“
The Revolutionary Hill Estates had not been designed to accommodate a tragedy. Even at night, as if on purpose, the development held no looming shadows and no gaunt silhouettes. It was invincibly cheerful, a toyland of white and pastel houses whose bright, uncurtained windows winked blandly through a dappling of green and yellow leaves … A man running down these streets in desperate grief was indecently out of place.
”
”
Richard Yates (Revolutionary Road)
“
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)
“
But the kitchen will not come into its own again until it ceases to be a status symbol and becomes again a workshop. It may be pastel. It may be ginghamed as to curtains and shining with copper like a picture in a woman's magazine. But you and I will know it chiefly by its fragrances and its clutter. At the back of the stove will sit a soup kettle, gently bubbling, one into which every day are popped leftover bones and vegetables to make stock for sauces or soup for the family. Carrots and leeks will sprawl on counters, greens in a basket. There will be something sweet-smelling twirling in a bowl and something savory baking in the oven. Cabinet doors will gape ajar and colored surfaces are likely to be littered with salt and pepper and flour and herbs and cheesecloth and pot holders and long-handled forks. It won't be neat. It won't even look efficient. but when you enter it you will feel the pulse of life throbbing from every corner. The heart of the home will have begun once again to beat.
”
”
Phyllis McGinley
“
Betty ran to the door in time to see a handsome young man dashing through the rain toward the house beside her daughter, both of them in pants embroidered with sea creatures - blue whales on his yellow pants, pink lobsters on her ill-fitting brick red pants - and matching pastel green cotton sweaters. When did Miranda buy such odd clothes? She imagined the two of them spotting eachother somewhere, kindred spirits, and starting up a conversation about their shared hobby of Extreme Wasp Attire.
”
”
Cathleen Schine (The Three Weissmanns of Westport)
“
hopelessly
I am addicted
to the wings
of morning light
the silver restart
everything
that is
pastel green
and blue
and
oh God
the hope
”
”
Volker Schunck
“
The rock strata of the inner canyon changed from dark umbers and black shadows to immense bands of pastel yellow, white, green, and a hundred shades of red in the mysterious chemistry of twilight.
”
”
Aron Ralston (Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Basis of the Motion Picture 127 Hours)
“
Because she looks like a cupcake. Dresses like a cupcake. Gives off a scent of baked lemony sugar. Pretty in a way that reminds you of frosting flourishes. Not the forest green and electric blue horrors in the supermarket, but the pastel kind that is used at weddings or tasteful Easter gatherings. She looks so much like a cupcake that when I first met her at orientation, I had a very real desire to eat her. Bite deeply into her white shoulder. Dig a fork in her cheek.
”
”
Mona Awad (Bunny)
“
Along with the greening of May came the rain. Then the clouds disappeared and a soft pale lightness fell over the city, as if Kyoto had broken free of its tethers and lifted up toward the sun. The mornings were as dewy and verdant as a glass of iced green tea. The nights folded into pencil-gray darkness fragrant with white flowers. And everyone's mood seemed buoyant, happy, and carefree.
When I wasn't teaching or studying tea kaiseki, I would ride my secondhand pistachio-green bicycle to favorite places to capture the fleeting lushness of Kyoto in a sketchbook. With a small box of Niji oil pastels, I would draw things that Zen pots had long ago described in words and I did not want to forget: a pond of yellow iris near a small Buddhist temple; a granite urn in a forest of bamboo; and a blue creek reflecting the beauty of heaven, carrying away a summer snowfall of pink blossoms.
Sometimes, I would sit under the shade of a willow tree at the bottom of my street, doing nothing but listening to the call of cuckoos, while reading and munching on carrots and boiled egg halves smeared with mayonnaise and wrapped in crisp sheets of nori. Never before had such simple indulgences brought such immense pleasure.
”
”
Victoria Abbott Riccardi (Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto)
“
This book is dedicated to all the little girls who want to wear neon green to dance class when all the others are wearing pastel pink.
”
”
Vi Keeland (Stuck-Up Suit)
“
Every morning a great wall of fog descends upon the city of San Francisco. It begins far out at sea. It forms over the Farallons, covering the sea lions on their rocks, and then it sweeps onto Ocean Beach, filling the long green bowl of Golden Gate Park. The fog obscures the early morning joggers and the lone practitioners of tai chi. It mists up the windows of the Glass Pavilion. It creeps over the entire city, over the monuments and movie theaters, over the Panhandle dope dens and the flophouses in the Tenderloin. The fog covers the pastel Victorian mansions in Pacific Heights and shrouds the rainbow-colored houses in the Haight. It walks up and down the twisting streets of Chinatown; it boards the cable cars, making their clanging bells sound like buoys; it climbs to the top of Coit Tower until you can’t see it anymore; it moves in on the Mission, where the mariachi players are still asleep; and it bothers the tourists. The fog of San Francisco, that cold, identity-cleansing mist that rolls over the city every day, explains better than anything else why that city is what it is.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
“
- Surly clouds blacken to make fire rims at that forge where night’s being hammered, crazed mountains march to the sunset like drunken cavaliers in Messina when Ursula was fair, I would swear that Hozomeen would move if we could induce him but he spends the night with me and soon when stars rain down the snowfields he’ll be in the pink of pride all black and yaw-y to the north where (just above him every night) North Star flashes pastel orange, pastel green, iron orange, iron blue, azurite indicative constellative auguries of her makeup there that you could weigh on the scales of the golden world -
The wind, the wind -
”
”
Jack Kerouac (Desolation Angels)
“
I keep staring at the bag in Mrs. Parks's hand: yellows, greens, blues, whites, pastel colors so soft they look as if they have faded in the sea. The washed colors of the sea and sleep. Pajama colors. The colors of baby clothes. In my nose is the smell of my brothers' heads after they are born. Maybe this is why people making journeys buy saltwater taffy. It gives you the lovely dreamy sense that you can start all over again from the beginning.
”
”
Polly Horvath (My One Hundred Adventures (My One Hundred Adventures, #1))
“
When they burst through, a small chain of colorful mountains appeared below them. The range spanned from the deepest, darkest blue to the shiniest, brightest white and everything in between. The foot of each mountain was a single color– midnight blue, mossy green, burnt umber – and this color, whatever it was, was the darkest shade it could be. As the color moved up the mountains, the shade grew lighter and lighter until it reached the peak. The peaks were glorious pastels, shimmering with only the faintest pigment.
”
”
Paige Britt (The Lost Track of Time)
“
Iam staring into the eyes of the one I call Cupcake. Because she looks like a cupcake. Dresses like a cupcake. Gives off a scent of baked lemony sugar. Pretty in a way that reminds you of frosting flourishes. Not the forest green and electric blue horrors in the supermarket, but the pastel kind that is used at weddings or tasteful Easter gatherings. She looks so much like a cupcake that when I first met her at orientation, I had a very real desire to eat her. Bite deeply into her white shoulder. Dig a fork in her cheek.
”
”
Mona Awad (Bunny)
“
But aside from those curling green tendrils, the gown was the bright pink of…of…of… All comparisons failed Oliver. It wasn’t the bright pink of anything. It was a furious shade of pink, one that nature had never intended. It was a pink that did violence to the notion of demure pastels. It didn’t just shout for attention; it walked up and clubbed one over the head. It hurt his head, that pink, and yet he couldn’t look away. The room was small enough that he could hear the first words of greeting. “Miss Fairfield,” a woman said. “Your gown is…very pink. And pink is…such a lovely color, isn’t it?” That last was said with a wistful quality in the speaker’s voice, as if she were mourning the memory of true pink.
”
”
Courtney Milan (The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister, #2))
“
Marie Antoinette would have loved this place!"
Piper Donovan stood agape, her green eyes opened wide, as she took in the magical space. Crystal chandeliers, dripping with glittering prisms, hung from the mirrored ceiling. Gilded moldings crowned the pale pink walls. Gleaming glass cases displayed vibrant fruit tarts, puffy éclairs, and powdered beignets. Exquisitely decorated cakes of all flavors and sizes rested on pedestals alongside trays of pastel meringues and luscious napoleons. Cupcakes, cookies, croissants, and cream-filled pastries dusted with sugar or drizzled with chocolate beckoned from the shelves.
"It's unbelievable," she whispered. "I feel like I've walked into a jewel box---one made of confectioners' sugar but a jewel box nonetheless.
”
”
Mary Jane Clark (That Old Black Magic (Wedding Cake Mystery, #4))
“
going on. Models had always been different each year, but consistently solid and square, usually black or dark green. Suddenly a completely new generation was on gleaming display – wider and softer than ever. I’ve looked at the advertisements for that year. The earthy colours of previous decades were replaced by pastels, pinks and pale blues. The Chevrolet Bel Air and the Pontiac Star Chief, with their Strato-Streak V8 engines, were available in ‘Avalon Yellow’ as well as ‘Raven Black’. The new models had rounded, panoramic windscreens and, in the case of the new Cadillac, a strange rear end with tail fins like a fighter plane. Sales soared, rising by thirty-seven per cent between 1954 and 1955 alone. People were no longer so concerned about technology and durability; it was more
”
”
Geert Mak (In America: Travels with John Steinbeck)
“
In the water-thickets, the path wound tortuously between umber iron-bogs, albescent quicksands of aluminum and magnesium oxides, and sumps of cuprous blue or permanganate mauve fed by slow, gelid streams and fringed by silver reeds and tall black grasses. The twisted, smooth-barked boles of the trees were yellow-ochre and burnt orange; through their tightly woven foliage filtered a gloomy, tinted light. At their roots grew great clumps of multifaceted translucent crystal like alien fungi.
Charcoal grey frogs with viridescent eyes croaked as the column floundered between the pools. Beneath the greasy surface of the water unidentifiable reptiles moved slowly and sinuously. Dragonflies whose webby wings spanned a foot or more hummed and hovered between the sedges: their long, wicked bodies glittered bold green and ultramarine; they took their prey on the wing, pouncing with an audible snap of jaws on whining, ephemeral mosquitoes and fluttering moths of april blue and chevrolet cerise.
Over everything hung the heavy, oppressive stench of rotting metal. After an hour, Cromis’ mouth was coated with a bitter deposit, and he tasted acids. He found it difficult to speak. While his horse stumbled and slithered beneath him, he gazed about in wonder, and poetry moved in his skull, swift as the jewelled mosquito-hawks over a dark slow current of ancient decay.
”
”
M. John Harrison (The Pastel City)
“
He ran toward the light. When he passed the corpse of his dead friend, he began to weep again. He picked up his sword. He tried to smash a crystal window with its hilt. The corridor oppressed him. Beyond the windows, the dead brains drifted. He ran on.
'You should have done it,'whispered Birkin Grif in the soft spaces of his skull; and, 'OUROBUNDOS!'giggled the insane door, as he fell through it and in to the desert wind. His cloak cracking and whipping about him, so that he resembled a crow with broken wings, he stumbled toward the black air-boat. His mind mocked him. His face was wet.
He threw himself into the command-bridge. Green light swam about him, and the dead Northmen stared blindly at him as he turned on the power. He did not choose a direction, it chose him. Under full acceleration, he fled out into the empty sky.
”
”
M. John Harrison (The Pastel City)
“
Sonnet for Thunder Lovers and Primary Colors”
When Sweet Nothings Just Don’t Cut It
You’re more than soda fizz, than sparklers lit
for kids at play, than fireflies’ flit in sky.
You spin around my heart and up my thigh
with the whistle and boom of a bottle rocket.
Baby, those other jugglers’ gigolo tricks—
magician’s spell and mime’s unspoken sigh—
don’t turn my head, don’t catch my ear or eye,
but your mercury rolls in my hip pocket.
Some women like the subtle hints, require
a pastel touch, a whispered cry and blush,
but not me; I am all hyperbole.
Your howls of red, your strokes of green sapphire,
your cayenne kiss, serrano pepper rush
from lip to nape of knee will do for me.
from Rattle #12, Winter 1999. Tribute to Latino/Chicano Poets
”
”
Brenda Cárdenas
“
Pinterest assured her that moms and their sons did precious crafts together with old buttons and lace scraps, and baked healthy cookies, while wearing cute matching pastel plaid shirts and jeans.
”
”
Zoe Chant (Bearly Together (Green Valley Shifters, #4))
“
Winter brings a colder palette with more heavy blue and violet, Fall has substantial more reddish and brown, Summer brings a variation of pastel colours and Spring fresh green and tangerine.
”
”
Siren Waroe
“
Oliver Marley supposed there were more dignified ways to end his life. A lifelong victim to the twin sins of an infertile imagination and pragmatism, the thought of travel simply never crossed his mind. Had it occurred to him, Oliver could have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, into the abyss of the Grand Canyon or said au revoir off the Eiffel Tower. But truth be told, Oliver never was much of a traveler. Even locally there were certainly higher quality casinos to choose from, taller parking garages from which to leap. Instead he found himself perched atop the nearest appropriately-sized structure to his home, that being the parking garage of the Circus Time Hotel & Casino. His view not of Alcatraz Island and the rough waters of the San Francisco Bay, nor the breathtaking vistas of the Arizona desert, or the romanticism of the Paris skyline for that matter. Rather he found himself bathed in a noxious blend of pink and green neon, staring into a pair of giant blinking pastel eyes belonging to the eighty-foot clown staring down at him like a frilly guardian angel. Then again, when your primary objective is to pancake yourself on a public sidewalk, perhaps you’re not in the best position to nitpick over the intricacies of what does and does not constitute bad taste. Oliver would just have to live with the clown, at least for another minute or two.
”
”
Kingfisher Pink (Marley)
“
For emotions: different hues of yellow, gold, orange, or rose are great for inducing cheerfulness, confidence, and optimism. Hues of rose from intense to pastel can create an inner feeling of Love. One needs to experiment for oneself to find just the right color to help generate the desired mood. For thoughts: color is also invaluable to calm your mind. You can surround yourself with luminous green. For clear thinking and mental stimulation, you might try a shower of bright yellow over and around your head. A tint of yellow-orange may very well get you out of a mental fog. If your will to live is not very strong, try rose. Two or three shades of rose will build your will to live. Color is already used to create healing and restful environments. Colors are energy and use by the angels and man. It is well to take note of and make use of color for health evolution and purification.
”
”
Joshua D. Stone (How To Clear The Negative Ego)
“
Remember what I told you, Nerissa. Spare no expense when it comes to dressing her. I want her out of those hideous colors and fabrics she's in now, and into something that will show her coloring to greatest advantage." "Silks, satins, velvets?" "Yes, and the finest, most expensive ones Madame has." Lucien's enigmatic black eyes had gleamed with sly delight before he'd turned away and, his forefinger tapping his lips once, twice, continued on. "And dramatic colors only — no pastels for that girl, no more washed out yellows and wretched browns that only make her look sallow and ill. She's no English rose and shouldn't be dressed like one. No, I want her in blazing scarlet, brilliant turquoise, emerald green, magenta — loud, startling hues that will flatter her exotic coloring and make every man at the ball unable to take his eyes off her." He'd given a dangerous little smile. "Especially Charles . . ." Nerissa had returned his grin. "Especially Charles." "Just take care, my dear, that he does not learn of the purchases you'll make for the girl at Madame Perrot's. Let him think the shopping trip is for you, and that Amy is along as . . . as training to be a lady's maid. Ah, yes. That will throw him off the scent quite nicely, I think — as well as make him seriously begin to question, if he has not already, whether he wants her to be a lady's maid or his lady." He had grinned then, as delighted with his machinations as he must've been when he'd brought Gareth and Juliet together. "It is imperative that he is, shall we say, pleasantly surprised when he sees his little friend at Friday night's ball . . ." Even
”
”
Danelle Harmon (The Beloved One (The De Montforte Brothers, #2))
“
Their love is gentle and discreet. If it was a plant it would be a fern, light green and feathery and delicate; if a musical instrument, a flute. If a painting it would be a water lily by Monet, one of the more pastel renditions, with its liquid depths, its reflections, its different falls of light. "You're my best friend," West tells Tony, stroking her hair back from her forehead. "I owe you a lot." Tony is touched by his gratitude, and too young to be suspicious of it.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Robber Bride)
“
We break off into the streets, repairing the cobblestones with our brisk allegro. The townsfolk step aside in awe as my allongés stitch the pastel wood back into cottages and storefronts. Flowers grow from my quick bourrée steps, breathing life back into Luna Island in shades of pink and purple. Rainbows rise from the sea with my grand jeté, summoning the dolphins to leap alongside our dance. Damien catches me in his arms before lifting me into the air as I paint the sky bright blue.
We laugh as the beauty of Luna Island blooms once again, running into the forest and turning the ash into lush green trees. Color bursts in the darkness as we chassé through the angels' village and past the glade where our story first began. With my pirouettes, I add extra pink petals to the garden where Damien and I once lay.
I break into a series of chaîné turns as we make our way back down to the beach, unleashing the magic Luna bestowed upon me. The townsfolk watch in awe in the midst of the commotion, and I dust them in a veil of starlight that follows my path, healing bruises and stitching wounds until no one bleeds. They gather around me as I finish my dance, thrumming with applause and tossing the freshly spun flowers at my feet.
”
”
Kiana Krystle (Dance of the Starlit Sea)
“
The signals stretched out of sight ahead, like a python with scales of red and green, their radiance haloed in a light fog that was drifting in off the Bay. And people were out, little knots of them near the corners. They formed isolated clots of gaudy life, like tidepools, all of them dressed in baggy clothes of bright-colored nylon, paneled and logo-ed with surreal pastels under the emerald-and-ruby signal glare. And as they stood and talked together, they moved in a way both fitful and languid, like sealife bannering in a restless sea.
”
”
Michael Shea (Demiurge: The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales of Michael Shea)
“
stamp or where they sealed the envelope?” I asked. “Sure, we’ll check those too. That’s common procedure, but we have nothing to compare it to.” Jack added his two cents. “The message itself sounds kind of like the hell-and-damnation type of speech. Somebody in the clergy or even a religious zealot could have written it.” Clayton slowly read the message out loud again. “Yeah, I see where you’re coming from, Jack. It does sound kind of preachy.” “Yes it does,” I said, “but we still don’t know if it’s a serious threat or just someone blowing smoke.” Clark stood. “Okay, guys, check out whatever you can as far as forensic evidence. Make ten copies of that letter before you get started. The rest of you, keep your eyes and ears peeled for somebody with an ax to grind. That’s all we can do for now.” Chapter 2 The long driveway beyond the dead-end road led to the small, faded clapboard house. The walls inside the home held family secrets that were as dead and buried as the family dog. Nobody spoke of Alice’s incident anymore—it was neatly tucked away, hopefully forgotten, and life carried on. Forced smiles and the cautious daily routine filled the family’s waking hours. Alice’s eyes darted toward Mandy and then at the clock. She watched as her twenty-year-old daughter crossed the living room, barefoot and still wearing her green flannel bathrobe. Mandy took a seat on the old floral couch, as she did every day at eleven o’clock. The dark-paneled living room in that house held the sofa, a rocker, two end tables, and two velvet wall hangings of horses. The sofa had seen better days—sun fading had taken a toll on it after being in front of windows year after year. What used to be vibrant colors on that threadbare couch now appeared as pastel hues at best. Two flattened cushions looked as though somebody had let the air out of them; they held permanent indentions from years of use.
”
”
C.M. Sutter (Fallacy (Detective Jade Monroe, #3))
“
You’ve taken the last of my Marmalade Surprises!” cries Mrs. Quoad, having now with conjuror’s speed produced an egg-shaped confection of pastel green, studded all over with lavender nonpareils. “Just for that I shan’t let you have any of these marvelous rhubarb creams.” Into her mouth it goes, the whole thing. “Serves me right,” Slothrop, wondering just what he means by this, sipping herb tea to remove the taste of the mayonnaise candy—oops but that’s a mistake, right, here’s his mouth filling once again with horrible alkaloid desolation, all the way back to the soft palate where it digs in. Darlene, pure Nightingale compassion, is handing him a hard red candy, molded like a stylized raspberry . . . mm, which oddly enough even tastes like a raspberry, though it can’t begin to take away that bitterness. Impatiently, he bites into it, and in the act knows, fucking idiot, he’s been had once more, there comes pouring out onto his tongue the most godawful crystalline concentration of Jeez it must be pure nitric acid, “Oh mercy that’s really sour,” hardly able to get the words out he’s so puckered up, exactly the sort of thing Hop Harrigan used to pull to get Tank Tinker to quit playing his ocarina, a shabby trick then and twice as reprehensible coming from an old lady who’s supposed to be one of our Allies, shit he can’t even see it’s up his nose and whatever it is won’t dissolve, just goes on torturing his shriveling tongue and crunches like ground glass among his molars.
”
”
Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow)
“
In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden"
Last night the apple trees shook and gave each lettuce a heart
Six hard red apples broke through the greenhouse glass and
Landed in the middle of those ever-so-slightly green leaves
That seem no mix of seeds and soil but of pastels and light and
Chalk x’s mark our oaks that are supposed to be cut down
I’ve seen the neighbors frown when they look over the fence
And see our espalier pear trees bowing out of shape I did like that
They looked like candelabras against the wall but what’s the sense
In swooning over pruning I said as much to Mrs. Jones and I swear
She threw her cane at me and walked off down the street without
It has always puzzled me that people coo over bonsai trees when
You can squint your eyes and shrink anything without much of
A struggle ensued with some starlings and the strawberry nets
So after untangling the two I took the nets off and watched birds
With red beaks fly by all morning at the window I reread your letter
About how the castles you flew over made crenellated shadows on
The water in the rainbarrel has overflowed and made a small swamp
I think the potatoes might turn out slightly damp don’t worry
If there is no fog on the day you come home I will build a bonfire
So the smoke will make the cedars look the way you like them
To close I’m sorry there won’t be any salad and I love you
”
”
Matthea Harvey (Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form)