Seattle Rain Quotes

In Seattle we live among the trees and the waterways, and we feel we are rocked gently in the cradle of life. Our winters are not cold and our summers are not hot and we congratulate ourselves for choosing such a spectacular place to rest our heads.

In Seattle there is a constant hope for a period called “two days in a row when it doesn’t fucking rain.

Here in the corner attic of America, two hours’ drive from a rain forest, a desert, a foreign country, an empty island, a hidden fjord, a raging river, a glacier, and a volcano is a place where the inhabitants sense they can do no better, nor do they want to.

Seattle rain smells different from New Orleans rain... New Orleans rain smells of sulfur and hibiscus, trumpet metal, thunder and sweat. Seattle rain, the widespread rain of the Great Northwest, smells of green ice and sumi ink, of geology and silence and minnow breath.

Seattle, the mild green queen: wet and willing, cedar-scented, and crowned with slough grass, her toadstool scepter tilted toward Asia, her face turned ever upward in the rain; the sovereign who washes her hands more persistently than the most fastidious proctologist.

She was back in western Washington state, where rain was so prevalent that a day of sunshine was the lead story on the local news.

The sky in Seattle is so low, it felt like God had lowered a silk parachute over us. Every feeling I ever knew was up in that sky. Twinkling joyous sunlight; airy, giggle cloud wisps; blinding columns of sun. Orbs of gold, pink. flesh, utterly cheesy in their luminosity. Gigantic puffly clouds, welcoming, forgiving, repeating infinitely across the horizon as if between mirrors; and slices of rain, pounding wet misery in the distance now, but soon on us, and in another part of the sky, a black stain, rainless.

My limited knowledge of Seattle is that it always rains—daily downpours that turn streets into raging rapids,

Outside, the rains had come, the rains that like a blizzard of guppies would pelt the creaky old house until spring. There is no weeping that can compete with the northwest rains.

Seattle. It rains there a lot." Well, this is going great. Conversationalist of the Year. I'll just continue to recite basic facts about US cities until she wants to go out with me.

A sideways rain quickly soaked the pair as they made their way across the street toward a small diner. Inside, the smell of coffee permeated the air and Benny Goodman’s band could be heard from a radio in the corner.

Seattle gets less rain than New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and Miami.

Chihulys are the pigeons of Seattle. They’re everywhere, and even if they don’t get in your way, you can’t help but build up a kind of antipathy toward them. This one was all glass, of course, white and ruffly and full of dripping tentacles. It glowed from within, a cold blue, but with no discernible light source. The rain outside was pounding. Its rhythmic splatter only made this hovering glass beast more haunting, as if it had arrived with the storm, a rainmaker itself. It sang to me, Chihuly… Chihuly. In the seventies, Dale Chihuly was already a distinguished glassblower when he got into a car accident and lost an eye. But that didn’t stop him. A few years later, he had a surfing mishap and messed up his shoulder so badly that he was never able to hold a glass pipe again. That didn’t stop him, either. Don’t believe me? Take a boat out on Lake Union and look in the window of Dale Chihuly’s studio. He’s probably there now, with his eye patch and dead arm, doing the best, trippiest work of his life. I had to close my eyes.

Let’s play a game. I’ll say a word, and you say the first word that pops into your head. Ready? ME: Seattle. YOU: Rain. What you’ve heard about the rain: it’s all true. So you’d think it would become part of the fabric, especially among the lifers. But every time it rains, and you have to interact with someone, here’s what they’ll say: “Can you believe the weather?” And you want to say, “Actually, I can believe the weather. What I can’t believe is that I’m actually having a conversation about the weather.” But I don’t say that, you see, because that would be instigating a fight, something I try my best to avoid, with mixed results.

...few things can mess you up as badly as trying to do your best. For the tender heart, the earnest heart, it is so discouraging to give all you have trying to do what you think Jesus would have you do, and find yourself falling short, sabotaging your own efforts at every turn. Discouragement and shame settle in like a long Seattle rain. And this is what most Christians experience as the Christian life: Try harder; feel worse.

Other than chemistry, rowing was the only thing Calvin had true passion for. In fact, rowing is why Calvin applied to Harvard in the first place: to row for Harvard was, in 1945, to row for the best. Or actually second best. University of Washington was the best, but University of Washington was in Seattle and Seattle had a reputation for rain. Calvin hated rain. Therefore, he looked further afield—to the other Cambridge, the one in England, thus exposing one of the biggest myths about scientists: that they’re any good at research.

Can I tell you something about Seattle? Everyone there is a filthy liar. They're all, 'Don't move to Seattle—it's so rainy!' And yet every time I've been there, a tiny amount of rain falls before the whole sky explodes into rainbows and sunlight. Seattleites mean to hog up all the stunning vistas and good coffee and flowering bushes for themselves. Bet on it.

I’ll miss the afternoons when I’d go out on our lawn and throw my head back. The sky in Seattle is so low, it felt like God had lowered a silk parachute over us. Every feeling I ever knew was up in that sky. Twinkling joyous sunlight; airy, giggling cloud wisps; binding columns of sun. Orbs of gold, pink, flesh, utterly cheesy in their luminosity. Gigantic puffy clouds, welcoming, forgiving, repeating infinitely across the horizon as if between mirrors; and slices of rain, pounding wet misery in the distance now, but soon on u, and in another part of the sky, a black stain, rainless.

What is it again that you love so much about Seattle?” and they answer, “We have everything. The mountains and the water.” This is their explanation, mountains and water. As much as I try not to engage people in the grocery checkout, I couldn’t resist one day when I overheard one refer to Seattle as “cosmopolitan.” Encouraged, I asked, “Really?” She said, Sure, Seattle is full of people from all over. “Like where?” Her answer, “Alaska. I have a ton of friends from Alaska.” Whoomp, there it is. Let’s play a game. I’ll say a word, and you say the first word that pops into your head. Ready? ME: Seattle. YOU: Rain.

In Seattle, warm temperatures, associated with moist, Pineapple Express air, have already produced a rainfall of two inches between 7 PM yesterday and 7 AM this morning. I am now going out on a limb and projecting that this flow will stagnate over Puget Sound and the deluge will continue for hours. We are in the midst of a most notable weather show. * See, that’s what I mean about loving Cliff Mass. Because, basically, all he’s saying is it’s going to rain. * From: Ollie-O To: Prospective Parent Brunch Committee REAL-TIME FLASH! The day of the PPB has come. Unfortunately, our biggest get, the sun, is going to be a no-show. Ha-ha. That was my idea of a joke.

To Gulietta, indoor plumbing was the devil's device. Of all the follies of the modern world, that one struck her as the most unnecessary. There was something unnatural, foolish, and a little filthy about going indoors. Ont he European estates where she was reared, it was common practice for servant girls to lift their skirts outside. Gulietta had seen no reason to alter her habits in Seattle. Despite the difficulty there of doing one's natural duty without being rained upon or receiving from a blackberry bramble a bite as sharp as hemorrhoids, she felt comfortable--happy, even--when she could squat in fresh air. Besides, it was an opportune way to spy frogs.

Bernadette flew up to look at houses. She called to say she had found the perfect place, the Straight Gate School for Girls, in Queen Anne. To anyone else, a crumbling reform school might seem an odd place to call home. But this was Bernadette, and she was enthusiastic. Bernadette and her enthusiasm were like a hippo and water: get between them and you’ll be trampled to death. We moved to Seattle. I was swallowed whole by Microsoft. Bernadette became pregnant and had the first of a series of miscarriages. After three years, she passed the first term. At the beginning of her second term, she was put on bed rest. The house, which was a blank canvas on which Bernadette was to work her magic, understandably languished. There were leaks, strange drafts, and the occasional weed pushing up through a floorboard. My concern was for Bernadette’s health—she didn’t need the stress of a remodel, she needed to stay put—so we wore parkas inside, rotated spaghetti pots when it rained, and kept a pair of pruning shears in a vase in the living room. It felt romantic. Our daughter, Bee, was born prematurely. She came out blue. She was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome.

From: Bernadette Fox To: Manjula Kapoor Oh! Could you make dinner reservations for us on Thanksgiving? You can call up the Washington Athletic Club and get us something for 7 PM for three. You are able to place calls, aren’t you? Of course, what am I thinking? That’s all you people do now. I recognize it’s slightly odd to ask you to call from India to make a reservation for a place I can see out my window, but here’s the thing: there’s always this one guy who answers the phone, “Washington Athletic Club, how may I direct your call?” And he always says it in this friendly, flat… Canadian way. One of the main reasons I don’t like leaving the house is because I might find myself face-to-face with a Canadian. Seattle is crawling with them. You probably think, U.S./Canada, they’re interchangeable because they’re both filled with English-speaking, morbidly obese white people. Well, Manjula, you couldn’t be more mistaken. Americans are pushy, obnoxious, neurotic, crass—anything and everything—the full catastrophe as our friend Zorba might say. Canadians are none of that. The way you might fear a cow sitting down in the middle of the street during rush hour, that’s how I fear Canadians. To Canadians, everyone is equal. Joni Mitchell is interchangeable with a secretary at open-mic night. Frank Gehry is no greater than a hack pumping out McMansions on AutoCAD. John Candy is no funnier than Uncle Lou when he gets a couple of beers in him. No wonder the only Canadians anyone’s ever heard of are the ones who have gotten the hell out. Anyone with talent who stayed would be flattened under an avalanche of equality. The thing Canadians don’t understand is that some people are extraordinary and should be treated as such. Yes, I’m done. If the WAC can’t take us, which may be the case, because Thanksgiving is only two days away, you can find someplace else on the magical Internet. * I was wondering how we ended up at Daniel’s Broiler for Thanksgiving dinner. That morning, I slept late and came downstairs in my pajamas. I knew it was going to rain because on my way to the kitchen I passed a patchwork of plastic bags and towels. It was a system Mom had invented for when the house leaks.

Everybody knows it rains like mad in Seattle in October.

In Seattle we live among the trees and the waterways, and we feel we are rocked gently in the cradle of life. Our winters are not cold and our summers are not hot and we congratulate ourselves for choosing such a spectacular place to rest our heads and raise our chickens.

premier firm in Seattle. Seeing his pre-teen scrawl should have made him smile at his young self.

them into. However, nothing on his face would give away his personal feelings. He was too good for that. When the meeting ended, it was six o’clock. He returned to his office, typed up his own notes, then he stared out his office window at the other lighted high rises in Seattle’s financial district where he lived most of his life. In the distance he could see the harbor that led to the rest of the world. He pulled out the list. It was a bucket list made before that term even existed.   EVAN’S AMAZING LIFE LIST

Fifteen miles south of Seattle and halfway across Puget Sound to the west is Maury Island. Shaped like an arrowhead aimed at the mainland, green as the inner fold of a grass blade, it can be seen from the air cradled in the crook of an elbow of water. Tourists ride over on ferries to watch for whales and UFOs. Jets turn around overhead on their final approach to the airport. Even on days when there is no rain, mist filters through the evergreens until it pulls apart like threadbare cloth and burns off.

It rained a lot in Seattle. What a hello an understatement that was.

The problem, and I am making this percentage up, is that like 80% of the country did receive their vaccination, were infected, and now spent their days trying to eat non-infected people. Unless it was raining. They hated rain, which would make Seattle residents generally safe in a holy fuck it finally pays off for all of the terrible weather kind of way.

Elegy in Limestone If the water, everywhere, and if she is. If ghosts, like water, like if all rivers and oceans and rains are one ghost, surrounding and throughout. If she is, like if the lakes and bays of Seattle define Seattle, if the ices Of Mars and Massachusetts, hidden in their deep stones, define Mars and Massachusetts; if she is. A thirst unmet, alkaline or saline, the water not touching that thirst, if my thirst wants something else entirely. If she is. Water, if it is in and is blood. If invisible until exhale. If science lies and water doesn’t reflect sky but sky this water. If she is the sound, if it isn’t essential until its lack. If she is the sound of. Waves. If in the body, the dew in morning, and the moon. If she is the sound of the water. If rising, if breaking, if throughout

I’m terrified of bees, even though I’ve never been stung. I have this irrational thought that I’d be highly allergic to them. Strawberries make me itch. I think spring is the best season because things start returning to life. If I could live anywhere else, I’d live in Seattle because rain soothes me. I lose my keys regularly, and most of the time, they are right in my back pocket. I hate mean people and love squirrels.

If it had been Morise, even if it hadn’t been Morise. I had to work hard to free myself from my feeling that he was the lord of the city and its shaykh, on whose crown falcons dozed, because everything in Seattle pointed to him and led toward him—each detail and sign. He did not merely dwell in this city; he was its creator, who had woven it from warp and woof. He had re-created it and then shaken the dust off it as if it were a carpet from Tabriz. Everything in the city carried his signature and his fingerprint: the joyful queues on weekends at pot stores, the empty seats in outdoor cafés sprinkled by drops of rain, girls’ colorful wool caps, tech workers’ badges dangling to their laps, the panting of elderly Asians climbing its heights… the spoons of busy restaurants clicking against the teeth of children of wealthy Indians, the helmets of cyclists who pause to look at the tranquility of the Japanese Garden, the sigh of buses as they lower a lift for an elderly white woman in a wheelchair, the roars of laughter of Saudi teens in the swimming pools of the University…all these tell his story. Everything glorifies his name.

Even on that first, clear afternoon, the dark earth between the gravel paths and the deep green of towering pine, fir, and spruce trees contained the memory of recent snow and rain. The ocean at the far end of the camp was the color of slate. Everything Siobhan was wearing was brand new: a black fleece she’d chosen for its silver heart-shaped zipper pull, her first pair of hiking boots, even her underwear. She felt a thrilling, terrifying dissolution of self. She was far from her parents, her classmates, anyone who had ever known here. She was curious to find out who she would be.

How can you buy the sky? Chief Seattle began. How can you own the rain and the wind? My mother told me, Every part of this earth is sacred to our people. Every pine needle. Every sandy shore. Every mist in the dark woods. Every meadow and humming insect. All are holy in the memory of our people.

How can you buy the sky? Chief Seattle began. How can you own the rain and the wind?

After a week of walking around in the rain of Seattle for a week, I was mentally and physically fatigued. That sense of discombobulation made me feel disoriented and apathetic. Glad to be in SF, I sat on a bus bench a couple blocks off Market Street, and reflected. I had no money and nowhere to sleep. I was excited.