“
All of them had been give a makeover. Leo was wearing pinstriped pants, black leather shoes, a white collarless shirt with suspenders, and his tool
belt, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a porkpie hat.
“God, Leo.” Piper tried not to laugh. “I think my dad wore that to his last premiere, minus the tool belt.”
“Hey, shut up!”
“I think he looks good,” said Coach Hedge. “’Course, I look better.”
The satyr was a pastel nightmare. Aphrodite had given him a baggy canary yellow zoot suit with two-tone shoes that fit over his hooves. He had a
matching yellow broad-brimmed hat, a rose-colored shirt, a baby blue tie, and a blue carnation in his lapel, which Hedge sniffed and then ate.
“Well,” Jason said, “at least your mom overlooked me.”
Piper knew that wasn’t exactly true. Looking at him, her heart did a little tap dance. Jason was dressed simply in jeans and a clean purple T-shirt, like
he’d worn at the Grand Canyon. He had new track shoes on, and his hair was newly trimmed. His eyes were the same color as the sky. Aphrodite’s
message was clear: This one needs no improvement.
And Piper agreed.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
“
The sun had set, but a faint pastel haze lingered in the mid-summer sky.
”
”
R.J. Lawrence (The Fortunate Only)
“
When Blomkvist alighted from his train in Hedestad for the second time, the sky was a pastel blue and the air icy cold. The thermometer on the wall of the station said -15°C. He was wearing unsuitable walking shoes.
”
”
Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1))
“
Alice came upon treasure after treasure: everlasting daisies in pastel pinks and yellows, trails of grey and white feathers, boughs heavy with blossom buds on the gum trees. She breathed in the warm earth and appreciated the sky, a blend of soldier-crab blue and every shade of purple in a pipi shell. The desert's an old dream of the sea.
”
”
Holly Ringland (The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart)
“
All his life Robert Grainier would remember vividly the burned valley at sundown, the most dreamlike business he’d ever witnessed waking—the brilliant pastels of the last light overhead, some clouds high and white, catching daylight from beyond the valley, others ribbed and gray and pink, the lowest of them rubbing the peaks of Bussard and Queen mountains; and beneath this wondrous sky the black valley, utterly still, the train moving through it making a great noise but unable to wake this dead world.
”
”
Denis Johnson (Train Dreams)
“
I want to be able to do anything with words: handle slashing, flaming descriptions like Wells, and use the paradox with the clarity of Samuel Butler, the breadth of Bernard Shaw and the wit of Oscar Wilde, I want to do the wide sultry heavens of Conrad, the rolled-gold sundowns and crazy-quilt skies of Hitchens and Kipling as well as the pastel dawns and twilights of Chesterton. All that is by way of example. As a matter of fact I am a professed literary thief, hot after the best methods of every writer in my generation.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (A Short Autobiography)
“
The voice welling up out of this little man is terrific, Harry had noticed it at the house, but here, in the nearly empty church, echoing off the walnut knobs and memorial plaques and high arched rafters, beneath the tall central window of Jesus taking off into the sky with a pack of pastel apostles for a launching pad, the timbre is doubled, richer, with a rounded sorrowful something Rabbit hadn't noticed hitherto, gathering and pressing the straggle of guests into a congregation, subduing any fear that this ceremony might be a farce. Laugh at ministers all you want, they have the words we need to hear, the ones the dead have spoken.
”
”
John Updike (Rabbit Is Rich (Rabbit Angstrom, #3))
“
Above, the moon paled like a stone receding below water, tangled morning color rushed up the sky, trembled there in pastel uncertainty.
”
”
Truman Capote
“
I remembered the wild girl every time I saw her soul in the neon pastel sky.
”
”
Marie-Kristin Hofmann (Remember the wild girl)
“
My Floating Sea"
"Pastel colors reflect in my opening eyes and draw my gaze to a horizon where the waters both begin and end. This early in the day I can easily stare without blinking. The pale sea appears calm, but it is stormy just as often. I awe at the grandeur, how it expands beyond my sight to immeasurable depths. In every direction that I twist my neck, a beauteous blue is there to console me.
Flowing, floating ribbons of mist form on these pale waters. In harmony they pirouette, creating a stretch of attractive, soft swirls. Swoosh! The wind, its strength in eddies and twisters, smears the art of dancing clouds, and the white disperses like startled fairies fleeing into the forest. Suddenly all is brilliant blue.
The waters calm and clear. It warms me. Pleases me. Forces my eyes to close at such vast radiance. My day is spent surrounded by this ethereal sea, but soon enough the light in its belly subsides. Rich colors draw my gaze to the opposite horizon where the waters both begin and end. I watch the colors bleed and deepen. They fade into black.
Yawning, I cast my eyes at tiny gleams of life that drift within the darkened waters. I extend my reach as if I could will my arm to stretch the expanse between me and eons. How I would love to brush a finger over a ray of living light, but I know I cannot.
Distance deceives me.
These little breathing lights floating in blackness would truly reduce me to the tiniest size, like a mountain stands majestic over a single wild flower. I am overwhelmed by it all and stare up, in love with the floating sea above my head.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year)
“
The lights filled the sky with a bubblelike pastel glow that was frightening and apocalyptic, reminding Garraty of pictures he had seen in the history books of the German air-blitz of the American East Coast during the last days of World War II.
”
”
Richard Bachman (The Long Walk)
“
Everything I am inside is pink and blue. Pastels without, soft clouds above, blue sky everywhere with an occasional rain but from renewal, not anger. My mind has no boundaries. Its floor is poetry, the wallpaper music. The windows are always open to allow the humor to drift in and out. The furniture is made of air, I am forever floating.
”
”
Kimberly Jo Smith
“
Sea; sand; a sky that melts into the sea--a landscape of misty pastels with a look about it of being continiously on the point of melting.
”
”
Angela Carter (The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories)
“
Dusk softens the sharp points of trees outside my window; the sky slowly darkens, then blackens around an orb of moon. Hours later, a faint blue tinge yields to the soft pastels of dawn, and soon enough sun is streaming in, the stop-start rhythm of the train making it all feel like still photography, thousands of images that taken together create a scene in motion.
”
”
Christina Baker Kline (Orphan Train)
“
Every loud and perfect symphony, every immaculate clash of pastel colours in every sky that this stupid, beautiful world has ever given us — he is all of it. He is the drug. Every high I’ve ever chased, every good feeling, every momentarily filled void. His hands on my body, his mouth on my mouth, him inside of me — everyone else is Vicodin, morphine and fentanyl, but Christian — he’s the good stuff.
”
”
Jessa Hastings (Daisy Haites: The Great Undoing (Magnolia Parks Universe, #4))
“
The shade of the sky changed ever so slightly in her peripheral vision. She raised her eyes from her toes to the horizon, to witness the sun’s last dance in the daylight as it began to descend slowly, magically into the distant sea. Exotic pastel hues of orange and fuchsia were now painted across the fading expression of the day. It was a calm yet isolating vision to take into her heart, for it made her feel exceedingly small in the grand scheme of things.
”
”
Kim Cormack (Enlightenment)
“
St. Petersburg’s wedding-cake mansions were an oil painting, Paris’s hôtels particuliers a watercolor. St. Petersburg’s skies were Technicolor, Paris’s a muted pastel. Petersburgians were hard, unyielding, while Parisians were—something else. Scanning my emails on the Métro, I
”
”
Rachel Kapelke-Dale (The Ballerinas)
“
Mundane is beautiful too..
like the quiet rhythm of raindrops on a windowpane, or the simple elegance of a sunrise painting the sky in hues of pastel..
like a worn book filled with familiar stories, or a chipped mug cradling your morning coffee..
The mundane holds a quiet magic, a comfort in its constancy.
”
”
Monika Ajay Kaul
“
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 (Viriconium #1))
“
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
“
Come on now, I urged myself, looking at my reflection. Don’t let her ruin this, too. The sight of my red-rimmed eyes made me even more sad and I tried to force a smile, but then my dimples appeared, and they always made me look like her. Or at least back when she used to smile. I hated the way they reminded me of her. I covered them with my index fingers and turned my head sideways, trying to imagine myself without them, wishing I could smooth them out with a touch. If only it were that easy to erase something you didn’t want. I stood pinching the poisonous letter until my breath had calmed and my eyes stopped burning. Then I hurried back to my room and hid it at the bottom of my bag, where I wouldn’t have to think about it any longer. I hadn’t come all this way to keep living this nightmare. In bed, I curled up and tried to focus on the cool breeze that came in through the open window, carrying scents of unfamiliar blossoms and dry grass, and soon I drifted off to the pulsing lullaby of the Midwestern crickets. Ahead lay the road. And the whole world. Two I woke confused, dazzled by a beam of sunlight poking at my eye. Instinctively, I turned around and burrowed my face deeper into the pillow, before I remembered where I was and flew right up. I’m in America! Through the window I could see pastel suburbs and sprawling oak trees, topped by a beckoning blue sky. My head cleared in an instant and I wanted to run outside and explore. But Nathan was still asleep, so instead I padded into the living room and stretched out on the sofa, letting out a gratified exhale. I was free. My eyes drifted over to Nathan’s guitar. I picked it up and ran my fingers over the curved wood. Back home I had a cheap, second-hand acoustic which had served me well in learning the basics. I knew I wasn’t much of a guitarist, but I
”
”
Kaisa Winter (The Colours We See)
“
She was glad that the bleak sky threatened rain and that the air was finally turning cold. All that warm sunshine seemed to demand perkiness and pastel-colored clothing.
”
”
Francine Pascal (Fearless (Fearless, #1))
“
We were the neoromantic dance freaks of the eighties, proudly displaying our blow-dried mullets. Among us, you also found the stud-bracelet-wearing punk rockers with sky-high Mohawks. Pastel-colored, shoulder-padded fashion met ripped-jeans-and-leather-jacket anti-fashion.
”
”
Gudjon Bergmann (More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality)
“
March 9 Sunrise The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech.—Psalm 19:1-2a Jesus is coming today. What a glorious thought! Time alone with my Lord is my favorite part of waking up. The light of God’s Word brilliantly illuminates darkness. One day Jesus will come for those who know him. Imagine the joy! God often dispels early morning darkness with beautiful pastels. I look up from God’s Word to the east window. Light begins to barely peek through. Rays fan out changing the painting like a kaleidoscope. Visible speech is poured forth as if from a distance. Visible praise to the glory of God softly sings a beautiful melody. Suddenly, the light is too bright for eyes. The melody swells to full crescendo. The sun shouts joy, wonder and praise to God. Morning by morning God faithfully paints a new one. He is awesome! The faithful sun reminds us that one day Jesus will come. He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon’ (revelation 22:20). He will come in exquisite splendor. There is no rival. Not even the most glorious sunrise God ever created. Patiently, or not so patiently, we hang on his words: The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Lord, thank You for Your patience in waiting to come to take Your own to heaven with You. I pray many more people will come to repentance soon.
”
”
The writers of Encouraging.com (God Moments: A Year in the Word)
“
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)
“
Sea-foam tumbles onto the shore, claiming me gently in the way I've always craved. The ocean gathers me, carrying me over the surface like Cleopatra--- and I, every ounce as lovely as her and Aphrodite combined. Bit by bit the water swallows me, gently nipping at my skin until I dissolve into an aquatic spirit. Only then do I understand the language of angelfish and squid, and I move just as languidly. The sirens gape at me with their jewel-bright eyes and try to steal me as their own. But before I can be taken by those curious witches, I rise to the surface again.
Everything glimmers here.
I embrace the dusk with a hopeful smile. The sky blends into a watercolor of pastels and ambrosial stars. It's an aurora borealis of magenta and lavender, tempting me into the forest and away from the safety of the shore.
Something's in the wind. I can feel it--- like the twinkling stars will finally lead me to the love I desire. I want it more than anything. The thought of it turns me feral, like a vampiress thirsty for a drop of blood. I dart through the forest, trailing a path of golden light. Past the evergreens and pines, underneath the moon, I become wild and free.
Sweet summer fruit grows from trees, ripe and sparkling. With every cautious step I take, the flowers blossom. But they don't just grow. They glow. Ultraviolet irises, sugar-dusted peonies, and iridescent rosebuds unravel beneath my feet. Foxgloves bloom like trumpets, playing a regal procession beside twinkling bluebells. As I journey deeper into the forest, fireflies circle me, illuminating my path.
And then I see him.
I blink. He's awfully familiar, but I can't place my finger on who he is. He's beautiful. A boy with white-blond hair and viridescent eyes. Where have I seen him before?
"Hello, Lila," he says.
I stumble back. "How do you know my name?"
He's peculiar. So unbelievably enchanting. I'm enthralled by the sound of his voice alone.
"Don't be scared. You're safe here. I wanted to bring you somewhere special. Somewhere where you can make the forest beautiful with your dance."
My dance.
Of course, my dance.
Witchlight flickers in his eyes. This world is meant for me. A gift wrapped up in velvet petals and sweet perfumes.
”
”
Kiana Krystle (Dance of the Starlit Sea)
“
An angel, Wink believed, is the inner spirit or soul of a thing. When we honor the “angel” or soul of a thing, we respect its inner spirit. And if we learn how to pay attention to the soul of things—to see the “angels” of elements, animals, the earth, water, and skies—then we can naturally work our way back through the Great Chain of Being to the final link, whom many call God. Don’t waste your time deconstructing your primitive belief about pretty, winged creatures in flowing pastel dresses. If you do so, you are seriously missing out on what they are pointing to. We need to reconstruct, and not just continue to deconstruct. Then you will see angels everywhere
”
”
Richard Rohr (The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe)
“
The most magical of nights had slid into the most extraordinary dawn. The dark sky lightened from navy into a palette of pastels, and they’d watched as the approaching sun swallowed the stars. Then they’d fallen asleep wrapped in each other’s arms.
”
”
Jessica Pietro (Seeking Elvyra (The Great King and the Seer, #1))
“
He saw that the sun was riding low in the sky. It would be sunset soon. He had planned to be at the Mallory docks, Key West’s sunset mecca, for the island’s signature moment, but he was juiced by the idea that he might know where Finbar McShane was. There would be another sunset tomorrow. If he was still here to see it. The parking lane was one-way. It took him on a swing under the causeway and then out at the entrance to another marina. He saw boat ramps and, beyond them, the houseboats grouped together on the water like a floating village. Most of them had smaller runabouts with outboards attached to back-door docks and decks. The houseboats were painted in pastels, two-story structures sitting on barges and lashed together to create a community. From Bosch’s angle of view he counted eight houses extending out into Garrison Bight. The second
”
”
Michael Connelly (Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch, #24; Harry Bosch Universe, #37))
“
I approached a small table at the far corner of the Sky Garden and saw Akemi sitting nearby, studying a math textbook. She wore a demure, long-sleeved, knee-length white lace dress, black patent leather Mary Jane shoes, and on the floor was her school backpack that said "ICS-Tokyo" and was adorned with pastel ribbons, bows, and lace.
”
”
Rachel Cohn (My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life)
“
As he lights up, the sun is setting, turning the sky as many pastels as you see on the side of a rainbow trout. The reddest clouds are the fish cut open. Aspen trees are peaking with yellow. A wind comes up the draw, announced in advance by clapping aspen leaves, and then he can hear it take the pines around the house and he feels it on his cheek and it makes the end of his cigarette glow brighter. He takes a deep drag and looks down past the springhouse nested in orange willow branches. Up over the opposing hill he sees the snow on mountains west of Laramie. Another breath of wind comes up and starts the aspens chattering like nervous girls, and they catch the last low-angling rays of sun and flare. The dark tops of evergreens are red, almost bloody, and for a good thirty seconds he knows that the world is something altogether other than what it appears to be.
”
”
James Galvin (The Meadow)
“
Noa sleeps with the curtains open, allowing as much moonlight as possible to flood her bedroom, allowing her to see each and every picture on the walls, if only as a pale glimmer. It took Noa weeks to perfect the art display. Reproductions of Monet's gardens at Giverny blanket one wall: thousands of violets- smudges of purples and mauves- and azaleas, poppies, and peonies, tulips and roses, water lilies in pastel pinks floating on serene lakes reflecting weeping willows and shimmers of sunshine. Turner's sunsets adorn another: bright eyes of gold at the center of skies and seas of searing magenta or soft blue. The third wall is splashed with Jackson Pollocks: a hundred different colors streaked and splattered above Noa's bed. The fourth wall is decorated by Rothko: blocks of blue and red and yellow blending and bleeding together. The ceiling is papered with the abstract shapes of Kandinsky: triangles, circles, and lines tumbling over one another in energetic acrobatics.
”
”
Menna Van Praag (The Witches of Cambridge)
“
We round a curve in the path, and I stumble in surprise. A familiar shape is silhouetted ahead against the pastel sky.
”
”
C.W. Farnsworth (Two Decisions, One Duty (Months, Words, Decisions, Duty, #2))
“
There is another extreme to be wary of, I remind myself. Behind my desk I have a good library and a philosophy degree on the wall. I appreciate solid research and reasoned conclusions, but I get impatient when academicians limit the boundaries of truth within the five senses and the bicameral brain. At that point I put aside the book and step outside. There, with the warm colors of a sunset or the pastels of a rainbow, I breathe in the clear air and sense again my own Self. A bird chirps, a squirrel scurries up a tree. This divine Essence is greater than my body and utilizes more senses than my physical limitations. Scientists know that colors vibrate at a particular frequency, but there is much more going on; sentient beings delight in the pulsating rhythmic waves and lovers swoon in romantic locales. My own inner barometer senses a higher Order. A hawk or eagle catches my eye. It majestically circles above me, high in the blue sky, then it shoots off towards the west, where rain clouds gather. The sun is setting, light beams through, and a rainbow forms. Thank you Hawk. I get a thrill, my hair stands on end. Something else is here. Signs in the sky. Auspicious.
Yes. The mysteries are still here, and we are being called.
”
”
Stephen Poplin (Inner Journeys, Cosmic Sojourns: Life transforming stories, adventures and messages from a spiritual hypnotherapist's casebook (VOLUME1))
“
In his book Unmasking the Powers, theologian and biblical scholar Walter Wink makes a very convincing case that this intuition about the inherent sacredness of creation is precisely what sacred texts are pointing toward when they speak of “angels.”*4 An angel, Wink believed, is the inner spirit or soul of a thing. When we honor the “angel” or soul of a thing, we respect its inner spirit. And if we learn how to pay attention to the soul of things—to see the “angels” of elements, animals, the earth, water, and skies—then we can naturally work our way back through the Great Chain of Being to the final link, whom many call God. Don’t waste your time deconstructing your primitive belief about pretty, winged creatures in flowing pastel dresses. If you do so, you are seriously missing out on what they are pointing to. We need to reconstruct, and not just continue to deconstruct. Then you will see angels everywhere.
”
”
Richard Rohr (The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe)
“
Ten days later, when the Spokane International was running again, Grainier rode it up into Creston, B.C., and back south again the evening of the same day through the valley that had been his home. The blaze had climbed to the ridges either side of the valley and stalled halfway down the other side of the mountains, according to the reports Grainier had listened to intently. It had gutted the valley along its entire length like a campfire in a ditch. All his life Robert Grainier would remember vividly the burned valley at sundown, the most dream-like business he'd ever witnessed waking-the brilliant pastels of the last light overhead, some clouds high and white, catching daylight from beyond the valley, others ribbed and gray and pink, the lowest of them rubbing the peaks of Bussard and Queen mountains; and beneath this wondrous sky the black valley, utterly still, the train moving through it making a great noise but unable to wake this dead world.
”
”
Denis Johnson (Train Dreams)