Venice Romantic Quotes

But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true romantic, background was everything, or almost everything.

In the end, there's always this city. As long as it exists, I don't believe that I, or for that matter, anyone, can be mesmerized or blinded by romantic tragedy.

The first trip I ever went on with Stephen was to Venice. He wanted to look at the art and the churches for a weekend, and I wanted to look at him for a weekend.’ ‘That’s romantic,’ says Joyce. ‘Looking at a man you love isn’t romantic, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It’s just the sensible thing to do. Like watching a television programme you like.

Maybe I loved him. I certainly was a victim of that romantic possibility.

I’m sure she’d respond to some big romantic gesture.” Daphne paused, trying to remember everything she knew about Samantha’s best friend. “She’s always dreamed of visiting Venice. She collects M&M’s from foreign countries. She works in a library, for god’s sake.

For as I am, I live upon the rack.

There was romance in every place. But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true romantic, background was everything, or almost everything. Basil had been with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret. Poor Basil! what a horrible way for a man to die!

Annella frantically searched through the sea of people, afraid she was about to drown. Then relief washed over her when she met her father's gaze and made her way back to him. But as she stepped closer, all pleasure left her. A crimson liquid pooled over the fingers that he held to his throat. "Anne," he choked out.... A piercing scream traveled through the streets of Venice.

Of course, there are other memories. There are memories of her leaning over the stove, the light from the window haloing her hair, turning it a gold-tinged brown. There are memories of her, young and bright with joy, dancing around on a soccer field at midnight, her feet bare, her skirt flying. There are memories of your first kiss, on the roof of a college dorm, the fear of getting caught mixed with exhilaration, her hair tickling your cheek. There are memories of fights, of romantic dinners, of vacations to Alaska and Venice. But they are all memories from the distant past.

Jane Grigson joined the Observer magazine in the summer of 1968. Her first column was about strawberries. She wrote a recipe for strawberry barquettes-- small pastry boats filled with fruit and lacquered with redcurrant jam so that they looked like jewels. There was another for strawberry brulée in a sweet sablé shell, and coeur à la crème-- a cream pudding set in a heart-shaped mould and encircled with fruit. 'In Venice, in the season of Alpine strawberries...' she wrote, and it didn't really matter what she said next, because you were already in. In most recipes, the introduction serves the recipes. Jane's was the other way around. She wrote about the hybridized origins of modern strawberries in French market gardens, and how they feature in the mythology of the fertility goddess Frigg. After a few lines on the demanding anatomy of strawberry plants, she devoured into Jane Austen, talking about the agro-cosplay fruit-picking of the Regency ball-gown set. She refused to be complacent, especially about the things her readers already thought they knew. 'Strawberries, sugar and cream. The combination allows no improvement, you think?' Well, you're wrong. None of this would've counted for much if the recipes weren't great, but they really were. One week she'd give you smart alternatives to traditional Christmas cake-- rounds of meringue stacked with coffee cream, or Grasmere shortcake with preserved ginger. Another week it'd be the unimpeachable precision of carrot salad, celery soup or a recipe for ice cream flavored with cooked, puréed apples. The cooking was pantheistic and it dealt with everything from kippers to apples, parsley, prunes and fennel with the same care, even love. We get smug these days about how broad our tastes are, and to an extent we're right. But a newspaper now would never run a double-page spread of recipes for tripe. The magic of Jane Grigson is that though she was a smart cook, she was really a skilled purveyor of daydreams-- even if those daydreams were granular and exactingly researched. 'I sometimes think that the charm of a country's cookery lies not so much in its classic dishes as in its quirks and fancies,' she wrote. This included the esoterica of regional pies and rare apple cultivars. Something could be worthwhile without being useful. 'Walk into the yard of Château Mouton Rothschild,' began Jane's recipe for jellied rabbit, 'and you see a scatter of small fires. Some flare into the sky, others smoke as they are fed faggots of vine prunings.' Noisettes de porc aux pruneaux de Tours, crépinettes with chestnuts, carottes à la Vichy, angel's hair charlotte. She drew from the culinary canon as far back as Gervase Markham's seventeenth-century The English Huswife.