Quotes from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“Plants need roots because they can't move on their own. Their roots serve them well, stopping them from getting blown all over the place by the wind. But we humans can move around at will, and our roots hold us in place unnecessarily. Usually in a place we don't want to be. Then, when we try to move, we rip our roots, and it hurts, so we end up staying right where we are.”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“What a strange place, I thought. If I look up everything is so clear and beautiful, and if I look down, everything is so dangerous and ugly. I wished I could keep my head in the sky, but the scorpions brought me back to reality. Or was the sky the reality?”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“I liked the sound of that. A true plant person. It sounded so much more alive, and warmer than a true advertising person.”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“The model stripped down naked and stood with her arms out to her sides while genderless cohorts sprayed her body with large silver canisters of foundation. They wore masks over there faces and sprayed her from head to toe like they were putting out a fire. They airbrushed her into a mono-toned six-foot-two column of a human being with no visible veins, nipples, nails, lips, or eyelashes. When every single thing that was real about the model was gone, the make up artist fug through a suite case of brushes and plowed through hundreds of tubes of flesh colored colors and began to draw human features onto her face. At the same time, the hair stylist meticulously sewed with a needle and thread strand after strand of long blond hairs onto her thin light brown locks, creating a thick full mane of shimmering gold. The model had brought her own chef, who cooked her spinach soup from scratch. The soup was fed to her by one of her lackeys, who existed solely for this purpose. The blond boy stood in front of her, blowing on the soup and then feeding it to her from a small silver child's spoon, just big enough to fit between her lips. the model's mouth was barely open, maybe a quarter of an inch wide, so that she would not crack the flesh colored paint.”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“I opened the door and stepped down onto something squishy. It was moss, velvety smooth, creating uneven hills of emerald green across the floor of the laundry. I slipped off my silver ballet flats, and my feet sank into the floor
”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“If you can hear the quiet while being woken up by the garbage trucks, you have power. When you can feel the stars when all you can see are the skyscrapers, that's power. When you can smell the forest in front of the dumpster, then you have power. Never let the events in front of you or the people around you, tell you what to see, feel, taste, smell or hear.”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“They think they are, but the person they were born to be was covered up by years of living with parents and going to school and fitting in. Every year that passes, a person gets covered up a little bit more, like a sleeping bag slowly zipping up around a body. It's a subtle process until the day a person is totally gone. The sleeping bag is closed, and they never see the sun again”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“It was a color I didn't realize the earth could make without the help of human beings. I knew the water would be blue, but I had in mind a tamer, more pastel blue: a light color through which all the sand and fish underneath would be clearly visible. This water was like super-wavy, lit up turquoise, and so beautiful I could hardly take my eyes off it. The moment I was spellbound by the color of the water was the moment I knew I had been in New York for to long and my decision to leave was a good one.”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“I twirled it around in front of my eyes, going momentarily cross-eyed as I looked for any sign of roots. Of course it was much too soon, and I knew that there wouldn't be any, but I checked anyway, because I'm a checker by nature: lights, stoves, occasionally underneath beds, and, apparently, now plant stems. Life was getting complicated.”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“After the death of my marriage, I was hell-bent on keeping the bird-of-paradise alive. I would take it slowly. Plants first. And if everything went well, then I'd move on to people.”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“Поварвай ми, когато опознаеш себе си, никога да поискаш да се преструваш, че си някой друг.Защото да си себе си е по-прекрасно от всичко, на което можеш да се престориш, за което си мечтал, което можеи да си представиш или в което да се превърнеш.”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“In just one moment I had emerged from a world of dark green, almost black, to a world of bright blue and light sunshine. It was what I imagined birth to be like.”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“I went back to the ocean for a wash. The salt stung my face. I didn't know my skin was so raw. I slung my backpack over my shoulders, and with the white mosquito netting wrapped around me like a wedding dress, I went back into the jungle.”
― Margot Berwin, quote from Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

About the author

Popular quotes

“We reminisce about the past, without ever forgetting the fulfillment we have found in the present. I am most deeply grateful whenever my friends mention the skits I wrote under the cover of darkness, which for brief moments would make us forget the horror of the reality we were living in. I feel proud and humble at having been granted that privilege and consider it my greatest achievement, even though it may not have been an act of total selflessness. I have learned that when we bring comfort to others, we reassure ourselves, and when we dispel fear, we assuage our own fear as well.”
― Gerda Weissmann Klein, quote from All But My Life: A Memoir

“Adaptability is the quality which makes for progress,”
― Max Heindel, quote from The Rosicrucian cosmo-conception: or, Mystic Christianity; an elementary treatise upon man's past evolution, present constitution and future development

“People often ask what the meaning of life is. What's the point in all of this? As far as I can tell, life is pretty much pointless without love.”
― D.T. Dyllin, quote from Hidden Gates

“If we don’t have dreams, Lilly, what do we have? Besides, aren’t you the one who always says to delight myself in the Lord and He will give me the desires of my heart?”
― Lorna Seilstad, quote from Making Waves

“And involuntarily I compared the childish sarcasm, the religious sarcasm of Voltaire with the irresistible irony of the German philosopher whose influence is henceforth ineffaceable.”
― Guy de Maupassant, quote from The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Part One

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.