Descriptive Quotes

“The song drifted on, swelling of hopes and beauty and birdsong, salted with the bitterness of the past and hope for tomorrow.”
― E.C. Colton, Shards of Sky

“The violins seemed to swoon with her every step, or maybe she was simply happy.”
― Elizabeth Lim, So This is Love

“The night seemed varnished with a golden sheen. Carriages rounded the manor's drive, their horses pounding gravel as if to applaud the parade. One by one, gentry clothed in satin and velvet emerged from their boxes. They bid adieu to their drivers and flocked to the main house, glittering like jewels in the torchlight.”
― Caroline George, Dearest Josephine

“a day which had a summer face and a winter constitution”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“She hurried into a new spring evening dress of the frailest fairy blue. In the excitement of seeing herself in it, it seemed as if she had shed the old skin of winter and emerged a shining chrysalis with no stain; and going downstairs her feet fell softly just off the beat of the music from below. It was a tune from a play she had seen a week ago in New York, a tune with a future...”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Basil and Josephine Stories

“In that part of the young year when the sun begins to warm its locks beneath Aquarius and nights grow shorter...”
― Dante Alighieri

“The gown was still warm from having been pressed, and the ruffles tickled her collarbone as she slipped it onto her body.”
― Elizabeth Lim, So This is Love

“His accent was delicious. A result of British deliberateness changed by the rhythm of an African tongue and the grace of African lips. I moved away after smiling, needing to sit apart and collect myself. I had not met such a man.”
― Maya Angelou, The Heart of a Woman

“It was that hour that turns seafarers' longings homeward- the hour that makes their hearts grow tender upon the day they big sweet friends farewell...”
― Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio (Deluxe)

“The moon, with midnight now behind us, made the stars seem scarcer to us; it was shaped just like a copper basin, gleaming, new.”
― Dante Alighieri, Purgatory: Dante's Divine Trilogy Part Two. Englished in Prosaic Verse

“• “It was the rose hour, just before dawn.” 35
“I can feed him the plot of it, bit by bit. Keep him alive in this cage of boredom with morsels of Robert Louis Stevenson.” 70
“Sorry her lot who loves too well, Heavy the heart that hopes but vainly…Dark is the night to earth’s poor daughters. Heavy the sorrow that bows the head When love is alive and hope is dead! When love is alive and hope is dead.” 101
“April! Her dear author friend had planned this moment before Kaiulani had even left Hawaii! In that instant she prayed for him, prayed that anticipating the surprise had given him as much pleasure as she had received from it.”131
“Her holiday wardrobe was a flower garden of velvets and silks.” 169
“Color seeped through the predawn mist. Daybreak, like a flame on the wick of a candle, danced on a jagged peak. Light flowed like water down the verdant green folds of the pali. Foamy breakers, churning in the shadow at the base of the rocky cliffs, glowed with rose and gold and violet reflections of the sky.” 287”
― Bodie Thoene, Love Finds You in Lahaina, Hawaii

“the voice was unexpectedly attractive...common in descriptions, rare in experince.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“If his rage had broken him into a hundred pieces every one of them would have disregarded the incident, and leapt at the sleeper.”
― J.M. Barrie, The Annotated Peter Pan (The Centennial Edition)

“MacSweeney enjoyed his predicament to the utmost and directed many a good-humored jest his way. But Kathleen, ever the lady, twinkled inside and preserved an outward air of perfect deportment.”
― Robert T. Reilly, Red Hugh: Prince of Donegal

“When Pierre came up, the count looked straight at him, but he looked at him with a gaze the intent and significance of which no man could fathom. Either these eyes said nothing, but simply looked because as eyes they must look at something, or they said too much”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“There he stood , peeping through his own head of rotten pumpkin , scaring away many a flock of birds . His body was as tough and concrete as a straw . Till now he only saw and could not think ,now he could not even see for the rotten pumpkin was taken away and eaten by the farmer who had fallen into a dark abyss due to falling prices of his crops.”
― Devam Doshi

“His face had gotten so fat his eyes were little bloodshot dots of mistrust.”
― Craig Ferguson, Between the Bridge and the River

“Marian, in her boy’s clothing, sat astride a fallen treetrunk near the Trysetell Tree, her eyes fixed on Robin, who stood perfectly still, waiting. He looked at her, smiling the smile Dummy had noticed before whenever he was in danger, as if he were living entirely in that moment of time without thought for the past or future, and was thoroughly enjoying himself.”
“Gilbert wrapped Jehan in a cloak of Lincoln green and laid him tenderly in the Oratory, heaping the bright snow about him.”
― Monica Furlong, Robin's Country

“• “It’s not a floating lantern, or course not. It’s a mass of some kind of fluorescent plant—or perhaps a colony of jellyfish—passing by. He stares, disappointed yet mesmerized by the sight. This radiant heart light. If he had not come to the deck, it would have passed unobserved. He wonders if the world is like this; so many miracles of beauty everywhere, if only you knew where to look, that go otherwise unobserved.”
“Death, so routine and anticlimactic in the end, all the more horrific because of it.”
― Andrew Fukuda

“• The old man looked at him, his expression kind. Arin suddenly craved kindness. He was seized by a horrible feeling, a familiar one. He’d been caught in its fist for ten years. He was sick of it. Why couldn’t he outgrow it? He was no child. He had no business feeling lonely.” 150 (reminds me of Barclay)
“There’s a fine line between medicine and poison.” 242
“Kestrel stood with her father and the emperor on the pale green lawn of the Spring Garden. Archery targets had been set up, and courtiers took their turns. The sky was heaped with whipped-cream clouds. The wind blew soft and warm. Kestrel’s maids had packed away her winter clothes and brought out dresses of lace and toile.”
“Already, the dream on the grass had faded in her memory. It was as if she’d worn it out by thinking too much about it.” 326
“Dawn burned on the water.” 399”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Crime

“Waking up every day and remembering Papa's gone to the front is like biting into a bonbon with nothing in the center.”
― Sarah Miller, Marmee

“The rain splattered the flat ground in a steady cadence like a drum leading a prisoner to execution.”
― DiAnn Mills, Trace of Doubt

“Well, now, Coin," said Billias. "You want to see the best I can do, eh?"
"Yes."
"Yes, Sir," snapped Spelter. Coin gave him an unblinking stare, a stare as old as time, the kind of stare that basks on rocks on volcanic islands and never gets tired. Spelter felt his mouth go dry.”
― Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

“But that four-leafed clover hadn't brought any luck either to this soldier or to me. He was a man, too, like me, or like Mr. Hubicka, like us he hadn't any distinction or rank, and yet we had shot each other and brought each other to death, although surely if we could have met somewhere in civil life we might well have liked each other, and found a lot to talk about.

And then the explosion rang out. And I, who only a little while before had been looking forward to the sight, lay there beside the German soldier, stretched out my hand and opened his stiffening fingers, and put into them the green four-leaved clover that brings luck, while from somewhere away there in the countryside a mushroom cloud soared into the sky, endlessly expanding into greater heights and vaster smoky masses. I heard the pressure of the air rush across the countryside and hiss and whistle through the bare branches of the trees and bushes, I heard it rattle the transfer chains on the signal, and lean on the arm and shake it; but I lay coughing, and felt my blood draining out of me.

To the last moment, before I began to lose the awareness of myself, I held this dead man by the hand, and for his unhearing ears I repeated the words of the chief of that mail train which had brought those wretched Germans from Dresden:

'You should have sat at home on your arse...”
― Bohumil Hrabal

“The language of frost and petal.”
― Anthea Sharp, The Faerie Girl and Other Tales: Six Magical Stories

“Her smile terrified him. It was fixed, predatory, and about as warm as a stone floor in winter.”
― Kenley Davidson, Traitor's Masque

“Then they both stand there on the sidewalk and stare at each other, the dog in terror, the man in hatred. It's the same thing every day.”
― Matthew Ward, The Stranger

“A fachada descascada do hotel que aprenderam a amar, e agora deveriam se despedir, as recebia como um castelo ao final de uma aventura de conto de fadas.”
― Victoria Guimarães, De Malas Prontas

“The night seemed made of silence. Even the click of the palfrey's hooves on the mountain rock sounded soft as raindrops, as if noise might offend some starlit god.”
― Karen Ullo, Cinder Allia

“sounds as faint as the vanishing remembrance of voices in a dream”
― Walter de la Mare