Toye Lawson Brown (Teach Me To Love Again (Lombardi Brothers #1))
When I was ten, I began to notice girls and had finally figured out that the bumps under sweaters weren’t hidden grapefruit. Now they were something to be admired, at least at a distance.
Moe Howard (I Stooged to Conquer: The Autobiography of the Leader of the Three Stooges)
Bandage any part of your body If people ask about it, make a story and tell If people do not ask about it, draw their attention to it and tell If people forget about it, remind them of it and keep telling. Do not talk about anything else
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
The dense fog manifests ever-living gravestones, the tunes of decadence, the hearts that were doomed to dance alone. Here lies untouched beauty, a brittle dream, an unseen sea-born nightmare, an isolated acheirous harf, fishbones without flesh, a face without letters, the hypnotic power o Apollonian destruction. Ashes kiss the grapefruit essential oil skin, the soul beats with eaten sons and daughters, soaking wet serpents with cuspid tongues lollop for legendary goddesses.
Laura Gentile (Seraphic Addiction)
Rhonda looped, as unmitigated suffering descended on her; one wave of thought crashed over another without sensible demarcation; bamboo leaves swayed in maddening winds; jaded wetness danced upon purpled drizzles on towering trapeze; grapefruit vines bottled in brine; dewdrops on her eyes. All this, as though, a nonsensical midsummer’s night dream had occurred in an enchanted forest under the influence of Puck’s flower juices, wavering in the moonlight like many of her dreams. A thin line separated reality from dream; like being on a continuum, further up, cross over to another reality; an illusory realisation of a past hollered. Our roles played, but in innate imperfection, to the tune of some charm thrust upon as disposition in this enchanted forest of life.
Mehreen Ahmed (Jacaranda Blues)
What I do know is I've got a brain filled with jokes I can't forget - like a tumor the size of a grapefruit inside of my skull. And I know that eventually even dog shit turns white and stops stinking, but I have this permanent head filled with crap I've been trained my whole life to think is funny.
Chuck Palahniuk (Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread)
In Israel, we spent time working on several kibbutzim. It was unique experience and a very different type of culture than I was used to. I enjoyed picking grapefruits, netting fish on the "fish farm", and doing other agricultural work. Mostly, however, it was the structure of the community that impressed me. People there were living their democratic values. The kibbutz was owned by the people who lived there, the "bosses" were elected by the workers, and overall decisions for the community were made democratically. I recall being impressed by how young-looking and alive the older people there were. Democracy, it seemed, was good for one's health.
Bernie Sanders (Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In)
I used to wonder about the fake pictures that came in frames you buy at the store—ladies with smooth brown hair and show-me smiles, grapefruit-headed babies on their sibling's knees—people who in real life probably were strangers brought together by a talent scout to be a phony family. Maybe it's not so different from real photos, after all.
Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper)
The masculine scents of tobacco, spice and a hint of grapefruit hit her nostrils and affected her like she's dropped into a Godiva factory. What was he wearing ? Reminded her of the bonding scent vampires threw off when they met their soul mates in her fave series, The Black Dagger Brotherhood.
Jennifer Probst (Searching for Someday (Searching For, #1))
On the crowded subway car back to Brooklyn afterwards, the youngest of my three female companions had her bottom groped by a man about Strauss-Kahn’s age. At first, she thought he had simply bumped into her. That was before she felt her buttock being cupped and said something to me, as young women often do, tentatively, quietly, as though it were perhaps not happening or perhaps not quite a problem. Finally, she glared at him and told him to stop. I was reminded of a moment when I was an impoverished seventeen-year-old living in Paris and some geezer grabbed my ass. It was perhaps my most American moment in France, then the land of a thousand disdainful gropers; American because I was carrying three grapefruits, a precious purchase from my small collection of funds, and I threw those grapefruits, one after another, like baseballs at the creep and had the satisfaction of watching him scuttle into the night. His action, like so much sexual violence against women, was undoubtedly meant to be a reminder that this world was not mine, that my rights -- my liberté, egalité, sororité, if you will -- didn’t matter. Except that I had sent him running in a barrage of fruit.
Rebecca Solnit (Men Explain Things to Me)
What you see in an eclipse is entirely different from what you know. It is especially different for those of us whose grasp of astronomy is so frail that, given a flashlight, a grapefruit, two oranges, and fifteen years, we still could not figure out which way to set the clocks for Daylight Saving Time.
Annie Dillard (Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters)
OK for now. I enjoyed my quick, high-powered visit over there and look forward to a dead-game replay when I'm in better condition. Tell Hinckle he'd better take some liver exercises...and also to get braced for my wild cards, which don't always mix well with grapefruit juice and burbon. - To Peter Collier 10/11/1967
Hunter S. Thompson (The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967)
He moved to the trees. Where the bark was peeling from the trunks it lifted in tiny tendrils, almost fluffs. Brian plucked some of them loose, rolled them in his fingers. They seemed flammable, dry and nearly powdery. He pulled and twisted bits off the trees, packing them in one hand while he picked them with the other, picking and gathering until he had a wad close to the size of a baseball. Then he went back into the shelter and arranged the ball of birchbark peelings at the base of the black rock. As an afterthought he threw in the remains of the twenty-dollar bill. He struck and a stream of sparks fell into the bark and quickly died. But this time one spark fell on one small hair of dry bark—almost a thread of bark—and seemed to glow a bit brighter before it died. The material had to be finer. There had to be a soft and incredibly fine nest for the sparks. I must make a home for the sparks, he thought. A perfect home or they won’t stay, they won’t make fire. He started ripping the bark, using his fingernails at first, and when that didn’t work he used the sharp edge of the hatchet, cutting the bark in thin slivers, hairs so fine they were almost not there. It was painstaking work, slow work, and he stayed with it for over two hours. Twice he stopped for a handful of berries and once to go to the lake for a drink. Then back to work, the sun on his back, until at last he had a ball of fluff as big as a grapefruit—dry birchbark fluff.
Gary Paulsen (Hatchet (Hatchet, #1))
So I got to witness firsthand how those metal links got broken. The muscles in his upper arms pumped to the size of grapefruits, and the fabric of the T-shirt tightened around them almost to tearing… Then the metal gave way with a musical twang, and the chain snaked noisily from the grate, falling to the rain-softened earth with a clunk. “By all means,” John said, brushing his hands together in a self-satisfied way, “let’s call Mr. Smith.” I ducked my head, hiding my blushing cheeks by pretending to be busy putting my cell phone back in my bag. Encouraging his occasional lapses into less than civilized behavior seemed like a bad idea, so I didn’t let on how extremely attractive I’d found what he’d just done. “You know,” I remarked coolly, “I’m already your girlfriend. You don’t have to show off your superhuman strength for me.” John looked as if he didn’t for one minute believe my disinterest. He opened the grate for me with a gentlemanly bow. “Let’s go find your cousin,” he said. “I’d like to be home in time for supper. Where’s the coffin?” “It’s at my mom’s house,” I said. “What?” That deflated his self-satisfaction like a pin through a balloon. He stood stock-still outside the door to his crypt, the word HAYDEN carved in bold capital letters above his head. “What’s it doing there?” “Seth Rector and his girlfriend and their friends asked me if they could build it in my mom’s garage,” I said. “They said it was the last place anyone would look.” John shook his head slowly. “Rector,” he said, grinding out the word. “I should have known.” I threw him a wide-eyed glance. “You know Seth Rector?” “Not Seth,” he said, darkly.
Meg Cabot (Underworld (Abandon, #2))
How's everyone in New York?" he added quickly. "Clary dragging Jace into any more trouble? Jace dragging Clary into any more trouble?" "That's the cornerstone of their relationship, but no, Jace is hanging out with Simon," Isabelle reported. "He say they're playing video games." "Do you think Simon invited Jace to hang out with him?" Alec asked skeptically. "Bro," said Isabelle, "I do not." "Has Jace ever played a video game before? I've never played a video game." "I'm sure he'll get the hang of it," said Isabelle. "Simon's explained them to me and they do not sound difficult." "How are things going with you and Simon?" "He's taken a number and remains in the long line of men desperate for my attention," Isabelle said firmly. "How are things between you and Magnus?" "Well, I wondered if you could help me with that." "Yes!" Isabelle exclaimed with horrifying delight. "You are right to come to me with this. I am so much more subtle and skilled in the arts of seduction than Jace. Okay, here's my first suggestion. You're going to need a grapefruit -" "Stop!" said Alec. He hurriedly strode away from Magnus and Shinyun and hid behind a high hedge. They watched him go with bemusement.
Cassandra Clare (The Red Scrolls of Magic (The Eldest Curses, #1))
American farm leaders are correct in arguing that our agriculture still must look forward to a definite ‘surplus’ problem. What they tend to overlook, however, is of what our ‘surplus’ exists. Fundamentally, America’s long-term agricultural problem is not one of ‘surplus’ cotton, wheat, or grapefruit. Rather, it is one of ‘surplus’ farmers.
William H. Nichols
CLOSET PIECE II Put one memory into one half of your head. Shut it off and forget it. Let the other half of the brain long for it. 1964 spring
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
A cloud consists of the following substances: colour, music, smell, sleep and water. Sometimes it rains substances other than water, but very few people notice it.
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
SWIM SWIM IN YOUR DREAM AS FAR AS YOU CAN UNTIL YOU FIND AN ISLAND. TELL US RESULTS. 12th day dreamtime
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
You’ll have your heart cut out with a grapefruit knife; love does that. You won’t have a chance against me until you’re very old, if then.
Charles Baxter (The Feast of Love (Vintage Contemporaries))
A family of grapefruits will always be surrounded by bitterness.
Anthony T. Hincks
Hollywood's a great place to live... if you're a grapefruit.
Rod Serling
Babe let's go to town buy something sweet - pink grapefruit eat it with sugar
Lana Del Rey (Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass)
Grapefruit is a hybrid of lemon and orange. Snow is a hybrid of wish and lament.
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
She missed the evenings most of all: the grapefruit sun hovering above the prairie, dismissing the day with unpredictable strokes of cantaloupe, fuchsia, and violet.
Emily Habeck (Shark Heart)
Though we typically turn to sugar to balance out bitter flavors in a sauce or soup, it turns out that salt masks bitterness much more effectively than sugar. See for yourself with a little tonic water, Campari, or grapefruit juice, all of which are both bitter and sweet. Taste a spoonful, then add a pinch of salt and taste again. You’ll be surprised by how much bitterness subsides.
Samin Nosrat (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking)
Jack hit the floor and fired off push-ups until he thought he'd pass out. The spinning behind his eyes felt good. He'd gotten by with a half grapefruit (35 calories) at breakfast, because his mom was such an emotional wreck before driving him to the hospital. She didn't argue over the half cup of oatmeal (110 calories), which he dumped in the sink before polishing off the last of his red M&Ms, his go-to food when life got sucky.
Sherry Shahan (Skin and Bones)
TAPE PIECE II Room Piece Take the sound of the room breathing. 1) at dawn 2) in the morning 3) in the afternoon 4) in the evening 5) before dawn Bottle the smell of the room of that particular hour as well 1963 autumn
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
Life,’ he said, ‘is like a grapefruit.’ ‘Er, how so?’ ‘Well, it’s sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It’s got pips inside too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast.
Douglas Adams (The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five)
Ingredients 1 drops Grapefruit Essential Oil 1 drop Ylang Ylang Essential Oil 1 drop Wild Orange Essential Oil 2 drops Patchouli Essential Oil 3 drops Bergamot Essential Oil Directions To support harmony in a tense home or mind, combine all ingredients in your diffuser and use as normal.
George Shepherd (Wild Orange Essential Oil: Uses, Studies, Benefits, Applications & Recipes (Wellness Research Series Book 8))
One day in 1948 or 1949, the Brentwood County Mart, a shopping complex in an upscale neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, was the scene of a slight disturbance that carried overtones of the most spectacular upheaval in twientieth-century music. Marta Feuchtwanger, wife of émigré novelist Lion Feuchtwanger, was examining grapefruit in the produce section when she heard a voice shouting German from the far end of the aisle. She looked up to see Arnold Schoenberg, the pioneer of atonal music and the codifier of twelve-tone composition, bearing down on her, with his bald pate and burning eyes. Decades later, in conversation with the writer Lawrence Weschler, Feuchtwanger could recall every detail of the encounter, including the weight of the grapefruit in her hand. “Lies, Frau Marta, lies!” Schoenberg was yelling. “You have to know, I never had syphilis!
Alex Ross
A lemon,” said Mrs. Lefkowitz, and nodded. “Huh?” “Think about fruit,” she continued. “When you squeeze an orange, what do you get?” Rose smiled. “Trouble?” “No, no, Mrs. Smart. You get orange juice. You don’t get grapefruit juice, you don’t get apple juice, you don’t get milk. You get orange juice. Every time. People are like that. They can only give you what they have inside. So if this Sydelle character is giving you so much trouble, it’s because she’s nothing but trouble on the inside. She’s just delivering what’s in her heart into the universe.” And Mrs. Lefkowitz sat back, looking pleased with herself.
Jennifer Weiner (In Her Shoes)
ECHO TELEPHONE PIECE Get a telephone that only echoes back your voice. Call every day and talk about many things. 1964 spring
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
CONCERT PIECE When the curtain rises, go hide and wait until everybody leaves you. Come out and play. 1963 autumn
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
CENTRAL PARK POND PIECE Go to the middle of the Central Park Pond and drop all your jewelries. 1956 autumn
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
MIRROR PIECE Instead of obtaining a mirror, obtain a person. Look into him. Use different people. Old, young, fat, small, etc. 1964 spring
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
Piano keys are flower-petals turned hard.
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
count count the clouds name them 8th day (afternoon)
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
watch go to the nearest fountain and watch the water dance afternoon 5th day
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
PAINTING FOR THE BURIAL On the night of the full moon, place a canvas in the garden from 1 a.m. till dawn. When the canvas is dyed thoroughly in rose with the morning light, dismember or fold it and bury. The ways of burial: 1) Bury it in the garden and place a marker with a number on it. 2) Sell it to the rag man. 3) )Throw it in the garbage. 1961 summer
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
The Churchills brought to 10 Downing a new family member, the Admiralty’s black cat, Nelson, named after Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, hero of the British naval victory at Trafalgar. Churchill adored the cat and often carried him about the house. Nelson’s arrival caused a certain degree of feline strife, according to Mary, for Nelson harassed the cat that already resided at 10 Downing, whose nickname was “the Munich Mouser.” There was much to arrange, of course, as in any household, but an inventory for 10 Downing hints at the complexity that awaited Clementine: wine glasses and tumblers (the whiskey had to go somewhere), grapefruit glasses, meat dishes, sieves, whisks, knives, jugs, breakfast cups and saucers, needles for
Erik Larson (The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz)
Goldfish in a glass bowl are harmless to the human mind, maybe even helpful to minds casting about for something, anything, to think about. But goldfish let loose, propagating themselves, worst of all surviving in what has to be a sessile eddy of the East River, somehow threaten us all. We do not like to think that life is possible under some conditions, especially the conditions of a Manhattan pond. There are four abandoned ties, any number of broken beer bottles, fourteen shoes and a single sneaker, and a visible layer, all over the surface, of that grayish-green film that settles on all New York surfaces. The mud at the banks of the pond is not proper country mud but reconstituted Manhattan landfill, ancient garbage, fossilized coffee grounds and grapefruit rind, the defecation of a city. For goldfish to be swimming in such water, streaking back and forth mysteriously in small schools, feeding, obviously feeding, looking as healthy and well-off as goldfish in the costliest kind of window-box aquarium, means something is wrong with our standards. It is, in some deep sense beyond words, insulting.
Lewis Thomas (The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher)
It turned out to be just his sort of life in Melbourne [Florida] -- a little three-room mini apartment to himself, and down on the strip, five different bars where you had women going around in bathing suits. In the backyard, his mother's new husband had grown a miraculous tree, a lemon trunk grafted with orange, tangerine, satsuma, kumquat, and grapefruit limbs, each bearing its own vivid fruit. Every morning, Jeff would go out and fill his arms, and squeeze himself a pitcher of juice, thick and sun-hot. That house was good for his mother, too. The swimming pool trimmed fifteen pounds off of her. She didn't seem to have moods anymore, and she didn't fly off the handle when Jeff beat her in the cribbage games they played most afternoons.
Wells Tower (Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned)
What first comes across our minds About the stocky Mexican Pushing a mower across the lawn At 7 a.m. on a Saturday As the roar of the cutter wakes us? Let me take a guess. Why do they have to come so damn early? What do we make of his flannel Shirt missing buttons at the cuffs, Threadbare at the shoulders, The grass stains around his knees, The dirt like roadmaps to nowhere, Between the wrinkles of his neck? Let me take a shot. Dirty Mexican. Would his appearance lead us to believe He is a border jumper or wetback Who hits the bar top with an empty shot glass For the twelfth time then goes home To kick his wife around like fallen grapefruit Lying on the ground? First, the stocky Mexican isn’t mowing the lawn At 7 a.m. on a Saturday. He doesn’t work weekends anymore ever since He lost one-third of his route To laborers willing to work for next to nothing. Second, he knows better than to kneel On the wet grass because, well, the knees Of his pants will become grass-stained And pants don’t grow on trees, even here, Close to Palm Springs. Instead, after 25 years of the same blue collar work, Two sons out and one going to college, Rather than jail, and a small but modest savings In case he loses the remaining two-thirds Of his work—no matter how small and reluctantly The checks come in the mail— My father the stocky gardener believes He firmly holds his life In both his hands like pruning shears, Chopping branches and blossoms, Never looking downward as they fall to his feet In pieces like the American dream.
John Olivares Espinoza (The Date Fruit Elegies (Canto Cosas))
Breakfast. We have a rotation of various meals for breakfast. This is an example of one weekly menu: • Monday: cold cereal with bananas • Tuesday: hot cereal with grapefruit • Wednesday: pancakes, waffles, or French toast (from the freezer) and ham • Thursday: eggs with toast • Friday: bagels with fruit • Saturday: pancakes (made from scratch) and sausages • Sunday: scrambled eggs with cheese, ham, and potatoes
Steve Economides (America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money: Your Guide to Living Better, Spending Less, and Cashing in on Your Dreams)
She buys "mixed salad greens" for seven dollars a bag, triple-washed with who knows what. And to get this stuff home, which is only two blocks away from the grocery store, Jennica throws all of it into plastic bags. There is a husk on her corn, corn that Jennica's store sells in April.. there is a rind on her grapefruit, grapefruit that gets flown in from Florida... but still, Jennica puts the corn and the citrus into plastic bags. Her supposedly organic red peppers, which cost six dollars a pound, come in a foam tray under shrink-wrap, but she puts them in a plastic bag. And then the checkout girl puts all of Jennica's little plastic parcels into two or three more big white plastic bags, and then Jennica walks the two blocks home, where she unpacks all the bags and then trows them in the same trash bin where her corn husks and citrus rinds go.
Rudolph Delson (Maynard and Jennica)
There is something new: A globe about the size of a grapefruit, a perfectly detailed rendition of Planet Earth, hanging in space at arm's length in front of his eyes. Hiro has heard about this but never seen it. It is a piece of CIC software called, simply, Earth. It is the user interface that CIC uses to keep track of every bit of spatial information that it owns—all the maps, weather data, architectural plans, and satellite surveillance stuff.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
As a general rule, sour or acidic fruits (grapefruits, kiwis, and strawberries) can be combined with “protein fats” such as avocado, coconut, coconut kefir, and sprouted nuts and seeds. Both acid fruits and sub-acid fruits like apples, grapes, and pears can be eaten with cheeses; and vegetable fruits (avocados, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers) can be eaten with fruits, vegetables, starches, and proteins. I’ve also found that apples combine well with raw vegetables.
Tess Masters (The Blender Girl: Super-Easy, Super-Healthy Meals, Snacks, Desserts, and Drinks--100 Gluten-Free, Vegan Recipes!)
Do not waste....Don't waste the vegetable-washing water, splash it on the grapefruit tree instead....Don't waste anything made of glass or plastic because glass and plastic can be reused ad nauseam....Don't waste...a string for retying, a rubber band for conquering dry noodles or hair, rice bags for dishcloths, fish bones for fertilizer....Anything that comes out of the earth must be returned to the earth...."If everyone uses more than their share, how can the earth support us?"
Thanhhà Lại
Cinnabar- orange blossom, clove, lily, a touch of patchouli." She ticked the ingredients off. "That woman picked her perfume in college in 1978, and she's worn it ever since." She looked over at me and smiled. "She thinks it defines her. She's right. And that one." She nodded toward a woman standing by the leather boots in the shoe department. "Roses and gin, one of those boutique perfumes. She likes the joke of it, but she's more traditional than she'll ever admit. I bet she has plenty of fantasies she never acts on." It was like the game I used to play, back when I read the bedsheets in the cottages at the cove, tried to figure out who the guests were, what they wanted. As we started up the escalator, a woman in her midsixties passed us going down, trailing a wake of fresh oranges behind her. "Did you know," Victoria said over her shoulder, "that if you put men in a room with just the faintest smell of grapefruit, they tend to think the women around them are six or seven years younger than they actually are?
Erica Bauermeister (The Scent Keeper)
Dance Report in the old east there was a dance in which young girls at the age of 12 or 13 wore special intoxicating flowers inducing them to sleep while standing. the girls went on standing for hours while people watched and appreciated the delicate swaying of the bodies
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings)
The Dieter's Daughter Mom's got this taco guy's poem taped to the fridge, some ode to celery, which she is always eating. The celery, I mean, not the poem which talks about green angels and fragile corsets. I don't get it, but Mom says by the time she reads it she forgets she's hungry. One stalk for breakfast, along with half a grapefruit, or a glass of aloe vera juice, you know that stuff that comes from cactus, and one stalk for lunch with some protein drink that tastes like dried placenta, did you know that they put cow placenta in make-up, face cream, stuff like that? Yuck. Well, Mom says it's never too early to wish you looked different, which means I got to eat that crap too. Mom says: your body is a temple, not the place all good twinkies go to. Mom says: that boys remember girls that're slender. Mom says that underneath all this fat there's a whole new me, one I'd really like if only I gave myself the chance. Mom says: you are what you eat, which is why she eats celery, because she wants to be thin, not green or stringy, of course-- am I talking too fast?-- but thin as paper like the hearts we cut out and send to ourselves, don't tell anyone, like the hearts of gold melons we eat down to the bitter rind.
Anita Endrezze
Day 1 Breakfast Half a Grapefruit or 8 Ounces Fresh Squeezed Grapefruit Juice Black Coffee or Unsweetened Tea Lunch Half a Grapefruit or 8 Ounces Fresh Squeezed Grapefruit Juice 1 Egg, Boiled or Poached Salad From The Super Skinny Salad List Your Choice of Approved Salad Dressings 1 Grain From The Super Skinny Grain List Black Coffee or Unsweetened Tea Dinner Half a Grapefruit or 8 Ounces Fresh Squeezed Grapefruit Juice 2 Eggs, Boiled or Poached Salad From The Super Skinny Salad List Your Choice of Approved Salad Dressings 1 Grain From The Super Skinny Grain List Black Coffee or Unsweetened Tea   Day 2 Today is Resveratrol Day! Resveratol is
Hillary Michaels (Super Skinny 2015 Grapefruit and Egg Diet Plus!)
Alongside the house he planted orange and grapefruit, two more pomegranate trees, and one unbelievable tree that yielded oranges, lemons, tangerines, and other citrus fruits that I do not recall-- perhaps grapefruit and, perhaps, according to the storyline nature of my family, avocado or tomato. Either way, that tree aroused awe and excitement within me, and this is only increased when I asked my mother how her father had managed to create it. 'He's a magician,' she said. Years later I discovered it was a perfectly ordinary grafting of bitter orange understock, but my mother's words were already engraved upon me, and the impression had never dissipated.
Meir Shalev (My Wild Garden: Notes from a Writer's Eden)
Wearing Deni's huge vicuna coat with the si cap over my ears, in cold biting winds of December New York, Irwin and Simon led me up to the Russian Tea Room to meet Salvador Dali. He was sitting with his chin on a finely decorated tile headed cane, blue and white, next to his wife at the Cafe table. He had a cane, blue and white, next to his wife at the Cafe table. He had a little wax moustache, thin. When the waiter asked him what he wanted he said 'One grapefruit...peenk!' and he had big blue eyes like a baby, a real or Spaniard. He told us no artist was great unless he made money. Was he talking about Uccello, Ghianondri, Franca? We didn't even know what money really was or what to do with it. Dali had already read an article about the 'insurgent' 'beats' and was interested. When Irwin told him (in Spanish) we wanted to meet Marlon Brando (who ate in this Russian Tea Room) he said, waving three fingers at me, 'He is more beautiful than M. Brando.' I wondered why he said that but he probably had a tiff with old Marlon. But what he meant was my eyes, which were blue, like his, and my hair, which is black, like his, and when I looked into his eyes, and he looked into my eyes, we couldn't stand all that sadness. In fact, when Dali and I look in the mirror we can't stand all that sadness. To Dali sadness is beautiful.
Jack Kerouac (Desolation Angels)
...the question of portion size. When I ate Doritos or a Big Mac, I dept on eating and eating, and later experienced McRegret. So why when I ate a fourteen-week-old barred rock [heirloom breed chicken] or a grapefruit did I find it tremendously delicious and yet tremendously satisfying? If these foods tasted better, shouldn't I have just kept on gorging? Fred Provenza believes the difference comes down to what he calls "deep satiety." "Fundamentally," he told me, "eating too much is an inability to satiate." Wen food meets needs at "multiple levels," it provides a feeling of "completeness" and offers a satisfaction that's altogether different from being stuffed.
Mark Schatzker (The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor)
I didn't do well at school. I cleaned houses and offices for a living. Some people looked down on me. Yet, Essie never did. She had her demands, liked her carpets cleaned a certain way, and hated the smell of grapefruit in her bathroom. But she treated me with respect, like I was a human being. If she asked me a question, she listened to my answer and considered it. Even a small gap in a door can let in a lot of light. And it made me feel special. I'm proud to be one of the few people she let into her life. The other people were you. Our relationships with her weren't smooth. Maybe Essie could have treated people better. Maybe they could have treated her better too...
Phaedra Patrick (The Messy Lives of Book People)
In awe at the sheer beauty of the setting, Celina stepped onto the balcony, which overlooked a terrace garden of fruit trees. "It's so beautiful here." She breathed in, catching the scent of fruit trees below. "What type of fruit are you growing?" "Mostly lemon," Sara said. "But also olive, grapefruit, orange, fig, and pomegranate. With our temperate climate, most everything thrives." Celina peered over the balcony's edge. To one side, a cliff dropped to the sea, while on the other, a terrace sprawled along the hilltop perch. Flaming pink bougainvillea and snowy white jasmine curled around the corners of grapevine-covered archways that framed the shimmering ocean view.
Jan Moran (The Chocolatier)
Similarly, our sensitivity to bitter foods is largely associated with a gene called TAS2R38,40 and you can measure yours at home by picking up some paper test strips saturated with a chemical called 6-n-propylthiouracil41 (PROP), which are widely available online. About half the population finds these strips moderately bitter42 (“tasters”), while a quarter finds them unpalatably bitter (“supertasters”), and another quarter describes them as having no taste at all (“nontasters”). Supertasters also tend to have a higher density of taste buds,43 and although this might sound like a coveted foodie superpower, supertasters are likely to be pickier eaters44 and avoid things like coffee, wine, spirits, dark chocolate, and various fruits and vegetables (e.g., grapefruit, broccoli, kale) because they find them too bitter.
Matt Siegel (The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat)
His mother had always mothered him—she insisted on coming by once a week and ironing for us, and when she was done ironing, she’d say, “I’ll just help tidy,” and after she’d left, I’d look in the fridge and find she’d peeled and sliced his grapefruit for him, put the pieces in a snap-top container, and then I’d open the bread and discover all the crusts had been cut away, each slice returned half naked. I am married to a thirty-four-year-old man who is still offended by bread crusts. But I tried to do the same those first weeks after his mom passed. I snipped the bread crusts, I ironed his T-shirts, I baked a blueberry pie from his mom’s recipe. “I don’t need to be babied, really, Amy,” he said as he stared at the loaf of skinned breads. “I let my mom do it because it made her happy, but I know you don’t like that nurturing stuff.
Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
The plant he’d brought home wasn’t a currant, like I’d first thought. It was hawthorn, and while the blossoms had stronger medicinal properties than the berries, the bark and the leaves were what you really wanted. “For what?” My blood pumped with hope and fear. “For hearts!” he said, holding a ruby-colored berry between his thumb and pointer finger. The sun caught it just right, illuminating its heart shape and blood color, illustrating the rule that nature always showed us how to harvest its treasures. Walnuts, shaped like a brain, were exceptional for cerebral health. Slice a carrot crossway and what did you see? An eye, and there was no vegetable better suited to improving sight. Avocadoes worked wonders on the uterus, celery on the bones, grapefruit on the breasts. And this ruby berry, apparently, was a miracle cure for hearts.
Jess Lourey (Litani)
Try to eat at least three of these foods per day—the more the better—rotating your consumption so that in a given week or two, you get all of these foods into your system. Wild blueberries: help restore the central nervous system and flush EBV neurotoxins out of the liver. Celery: strengthens hydrochloric acid in the gut and provides mineral salts to the central nervous system. Sprouts: high in zinc and selenium to strengthen the immune system against EBV. Asparagus: cleanses the liver and spleen; strengthens the pancreas. Spinach: creates an alkaline environment in the body and provides highly absorbable micronutrients to the nervous system. Cilantro: removes heavy metals such as mercury and lead, which are favored foods of EBV. Parsley: removes high levels of copper and aluminum, which feed EBV. Coconut oil: antiviral and acts as an anti-inflammatory. Garlic: antiviral and antibacterial that defends against EBV. Ginger: helps with nutrient assimilation and relieves spasms associated with EBV. Raspberries: rich in antioxidants to remove free radicals from the organs and bloodstream. Lettuce: stimulates peristaltic action in the intestinal tract and helps cleanse EBV from the liver. Papayas: restore the central nervous system; strengthen and rebuild hydrochloric acid in the gut. Apricots: immune system rebuilders that also strengthen the blood. Pomegranates: help detox and cleanse the blood as well as the lymphatic system. Grapefruit: rich source of bioflavonoids and calcium to support the immune system and flush toxins out of the body. Kale: high in specific alkaloids that protect against viruses such as EBV. Sweet potatoes: help cleanse and detox the liver from EBV byproducts and toxins. Cucumbers: strengthen the adrenals and kidneys and flush neurotoxins out of the bloodstream. Fennel: contains strong antiviral compounds to fight off EBV. Healing Herbs and Supplements
Anthony William (Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal)
A bout of nerves crept up my spine and I tilted my head at him, hoping I was imagining the heat spreading over my cheeks to spare myself the embarrassment of blushing merely because he was piercing me with those chocolate eyes that I had never noticed were so amazing. “What are you staring at?” “Can I take you to prom?” He asked me. Just like that, no hesitation or insecurity to be found in his tone or facial expression. His confidence caught me completely off guard and I gaped at him in a stunned silence for almost twenty full seconds. His expression never faltered, though. He just watched my mouth work to make some sort of intelligible sound, waiting for my answer as he oozes at least the illusion of complete calm. “Huh?” I blurted in an embarrassingly high-pitched squeak. I sounded like a chipmunk and his smirk made me turn a deep shade of red. “Um… Uh… Prom?” I managed, eloquent as ever. He laughed at me fondly, nodding his head. “Yeah, prom.” Shock was not a deep enough word to describe what I was feeling over this proposal. This was Jim, the kid who swore up and down he would rather gouge out his eyes with a grapefruit spoon than put on dress clothes and he was offering to take me to a place where flannel shirts and ratty jeans were unacceptable and dance me around a room in uncomfortable shoes all night long? This couldn’t be real life. But it was real life. I was sitting in the car with him with my mouth hanging open like a fish waiting for him to laugh and tell me he was kidding, that there was no way he was going to put on a tie for my benefit, and he was sitting right there, a slightly nervous look crossing his features over my dumbstruck expression. Breathe, Lizzie, I scolded myself. Answer him! Say yes! You could have knocked me over with a feather and I was very relieved to be sitting down in a car so I could prevent anything humiliating from happening. Having already proved I could not trust my voice to answer him I jerkily nodded my head as my mouth grew into a Cheshire cat sized smile. I turned my face away and hid behind my hair as if I could hide my excitement from the world. Jim was visibly euphoric and that only made me want to squeal even more. He was excited to take me out. How cool was that?
Melissa Simmons (Best Thing I Never Had (Anthology))
Next, I drink a few more glasses of water containing liquid chlorophyll to build my blood. If I’m stressed, I’ll have some diluted black currant juice for an antioxidant boost to the adrenals. Once I’m hungry, I sip my way through a big green alkaline smoothie (a combination of spinach, cucumber, coconut, avocado, lime, and stevia is a favorite) or tuck into a fruit salad or parfait. And tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocados are fruits, too; a morning salad is a good breakfast and keeps the sugar down. But, this kind of morning regime isn’t for everyone. You can get really hungry, particularly when you first start eating this way. And some people need to start the day with foods that deliver more heat and sustenance. If that’s how you roll, try having fruit or a green smoothie and then waiting for 30 minutes (if your breakfast includes bananas, pears, or avocados, make it 45) before eating something more. As a general rule, sour or acidic fruits (grapefruits, kiwis, and strawberries) can be combined with “protein fats” such as avocado, coconut, coconut kefir, and sprouted nuts and seeds. Both acid fruits and sub-acid fruits like apples, grapes, and pears can be eaten with cheeses; and vegetable fruits (avocados, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers) can be eaten with fruits, vegetables, starches, and proteins. I’ve also found that apples combine well with raw vegetables. Leafy greens (spinach, kale, collard greens), along with the vegetable fruits noted above, are my go-to staples. They are the magic foods that combine well with every food on the planet. I blend them together in green smoothies, cold soups, and salads.
Tess Masters (The Blender Girl: Super-Easy, Super-Healthy Meals, Snacks, Desserts, and Drinks--100 Gluten-Free, Vegan Recipes!)
The Venetians catalogue everything, including themselves. ‘These grapes are brown,’ I complain to the young vegetable-dealer in Santa Maria Formosa. ‘What is wrong with that ? I am brown,’ he replies. ‘I am the housemaid of the painter Vedova,’ says a maid, answering the telephone. ‘I am a Jew,’ begins a cross-eyed stranger who is next in line in a bookshop. ‘Would you care to see the synagogue?’ Almost any Venetian, even a child, will abandon whatever he is doing in order to show you something. They do not merely give directions; they lead, or in some cases follow, to make sure you are still on the right way. Their great fear is that you will miss an artistic or ‘typical’ sight. A sacristan, who has already been tipped, will not let you leave until you have seen the last Palma Giovane. The ‘pope’ of the Chiesa dei Greci calls up to his housekeeper to throw his black hat out the window and settles it firmly on his broad brow so that he can lead us personally to the Archaeological Museum in the Piazza San Marco; he is afraid that, if he does not see to it, we shall miss the Greek statuary there. This is Venetian courtesy. Foreigners who have lived here a long time dismiss it with observation : ‘They have nothing else to do.’ But idleness here is alert, on the qui vive for the opportunity of sightseeing; nothing delights a born Venetian so much as a free gondola ride. When the funeral gondola, a great black-and-gold ornate hearse, draws up beside a fondamenta, it is an occasion for aesthetic pleasure. My neighbourhood was especially favoured this way, because across the campo was the Old Men’s Home. Everyone has noticed the Venetian taste in shop displays, which extends down to the poorest bargeman, who cuts his watermelons in half and shows them, pale pink, with green rims against the green side-canal, in which a pink palace with oleanders is reflected. Che bello, che magnifici, che luce, che colore! - they are all professori delle Belle Arti. And throughout the Veneto, in the old Venetian possessions, this internal tourism, this expertise, is rife. In Bassano, at the Civic Museum, I took the Mayor for the local art-critic until he interupted his discourse on the jewel-tones (‘like Murano glass’) in the Bassani pastorals to look at his watch and cry out: ‘My citizens are calling me.’ Near by, in a Paladian villa, a Venetian lasy suspired, ‘Ah, bellissima,’ on being shown a hearthstool in the shape of a life-size stuffed leather pig. Harry’s bar has a drink called a Tiziano, made of grapefruit juice and champagne and coloured pink with grenadine or bitters. ‘You ought to have a Tintoretto,’ someone remonstrated, and the proprietor regretted that he had not yet invented that drink, but he had a Bellini and a Giorgione. When the Venetians stroll out in the evening, they do not avoid the Piazza San Marco, where the tourists are, as Romans do with Doney’s on the Via Veneto. The Venetians go to look at the tourists, and the tourists look back at them. It is all for the ear and eye, this city, but primarily for the eye. Built on water, it is an endless succession of reflections and echoes, a mirroring. Contrary to popular belief, there are no back canals where tourist will not meet himself, with a camera, in the person of the another tourist crossing the little bridge. And no word can be spoken in this city that is not an echo of something said before. ‘Mais c’est aussi cher que Paris!’ exclaims a Frenchman in a restaurant, unaware that he repeats Montaigne. The complaint against foreigners, voiced by a foreigner, chimes querulously through the ages, in unison with the medieval monk who found St. Mark’s Square filled with ‘Turks, Libyans, Parthians, and other monsters of the sea’. Today it is the Germans we complain of, and no doubt they complain of the Americans, in the same words.
Mary McCarthy