“
Life is like a box of crayons. Most people are the 8 color boxes, but what you're really looking for are the 64 color boxes with the sharpeners on the back. I fancy myself to be a 64 color box, though I've got a few missing. It's okay though, because I've got some more vibrant colors like periwinkle at my disposal. I have a bit of a problem though in that I can only meet the 8 color boxes. Does anyone else have that problem? I mean there are so many different colors of life, of feeling, of articulation. So when I meet someone who's an 8 color type...I'm like, hey girl, Magenta! and she's like, oh, you mean purple! and she goes off on her purple thing, and I'm like, no I want Magenta!
”
”
John Mayer
“
Could a scar be like the rings of a tree, reopened with each emotional season?
”
”
Magenta Periwinkle (Cutting Class)
“
I'm having a magenta day. Not just red, but magenta!
”
”
Stephen King (Needful Things)
“
First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.
May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.
When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.
Guide her, protect her
When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.
Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.
What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.
May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.
Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.
O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.
And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.
And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.
“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.
”
”
Tina Fey (Bossypants)
“
At the edge of the field Silva and Stefan witnessed heartrending images in greyscale as thousands of desperate refugees streamed down the road in leaden shades of melancholy. This somber line of tired and dirty humans moved so close together that they jostled each other with each step; their random movements reminded Silva of corks bobbing in a slow moving stream. They watched them pass from the side of the road, but eventually fell-in, trudging along with the suffering others, feeling safer in numbers, hoping for a destination worth finding.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
I had choosen the path of the black sheep rather than that of the unicorns and puppies.
”
”
Magenta Periwinkle (Cutting Class)
“
Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.
”
”
Robert Fulghum
“
There was a story out there, in a scary place, and she had to bear witness.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
She polished her words like smooth river rocks lying perfectly organized in brilliant rainbow shades under crystal clear, slow moving water.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
Stefan, please, get to work. Take a picture of this.
You want a photo? Of this?
War in all its ugliness. A Pulitzer Prize awaits.
You want me to document a war crime? Your war crime?
Yes. I do.
You understand they can’t be untaken.
Proceed.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
Just cause you get used to something doesn't mean you like it." He added, snapping the magenta, "You're used to me.
”
”
Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
“
My father once nearly came to blows with a female dinner guest about whether a particular patch of embroidery was fuchsia or magenta.
But the infinite gradations of color in a fine sunset - from salmon to canary to midnight blue - left him wordless.
”
”
Alison Bechdel (Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic)
“
FALLING IN LOVE WITH OCTOBER
Leaves descending to the ground,
Orange, magenta, green & brown
The cool crisp breezes in the air,
Autumn season must be here
”
”
Charmaine J. Forde
“
I want you to write like Alice Munro. Stir the world. Make people see the horror; show them their suffering relatives; show them that they’re not safe. Let them know that they can’t even begin to imagine what’s happening here. By making my reality more compelling than reality television is the only way you’ll get their attention.
Psychotic and cynical.
Who can tell the difference anymore between a severed head and a special effect? Can you? I doubt it, and I know you’ve been in the middle of it all and seen the damage first-hand.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
If Los Angeles is a woman reclining billboard model with collagen-puffed lips and silicone-inflated breasts, a woman in a magenta convertible with heart-shaped sunglasses and cotton candy hair; if Los Angeles is this woman, then the San Fernando Valley is her teenybopper sister. The teenybopper sister snaps bug stretchy pink bubbles over her tongue and checks her lipgloss in the rearview mirror, . . . Teeny plays the radio too loud and bites her nails, wondering if the glitter polish will poison her.
”
”
Francesca Lia Block (I Was a Teenage Fairy)
“
Like the color pink, someone always sees the story different. Some see rose and magenta, and other see coral and salmon. When at the end of the day, it’s just regular old pink.
”
”
Tiffany D. Jackson (Monday's Not Coming)
“
Stefan with his camera at the ready photographed a church and mosque and synagogue reduced to a cross and a crescent and a star, solitary monuments to what people once believed. They silently passed the broken Olympic Stadium, now a graveyard without glory for the decomposing dead.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
As for me I will follow the path of the pink bunnies.
”
”
Magenta Periwinkle
“
Starting this day, she was no longer going to be quiet, a wallflower no more.
”
”
Magenta Periwinkle
“
Thierry was one. An award winning documentary film producer based in Paris. Her curiosity was not driven so much by his fame or talent, with which he was generously endowed on both counts, but by his elusiveness. He had a reputation for chasing the most complicated and dangerous assignments that others considered too risky. He had money for all occasions. He had a reputation among men as a man with a reputation among women.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
The problem with bearing fanatical witness to this kind of human depravity is that ambiguity and contradiction easily overwhelm the nuance required for understanding. There seems to me that no logic applies to our time of terror, as if it were a dream. There was no lapse of incoherence; none of it was incomprehensible; our shared pain was not sensible then and unexplainable afterwards. It was actually all too real all the time, and we were simply trying to navigate an uncertain passage through it in search of safety.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
I wanted so badly to be seen, yet my pride prevented me from obviously asking to be seen. I did not want to be seen by demand, but rather by their choosing.
”
”
Magenta Periwinkle
“
The bougainvillea hung about it, purple and magenta, in livid balloons.
”
”
Anita Desai (Games at Twilight)
“
Lipstick?" He arched a brow.
"I'm on the hunt for my perfect shade," I respond, deadpan.
"Ditch the magenta. Your olive skin screams for rose." His deadpan is better than mine.
”
”
Gena Showalter (A Mad Zombie Party (White Rabbit Chronicles, #4))
“
But the floor retained an unparalleled measure of excellence with a decorative array of ceramic tiles precisely laid by an anonymous Muslim artisan with limitless patience, pride, or skill. He left behind an ornate work of art in a short, squat, non-descript building near the most dangerous piece of real estate on the planet. Silva often wondered how an architect so careless came to work with a craftsman so precise. Looking at that floor, she often thought that if everyone applied just a fraction of his dedication to their own work, it might cancel out the hatred driving the destruction.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
And now insane men adrift in a world without order formed a line at the door. They rendered unto her every evil act brought into this world by God. They fell upon her with brutality that none of them at any other time would have thought possible. There was once no scenario that would lead them to behave this way. At any other time in their life there were no words or arguments that could convince them to treat a woman with such wanton disregard. No one now asked, “What brought me to this?” Not one of them asked, “Who are these men? How did we end up here, doing these things? Who am I now?
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
And because I was six, I remember believing color was a kind of happiness—so I took the brightest shades in the crayon box and filled my sad cow with purple, orange, red, auburn, magenta, pewter, fuchsia, glittered grey, lime green.
”
”
Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
“
Then Drago began the deliberate, precise, business-like process of killing. A knee-buckling burst of fire and flash laid waste to men and material within seconds. A Panhard vehicle to Silva’s left simply disappeared in an explosion that spraying metal parts willy-nilly in every direction in a spread so thorough that Drago thought they were under fire, and he yelled at his men to respond. Another blast destroyed a six-wheeled reconnaissance vehicle, but it didn’t break it apart; it simply expanded as if swollen or bloated, like an air mattress or inflatable toy, though it still had weight and quickly collapsed over its own suspension. Some trucks were overturned; a Jeep flipped end-over-end. None were left unscathed. In short order, what had been ten or twelve vehicles were reduced to a single steaming and smoking pile of metal.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
They became desperate for an antidote, such as coziness & color. They tried to bury the obligatory white sofas under Thai-silk throw pillows of every rebellious, iridescent shade of Magenta, pink, and tropical green imaginable. But the architect returned, as he always does, like the conscience of a Calvinist, and he lectured them and hectored them and chucked the shimmering little sweet things out.
”
”
Tom Wolfe (From Bauhaus to Our House)
“
I understand your position, Dave. It’s a big story, and you worked hard to get it. But if you don’t drop me at the Europa, I’ll blow your head off. Imagine how big that story would be.
There’s no need for these histrionics. We’ll go to the Holiday Inn. You can rest, shower, debrief. You’ll be among friends.
Last chance, Dave. You can be the hero or the headline. Your call.
Let’s talk it out.
No. You talk too much.
He started a new line of argument, but before the words passed his lips his brains passed them on the way out. A dirty reddish slime painted the windshield; it covered the dashboard and console. It poured and dripped from the ceiling to the seat. The driver was covered on one side of his head and body. The mess made the crowded taxi undrivable.
-Also, someone crapped their pants.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
Where does one go from the bottom? You hit the bottom of the well and what? People say the only place to go is up, but they seem to ignore how long you can spend wallowing in the muck at the bottom of the well.
”
”
Magenta Periwinkle (Cutting Class)
“
Yep, I went from seeing red to seeing fucking magenta.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (From Lukov with Love)
“
Nothing remains. The destruction is complete: love, lives, families, friends, cities, homes – all gone now. All our efforts to be good, to do the right thing, to act well, to be just and generous are now for naught. Because juxtaposed against any hope for fairness is wickedness, pure and simple. In some abstract formulation these things may exist in equal measure, which is to say that the scales balance when taking all things into consideration. But that is fantasy, the stuff of religion, hope beyond all reason. Because for those caught in the whirlwind, in the chaos of manifest evil, despair is all there is. Civilization falls away: everything is pointless now. Survival requires reciprocity. What then if there is none?
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
The audience had run to beards and magenta shirts and original ways of arranging its neckwear; and not content with the ravages produced in its over-excitable nervous system by the remorseless workings of its critical intelligence, it had sat through a film of Japanese life called 'Yes,' made by a Norwegian film company in 1915 with Japanese actors, which lasted an hour and three-quarters and contained twelve close-ups of water-lilies lying perfectly still on a scummy pond and four suicides, all done extremely slowly.
”
”
Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm)
“
Who's that you can see in his suit of magenta? It's me - I've been soaked head to toe in placenta.
”
”
Adam Kay (Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas)
“
I make out a schoolbus...glowing orange, green, magenta, lavender, chlorine blue, every fluorescent pastel imaginable in thousands of designs, both large and small, like a cross between Fernand Liger and Dr. Strange, roaring together and vibrating off each other as if somebody had given Hieronymous Bosch fifty buckets of day-glo paint and a 1939 International Harvester schoolbus and told him to go to it.
”
”
Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test)
“
I’ll try out the pencils
sharpened to the point of infinity
which always sees ahead:
Green — good warm light
Magenta — Aztec. old TLAPALI
blood of prickly pear, the
brightest and oldest
[Brown —] color of mole, of leaves becoming
earth
[Yellow —] madness sickness fear
part of the sun and of happiness
[Blue —] electricity and purity love
[Black —] nothing is black — really nothing
[Olive —] leaves, sadness, science, the whole
of Germany is this color
[Yellow —] more madness and mystery
all the ghosts wear
clothes of this color, or at
least their underclothes
[Dark blue —] color of bad advertisements
and of good business
[Blue —]distance. Tenderness
can also be this blue
blood?
”
”
Frida Kahlo (The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait)
“
What was once a home she had taken apart one piece at a time, one day...She sold her belongings for money to buy food. First the luxuries: a small statue, a picture. Then the items with more utility: a lamp, a kettle. Clothes left the closet at a rate of a garment a day…she burned everything in the basement first; then everything in the attic. It lasted weeks, not months. Though tempted, she left the roof alone. She stripped the second floor, and the stairs. She extracted every possible calorie from the kitchen. she wasn’t working alone, because neighbourhood pirates simultaneously stole anything of value outside: door and window frames, fencing, stucco. They pillaged her yard. Breaking in was a boundary her neigbours had not yet crossed. But the animals had. Rats and mice and other vermin found the cracks without much effort. Like her, they sought warmth and scraps of food. With great reluctance, she roasted the ones she could catch. She spent her nights fighting off the ones that escaped.
”
”
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
“
Your love is like star sky showers and magenta unicorns.
”
”
Delano Johnson (Love Quotes)
“
A baby bouncing over a knee above a familiar leather sofa. Across the room, deft hands mapping out black and white keys. A living room bursting with magenta warmth and dandelion cheer and all the hues of love, invisible but undeniably there.
”
”
Emily X.R. Pan (The Astonishing Color of After)
“
The bell on the cat's collar roused her. He'd brought her something: a baby pigeon stolen from its nest, mauled and draped on Jacey's pillowcase. The thing was pink, nearly translucent, with magenta cheeks and lavender around the eyes. It looked like a half-cooked eraser with dreams of someday becoming a prostitute. -- Wild America
”
”
Wells Tower (Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned)
“
When the president opened her eyes, the Bailey twins were gone. She looked around the Oval Office, but they had vanished into thin air. The president let out a deep sigh and glanced down at the magenta book in her hands. It was heavy in weight and in responsibility.
"And I thought health care would be my greatest hurdle," she said.
”
”
Chris Colfer (Worlds Collide (The Land of Stories, #6))
“
I am one of them, said Magenta. "Their poison went deep into my body. Sometimes I feel so contaminated, I feel I am not born to this world.
”
”
Elita Daniels (Tree of Life (Tree of Life, #1))
“
The bathrobe was magenta, a colour that still makes him anxious whenever he sees it.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1))
“
Everybody loves the fall season; I know you’ll agree,
Who doesn’t enjoy seeing dark orange, magenta, and brown autumn leaves falling from the trees?
”
”
Charmaine J. Forde
“
Still, the flowers were growing right along with them, miniature roses and hydrangea, lavender and peonies, magenta and red and pink and purple flowers. And not just in the garden, but all around, the orchard was bursting with green, and smells, and birds singing until long after dark.
”
”
Jodi Lynn Anderson (The Secrets of Peaches (Peaches, #2))
“
I paid the taxi driver, got out with my suitcase, surveyed my surroundings, and just as I was turning to ask the driver something or get back into the taxi and return forthwith to Chillán and then to Santiago, it sped off without warning, as if the somewhat ominous solitude of the place had unleashed atavistic fears in the driver's mind. For a moment I too was afraid. I must have been a sorry sight standing there helplessly with my suitcase from the seminary, holding a copy of Farewell's Anthology in one hand. Some birds flew out from behind a clump of trees. They seemed to be screaming the name of that forsaken village, Querquén, but they also seemed to be enquiring who: quién, quién, quién. I said a hasty prayer and headed for a wooden bench, there to recover a composure more in keeping with what I was, or what at the time I considered myself to be. Our Lady, do not abandon your servant, I murmured, while the black birds, about twenty-five centimetres in length, cried quién, quién, quién. Our Lady of Lourdes, do not abandon your poor priest, I murmured, while other birds, about ten centimetres long, brown in colour, or brownish, rather, with white breasts, called out, but not as loudly, quién, quién, quién, Our Lady of Suffering, Our Lady of Insight, Our Lady of Poetry, do not leave your devoted subject at the mercy of the elements, I murmured, while several tiny birds, magenta, black, fuchsia, yellow and blue in colour, wailed quién, quién, quién, at which point a cold wind sprang up suddenly, chilling me to the bone.
”
”
Roberto Bolaño (By Night in Chile)
“
Spirit dancing, I envisioned a place inside this energetic city, ours: a classic townhouse on a steep street with expansive views of the Pacific, the magenta siding sun-faded—a third-story perch, thick platinum haze embracing our new home.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir)
“
The acceptance of both polarities is the understanding that you are not caught up in a victim/saviour mentality, but a mentality of love, understanding, forgiveness and empowerment.
”
”
Magenta Pixie (Masters of the Matrix: Becoming the Architect of Your Reality and Activating the Original Human Template)
“
Biarlah, untuk malam ini kita menjadi serakah
membagi loyang dan ruang, hanya berdua, hanya kita.
”
”
Stebby Julionatan (Biru Magenta)
“
She became a cartographer of the heart.
”
”
Emma Magenta (A Gorgeous Sense of Hope: A Love Fable)
“
The wall was a symbol of protests, inch upon inch covered with graffiti, in red, blue, yellow, purple, indigo, magenta, terracotta, a tableau of screaming indignations.
”
”
Edna O'Brien (The Little Red Chairs)
“
Was the sky always this shade of magenta?
”
”
Jandy Nelson (I'll Give You the Sun)
“
her magenta lips a wolf’s stained smile.
”
”
Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
“
La vecchia signora Lovercraft, con l'aura magenta dozzinale di chi è soddisfatto della sua vita e sicuro di andare in Paradiso [...].
”
”
John Updike (The Witches of Eastwick)
“
Her hair falls loose in a cascade of black curls, caught in a crown of magenta bougainvillea.
”
”
Holly Black (The Stolen Heir (The Stolen Heir Duology, #1))
“
How long has it been since I’ve seen sunlight? Down in the asshole of creation, it was a dim, perpetual crimson-and-magenta twilight.
”
”
Richard Kadrey (Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim, #1))
“
Do what? Blow my lips up like President Snow’s? Tattoo my breasts? Dye my skin magenta and implant gems in it? Cut decorative patterns in my face? Give me curved talons? Or cat’s whiskers?
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2))
“
He stood, fluffing his feathers: as poet, priest of place, shoulders sloped like folded wings; magenta scarf, scarlet lining to anorak, black-rimmed spectacles and aureole of wizardly white hair.
”
”
Iain Sinclair (The Last London: True Fictions from an Unreal City)
“
I took my pill at eleven. An hour and half later I was sitting in my study, looking intently at a small glass vase. The vase contained only three flowers -- a full-blown Belle of Portugal rose, shell pink with a hint at every petal's base of a hotter, flamier hue; a large magenta and cream-coloured carnation; and, pale purple at the end of its broken stalk, the bold heraldic blossom of an iris. Fortuitous and provisional, the little nosegay broke all the rules of traditional good taste. At breakfast that morning I had been struck by the lively dissonance of its colours. But that was no longer the point. I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation -- the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell)
“
You told me that Kafka was not a thinker, and that a "genetic" approach to his work would disclose that much of it was only a kind of very imaginative whining. That was during the period when you were going in for wrecking operations, feeling, I suppose, that the integrity of your own mental processes was best maintained by a series of strong, unforgiving attacks. You made quite an impression on everyone, in those days: you ruffled blouse, you long magenta skirt slit to the knee, the dagger thrust into your boot. "Is that a metaphor?" I asked, pointing to the dagger; you shook your head, smiled, said no.
”
”
Donald Barthelme
“
This was different. It had synths droning and sending saltwater waves under my feet. It had drumbeats bursting like fireworks, rumbling the furniture out of place, and then a crazy, irregular, disharmonious, spiral crescendo of pure electric noise, like a typhoon dragging our bodies into it. It featured brass orchestras and choirs of mermaids and a piano in Iceland, all of them right there, visible, touchable, in Axton House. It shook us, fucked us, suspended us far above the reach of Help bouncing on his hind legs. It spoke of magenta sunsets and plastic patio chairs growing moss under summer storms rolling on caterpillar tracks. It sprinkled a bokeh of car lights rushing through night highways and slapped our faces like the wind at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. It pictured Niamh playing guitar, washed up naked on a beach in Fiji.
”
”
Edgar Cantero (The Supernatural Enhancements)
“
Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair,
and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair;
but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread,
sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head;
and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame,
and he always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame.
Once that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants,
and about a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance!
And he used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint,
and apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print.
And it's thus with worldly troubles;
when the big ones come along, we serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts, put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our hearts.
”
”
Walt Mason
“
Integration of emotion prevents the service-to-self entities from hijacking your matrix for integration is not sustenance for them. The sustenance they look for is a particular frequency. The frequency they look for is fear.
”
”
Magenta Pixie (Masters of the Matrix: Becoming the Architect of Your Reality and Activating the Original Human Template)
“
Our foreheads met, her small nose pressed against mine. Everything intensified. Plums, magentas, limes, and cobalts turned into stars going through their entire life cycles. They birthed, lived, and died right before my eyes,
”
”
Nina G. Jones (If)
“
It was then that I noticed the hibiscus tree. Its magenta flowers were in bloom, brilliant and full with fertile golden centers. The tree was incongruous with its surroundings- the dirt, the man weathered from the sun and life.
”
”
Alex Brunkhorst (The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine)
“
A multitude of harlequin lifeforms bobbed and twirled and played in the depths of the Atlantic. Pink cucumbers with thorny backs. Algae. Starfish. Annelids with simple brains and a hundred toes. Sponges—like yellow, swollen hands—sucked in water and pushed out oxygen. Most amusing were the mysterious buggers who had no likeness on the previous earth; tiny beasts with exotic exoskeletons engraved with deep grid-like patterns, snails with horns, and slithering plants that looked like magenta weeping willows.
”
”
Jake Vander-Ark (The Day I Wore Purple)
“
There you see two typical members of the class which has down-trodden the poor for centuries. Idlers! Non-producers! Look at the tall thin one with the face like a motor-mascot. Has he ever done an honest day's work in his life? No! A prowler, a trifler, and a blood-sucker! And I bet he still owes his tailor for those trousers!"
He seemed to me to be verging on the personal, and I didn't think a lot of it. Old Bittlesham, on the other hand, was pleased and amused.
"A great gift of expression these fellows have," he chuckled. "Very trenchant."
"And the fat one!" proceeded the chappie. "Don't miss him. Do you know who that is? That's Lord Bittlesham! One of the worst. What has he ever done except eat four square meals a day? His god is his belly, and he sacrifices burnt-offerings to it. If you opened that man now you would find enough lunch to support ten working-class families for a week."
"You know, that's rather well put," I said, but the old boy didn't seem to see it. He had turned a brightish magenta and was bubbling like a kettle on the boil.
"Come away, Mr Wooster," he said. "I am the last man to oppose the right of free speech, but I refuse to listen to this vulgar abuse any longer."
We legged it with quiet dignity, the chappie pursuing us with his foul innuendoes to the last. Dashed embarrassing.
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (The Inimitable Jeeves (Jeeves, #2))
“
Number 99 was an eviscerated ceramics plant. During the war a succession of blazing explosions had burst among the stock of thousands of chemical glazes, fused them, and splashed them into a wild rainbow reproduction of a lunar crater. Great splotches of magenta, violet, bice green, burnt umber, and chrome yellow were burned into the stone walls. Long streams of orange, crimson, and imperial purple had erupted through windows and doors to streak the streets and surrounding ruins with slashing brush strokes. This became the Rainbow House of Chooka Frood.
”
”
Alfred Bester (The Demolished Man)
“
SK: What causes a person to be transgender?
MS: I think the question should be flipped around: What’s the cause for assuming that one’s gender identity has to be the one that you are born with? When I first came into this job, I was much more comfortable about people’s sexuality than I was with people’s gender identity. But when you hear the same stories over and over again, from people from all over the world, you start realizing that transgender is not an anomaly. It’s a part of the spectrum of people’s realities. Then you stop wondering about the cause and you start realizing it’s a part of reality.
”
”
Susan Kuklin (Beyond Magenta: Transgender and Nonbinary Teens Speak Out)
“
There’s a smell of stale underarms. Everything’s been worn before. Nothing fits. Too small, too big, too magenta. These flounces, hoops, ruffles, wired collars, cut-velvet capes – none of these disguises is mine. How old am I in this dream? Do I have tits? Whose life am I living? Whose life am I failing to live?
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Tent)
“
But where should he begin? - Well, then, the trouble with the English was their:
Their:
In a word, Gibreel solemnly pronounced, their weather.
Gibreel Farishta floating on his cloud formed the opinion that the moral fuzziness of the English was meteorologically induced. 'When the day is not warmer than the night,' he reasoned, 'when the light is not brighter than the dark, when the land is not drier than the sea, then clearly a people will lose the power to make distinctions, and commence to see everything - from political parties to sexual partners to religious beliefs - as much-the-same, nothing-to-choose, give-or-take. What folly! For truth is extreme, it is so and not thus, it is him and not her; a partisan matter, not a spectator sport. It is, in brief, heated. City,' he cried, and his voice rolled over the metropolis like thunder, 'I am going to tropicalize you.'
Gibreel enumerated the benefits of the proposed metamorphosis of London into a tropical city: increased moral definition, institution of a national siesta, development of vivid and expansive patterns of behaviour among the populace, higher-quality popular music, new birds in the trees (macaws, peacocks, cockatoos), new trees under the birds (coco-palms, tamarind, banyans with hanging beards). Improved street-life, outrageously coloured flowers (magenta, vermilion, neon-green), spider-monkeys in the oaks. A new mass market for domestic air-conditioning units, ceiling fans, anti-mosquito coils and sprays. A coir and copra industry. Increased appeal of London as a centre for conferences, etc.: better cricketeers; higher emphasis on ball-control among professional footballers, the traditional and soulless English commitment to 'high workrate' having been rendered obsolete by the heat. Religious fervour, political ferment, renewal of interest in the intellegentsia. No more British reserve; hot-water bottles to be banished forever, replaced in the foetid nights by the making of slow and odorous love. Emergence of new social values: friends to commence dropping in on one another without making appointments, closure of old-folks' homes, emphasis on the extended family. Spicier foods; the use of water as well as paper in English toilets; the joy of running fully dressed through the first rains of the monsoon.
Disadvantages: cholera, typhoid, legionnaires' disease, cockroaches, dust, noise, a culture of excess.
Standing upon the horizon, spreading his arms to fill the sky, Gibreel cried: 'Let it be.
”
”
Salman Rushdie (The Satanic Verses)
“
Indeed they realise their 'enemy' is self. Therefore they stand strong from a place of honour and integrity with forgiveness, love and gratitude in their hearts. Not gratitude for nefarious acts done to them, but gratitude for the game and the chance to experience the free will and polarity that has led to their growth and expansion.
”
”
Magenta Pixie (Masters of the Matrix: Becoming the Architect of Your Reality and Activating the Original Human Template)
“
My grandfather was having a bad day. Most of us were gathered in the library when he came down the stairs, his mustache and eyebrows freshly dyed and his wig askew but impeccably dressed in his three-piece suit. The hair color and wig were recent innovations. My grandfather had always been vain about his appearance and bemoaned his receding hairline. Now his full head of hair gave him a slightly shaggy appearance. Nobody said much about the wig, but the hair dye caused considerable consternation in the family, especially when we were going out in public. My grandfather often left the cheap drugstore dye on too long, turning his eyebrows and mustache a jarring shade of magenta.
”
”
Mary L. Trump (Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man)
“
Karena namamu adalah takdir dan ketakberadaanmu bukanlah akhir
”
”
Stebby Julionatan (Biru Magenta)
“
... my subjects’ willingness to brave bullying and condemnation in order to reveal their individual selves makes it impossible to be nothing less than awestruck.
”
”
Susan Kuklin (Beyond Magenta: Transgender and Nonbinary Teens Speak Out)
“
Cinta adalah bagaimana aku menyebut Tuhanku dengan caraku, dan engkau menyebut Tuhanmu dengan caramu, sementara jemari kita bertautan, sembari mata kita bersitatap, penuh kasih yang menguatkan.
”
”
Stebby Julionatan (Biru Magenta)
“
sometimes when i was at dark,,
there is no light for me,,
as for me do not know way to turn out,,
how clueless am i till the point i really dunt know
i was heartless
i was painless
and i gain nothing for the past years,
the forth coming through hatred me,,
i dun even know why am i here
standing within my family
the past i gain is a shadow that i dun want to look at
i was scared and startled like i was a statue of people
like in magenta lining of the clothes
i feel nothing
i feel no one knows me
i feel no one understand me
when the times i look after for allah
there is something always bargain me from searching it
its like a pain i felt like no fear
it was a wrap like book shelf in the cupboard
thats me
finding the way to turn good
but i do not know which path and direction
”
”
augelicht
“
The room was large and faultless. A psychologist, hired from Cambridge, had planned the decorations—magenta and gamboge; colors which—it had been demonstrated by experiments on poultry and mice—conduce to a mood of dignified gaiety. Every day carpet, curtains and upholstery were inspected for signs of disrepair. A gentle whining note filled the apartment, emanating from a plant which was thought to “condition” the atmosphere.
”
”
Evelyn Waugh (Scoop)
“
We’re all in outer space, Jerry, and we’re in color. NBC claims to be the first full- color network, so let’s prove it for them. When you light the sets, throw wild colors in—magenta, red, green, any color you can find—especially behind the actors when they’re in a close shot. Be dramatic. In fact, go overboard. Backlight the women and make them more beautiful. Take some chances. No one can tell you that’s not the way the future will look.
”
”
Robert H. Justman
“
A year after that, the great red star, its waist now nearly to Jupiter, all at once collapsed in on itself and exploded into a supernova that vaporized every remaining planet, asteroid, and comet of the eighteenth planetary system of the third spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. A beautiful magenta-and-yellow wash spread through space, like spilled watercolors. Sensors aboard the hundreds of starliners recorded the event, but even just a short time later, when the Second Fleet would awaken near Delphi, those brilliant clouds would already be gone, and only a small, cold neutron star would remain, a celestial gravestone to humanity’s birthplace. But here, in this final moment . . . As arcs of plasma glowed . . . As stardust glittered . . . As rare elements formed in the atomic foam . . . A fleet of silent black ships, flickering like droplets, moved swiftly into the storm they had secretly created, and got to work.
”
”
Kevin Emerson (Last Day on Mars (Chronicle of the Dark Star, #1))
“
It was warm and salty, chalky and bittersweet. It tasted like the blood of some old, old thing. I tried not to think about how much at the mercy of these strange people I now was. But in fact my courage was failing. Both Dona Catalina and the guide's mocking eyes had slowly gone cold and mantislike. A wave of insect sound sweeping up the river seemed to splatter the darkness with shards of sharpedged light. I felt my lips go numb. Trying not to appear as loaded as I felt, I crossed to my hammock and lay back. Behind my closed eyelids there was a flowing river of magenta light. It occurred to me in a kind of dream mental pirouette that a helicopter must be landing on top of the hut, and this was the last impression I had. When I regained consciousness I appeared to myself to be surfing on the inner curl of a wave of brightly lit transparent information several hundred feet high. Exhilaration gave way to terror as I realised that my wave was speeding toward a rocky coastline.
”
”
Terence McKenna (Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge)
“
Letters blend to give rise to words Like colors pave way for the birth of million shades! Evanescence reminisces sepia! Memory takes back to black and white! Music pops hot pink! Dance rocks wine red! Marvelous is miraculous as the indigo! Magnificent is magnanimous like Russian red! Splendid is classy like arctic blue! Resplendent inspires like strawberry pink! Flamboyance is flowery like fuchsia! Flawless is perfect like flamingo! Extraordinary stands out like lime yellow! Peculiar is unique like cyan! Pleasant pleases like periwinkle! Soothing soothes like lemonade! Opulent glitters gold! Spectacular shimmers silver! Nice is as mild as dulce de leche! Attractive dazzles onyx! Powerful is headstrong like tangerine! Puissance stupefies like scarlet red! Mellifluence is dissolving, like lavender! Sonorous sounds magenta! Lovely cutely blushes! Sweet is peachy! Richness is wealthy like lush green! Poverty is brown as in flower wilt! Candid is frank as candy red! Altruism is selfless like parmesan! But, BEAUTY IS IRIDESCENT! Which
”
”
Sivaranjini Senthilvel (Poesy passel!: Painted by an 18 year old's word palette...)
“
Kathleen," he calls, his voice a groan.
There is magic in names. Can she hear him?
"Kathleen," he calls again, louder.
Behind him, the denizens of Twilight murmur.
"KATHLEEN," he cries. His anguish batters the shining wall, shifting the starstruck colors from rose and lapis to deep purple and bloody magenta, but it remains inviolable.
Shadowman drops his scythe in the waters. He'll scream forever, if need be, until the day the walls tumble into the ocean.
"Hey, you."
Shadowman's attention whips to the top of the wall some distance down the shoreline to his left. An angel is perched on the edge - fair hair, fair-eyed, skin a soft café. A recent crossing.
"Trade you," Custo says.
Shadowman has no words.
"You want in or don't you? Heaven's no place for me, and I'm not hanging around until they figure it out." The angel glances over his shoulder.
The murmurs of Twilight grow louder, sharper, but Shadowman pays them no mind. Not anymore. They've already done their worst.
"I do," Shadowman says.
Custo flashes a grin. "Meet me at the wall.
”
”
Erin Kellison (Shadow Bound (Shadow, #1))
“
Lovelight is the emotion of bliss combined with the infinite intelligence of the universe. Lightlove are the frequency codes of awareness and intelligence that combine with the emotion of bliss. Both of these equations lead to that which we call 'bliss charged love'.
”
”
Magenta Pixie (Masters of the Matrix: Becoming the Architect of Your Reality and Activating the Original Human Template)
“
But when you hear the same stories over and over again, from people from all over the world, you start realizing that transgender is not an anomaly. It’s a part of the spectrum of people’s realities. Then you stop wondering about the cause and you start realizing it’s a part of reality.
”
”
Susan Kuklin (Beyond Magenta: Transgender and Nonbinary Teens Speak Out)
“
After all, across the population there are slight differences in brain function, and sometimes these translate directly into different ways of experiencing the world. And each individual believes his way is reality. To get a sense of this, imagine a world of magenta Tuesdays, tastes that have shapes, and wavy green symphonies. One in a hundred otherwise normal people experience the world this way, because of a condition called synesthesia (meaning “joined sensation”).5 In synesthetes, stimulation of a sense triggers an anomalous sensory experience: one may hear colors, taste shapes, or systematically experience other sensory blendings. For example, a voice or music may not only be heard but also seen, tasted, or felt as a touch. Synesthesia is a fusion of different sensory perceptions: the feel of sandpaper might evoke an F-sharp, the taste of chicken might be accompanied by a feeling of pinpoints on the fingertips, or a symphony might be experienced in blues and golds. Synesthetes are so accustomed to the effects that they are surprised to find that others do not share their experiences. These synesthetic experiences are not abnormal in any pathological sense; they are simply unusual in a statistical sense.
”
”
David Eagleman (Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain)
“
I took a cautious step inside, marveling at the sight before me. A vast conservatory awaited, or what 'once' was a conservatory. Sunlight beamed through the enormous glass roof. I realized that its position at the center of the house precluded its visibility from below. In awe, my heart beating wildly, I lingered in an arbor covered with bright pink bougainvillea, with a trunk so thick, it was larger than my waist. Most of it had died off, but a single healthy vine remained, and it burst with magenta blossoms. I could smell citrus warming in the sunlight, and I immediately noticed the source: an old potted lemon tree in the far corner. 'This must have been Lady Anna's.'
I walked along the leaf-strewn pathway to a table that had clearly once showcased dozens of orchids. Now it was an orchid graveyard. Only their brown, shriveled stems remained, but I could imagine how they'd looked in their prime. I smiled when I picked up a tag from one of the pots. 'Lady Fiona Bixby. She must have given them her own names.' Perhaps there hadn't been anything sinister going on in the orchard, after all. Lady Anna was clearly a creative spirit, and maybe that played out in her gardens and the names she gave to her flowers and trees.
”
”
Sarah Jio (The Last Camellia)
“
Just as there are those who are not physically ready to become eaters of light and need no solid food, so too are there those who are not physically ready to become eaters of only plants. If you are not eating according to your vibrational frequency then deficiencies in chemicals and codes needed for life can occur.
”
”
Magenta Pixie (Lessons from a Living Lemuria: Balancing Karma through Nutrition for Ascension)
“
Most Ballinacroagh natives, though, welcomed the dramatic change in climate, and the exuberant pronouncement of sunshine and flora that came with it. Unnamed buds appeared overnight along ivy-covered walls; plain cottages awoke to bursts of magenta, sienna, and lilac flowers that had been slumbering far too long under moss-ridden stones. The soggy grass of surrounding glens rippled with tones of gold, baking in the sun, while the sky over Ballinacroagh took on a shade of untouched blue that previously had been seen only in the cobalt of Pompeii murals. Not surprisingly, this unexpected homage to her Italian homeland gave Estelle Delmonico much reason to rejoice.
”
”
Marsha Mehran (Pomegranate Soup (Babylon Café #1))
“
Maybe one reason I do not wear makeup is to scare people.
If they’re close enough, they can see something is different with me,
something unnerving, as if I have no features,
I am embryonic, pre-eyebrows, pre-eyelids, pre-mouth,
I am like a water bear talking to them,
or an amniotic traveler,
a vitreous floater on their own eyeball,
human ectoplasm risen on its hind legs to discourse with them
And such a white white girl, such a sickly toadstool,
so pale, a visage of fog, a phiz of
mist above a graveyard, no magenta roses,
no floral tribute, no goddess, no grown-up
woman, no acknowledgment
of the drama of secondary sexual characteristics, just the
gray matter of spirit talking,
the thin features of a gray girl in a gray graveyard—
granite, ash, chalk, dust.
”
”
Sharon Olds (Arias)
“
The trip was a kind of honeymoon. The boy and girl were eloping. They weren’t married, however, and had already agreed that they never would be—they weren’t that kind of couple. The boy, Andy, was a reader; he said that they were seafarers, wanderers. “Ever unfixed,” a line from Melville, was scraped in red ink across the veins of his arm. The girl, Angie, was three years sober and still struggling to find her mooring on dry land. On their first date they had decided to run away together. Andy bought a stupidly huge knife; Angie had a tiny magenta flashlight suspended on a gold chain, which she wore around her throat. He was twenty-two, she had just turned twenty-six. Kids were for later, maybe. They could still see the children they had been: their own Popsicle-red smiles haunting them.
”
”
Joe Hill (The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 (The Best American Series))
“
Essay on Lust Identity can’t be concise. It’s knit from sequins and lust and scatters. Mostly everyone was fucking the seven arts with a willed difficulty. Then for one day there was the collective sensation that we carried our lovely voices as if in baskets, piled up in clear tones like grapes. Each voice had achieved its particular mass. From an interior space we heard the word sequin repeating in relation to leaves and the image was yellow-gold leaves moving on dark water. We had undergone an influence of death which was itself imprinted on such a moving sequin: the breath sequins, the heartbeat sequins, the organs and their slowing articulation sequins which drifting from the foreground appear to dim since they gradually go out to illuminate some event so distant we will never own the moment of its perception. But all this gives the illusion of peacefulness which is inert or at least passive when breaths burst smashing into sobbed words some urgent errand trapped in these letters as labour of light diminishing rhythm and if we fiercely decide to clear the stupid human stuff stop waiting for something to come to the father-studded earth shouldn’t this impatience release itself as a tongue so new weeping stops. In young women enamoured of their own intensities the Latin element wells up and knits from lust the pelt on the wall that’s ocelot or shadepelt or the imagination of matter. Nothing’s frugal. As for us, we want to give the city what lust has never ceased to put together. Young women or other women carrying their lovely voices as if on platters, their ten voices or nine voices in urgent errand dictating the imagination of matter. It is not our purpose to obscure the song of no-knowledge.
”
”
Lisa Robertson (Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip)
“
lovelight' and 'lightlove' are geometric codes. The phrase 'love and light' creates a geometric code that fires directly into the matrix field creating an instant clearing or upgrade. Lovelight and lightlove are very high geometric frequencies linking into the golden frequency, that which is known as the 'golden mean' or 'golden equation', also known as 'the Fibonacci sequence'. It is the mathematical equation of creation itself.
”
”
Magenta Pixie (Masters of the Matrix: Becoming the Architect of Your Reality and Activating the Original Human Template)
“
The hip world, the vast majority of the acid heads, were still playing the eternal charade of the middle-class intellectuals—Behold my wings! Freedom! Flight!—but you don’t actually expect me to jump off that cliff, do you? It is the eternal game in which Clement Attlee, bald as Lenin, lively as a toy tank, yodels blood to the dockworkers of Liverpool—and dies buried in striped pants with a magenta sash across his chest and a coin with the Queen’s likeness upon each eyelid. In their heart of hearts, the heads of Haight-Ashbury could never stretch their fantasy as far out as the Hell’s Angels. Overtly, publicly, they included them in—suddenly, they were the Raw Vital Proles of this thing, the favorite minority, replacing the spades. Privately, the heads remained true to their class, and to its visceral panics … One trouble with this Kesey was, he really meant it.
”
”
Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test)
“
As soon as we take our seats, a sequence of six antipasti materialize from the kitchen and swallow up the entire table: nickels of tender octopus with celery and black olives, a sweet and bitter dance of earth and sea; another plate of polpo, this time tossed with chickpeas and a sharp vinaigrette; a duo of tuna plates- the first seared and chunked and served with tomatoes and raw onion, the second whipped into a light pâté and showered with a flurry of bottarga that serves as a force multiplier for the tuna below; and finally, a plate of large sea snails, simply boiled and served with small forks for excavating the salty-sweet knuckle of meat inside.
As is so often the case in Italy, we are full by the end of the opening salvo, but the night is still young, and the owner, who stops by frequently to fill my wineglass as well as his own, has a savage, unpredictable look in his eyes. Next comes the primo, a gorgeous mountain of spaghetti tossed with an ocean floor's worth of clams, the whole mixture shiny and golden from an indecent amount of olive oil used to mount the pasta at the last moment- the fat acting as a binding agent between the clams and the noodles, a glistening bridge from earth to sea. "These are real clams, expensive clams," the owner tells me, plucking one from the plate and holding it up to the light, "not those cheap, flavorless clams most restaurants use for pasta alle vongole."
Just as I'm ready to wave the white napkin of surrender- stained, like my pants, a dozen shades of fat and sea- a thick cylinder of tuna loin arrives, charred black on the outside, cool and magenta through the center. "We caught this ourselves today," he whispers in my ear over the noise of the dining room, as if it were a secret to keep between the two of us. How can I refuse?
”
”
Matt Goulding (Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents))
“
Oh no. Not this again. It’s the clothing dream. I’ve been having it for fifty years. Aisle after aisle, closetful after closetful, metal rack after metal rack of clothing, stretching into the distance under the glare of the fluorescent tubing – as gaudy and ornate and confusing, and finally as glum and oppressive, as the dreams of a long-time opium smoker. Why am I compelled to riffle through these outfits, tangling up the hangers, tripping on the ribbons, snagging myself on a hook or button while feathers and sequins and fake pearls drop to the floor like ants from a burning tree? What is the occasion? Who do I need to impress?
___________
There’s a smell of stale underarms. Everything’s been worn before. Nothing fits. Too small, too big, too magenta. These flounces, hoops, ruffles, wired collars, cut-velvet capes – none of these disguises is mine. How old am I in this dream? Do I have tits? Whose life am I living? Whose life am I failing to live?
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Tent)
“
This photo is classic aestheticism. The engaging expression, the loose dress and fluid posture. Early to mid-1860's, if I had to guess."
"It reminded me of the Pre-Raphaelites."
"Related, definitely; and of course the artists of the time were all inspired by one another. They obsessed over things like nature and truth; color, composition, and the meaning of beauty. But where the Pre-Raphaelites strove for realism and detail, the painters and photographers of the Magenta Brotherhood were devoted to sensuality and motion."
"There's something moving about the quality of light, don't you think?"
"The photographer would be thrilled to hear you say so. Light was of principal concern to them: they took their name from Goethe's color wheel theories, the interplay of light and dark, the idea that there was a hidden color in the spectrum, between red and violet, that closed the circle. You have to remember, it was right in the middle of a period when science and art were exploding in all directions. Photographers were able to use technology in ways they hadn't before, to manipulate light and experiment with exposure times to create completely new effects.
”
”
Kate Morton (The Clockmaker's Daughter)
“
The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither the Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For Childhood is short—a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day— And Adulthood is long and Dry-Humping in Cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, That I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes. Amen
”
”
Tina Fey (Bossypants)
“
We took the long way back toward his house and drove past the northernmost point of the ranch just as the sun was beginning to set. “That’s so pretty,” I exclaimed as I beheld the beauty of the sky.
Marlboro Man slowed to a stop and put his pickup in park. “It is, isn’t it?” he replied, looking over the land on which he’d grown up. He’d lived there since he was four days old, had worked there as a child, had learned how to be a rancher from his dad and grandfather and great-grandfather. He’d learned how to build fences and handle animals and extinguish prairie fires and raise cattle of all colors, shapes, and sizes. He’d helped bury his older brother in the family cemetery near his house, and he’d learned to pick up and go on in the face of unspeakable tragedy and sadness. This ranch was a part of him. His love for it was tangible.
We got out of the pickup and sat on the back, holding hands and watching every second of the magenta sunset as it slowly dissipated into the blackness underneath. The night was warm and perfectly still--so still we could hear each other breathing. And well after the sun finally dipped below the horizon and the sky grew dark, we stayed on the back of the pickup, hugging and kissing as if we hadn’t seen each other in ages. The passion I felt was immeasurable.
“I have something to tell you,” I said as the butterflies in my gut kicked into overdrive.
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)