Quotes from The Language of Flowers

“Anyone can grow into something beautiful.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Perhaps the unattached, the unwanted, the unloved, could grow to give love as lushly as anyone else.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Common thistle is everywhere,” she said. “Which is perhaps why human beings are so relentlessly unkind to one another.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“In that moment, we were the same, each of us destroyed by our limited understanding of reality.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Hate can be passionate or disengaged; it can come from dislike but also from fear.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“It wasn't as if the flowers themselves held within them the ability to bring an abstract definition into physical reality. Instead, it seemed that...expecting change, and the very belief in the possibility instigated a transformation.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“This time, there was no escape, I could not turn away, could not leave without accepting what I had done. There was only one way to the other side, and that was through the pain.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Over time, we would learn each other and I would learn to love her like a mother loves a daughter, imperfectly and without roots.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“I believe you can prove everyone wrong, too, Victoria. Your behavior is a choice; it isn't who you are.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Your behavior is a choice; it isn’t who you are.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Here you are, obsessed with romantic language-a language invented for expression between lovers-and you use it to spread animosity.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“I felt my true, unworthy self to be far away from his clutching grasp, hidden from his admiring gaze.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Her eyes were open, taking in my tired face... Her face twitched into what looked like a squinty smile, and in her wordless expression I saw gratitude, and relief, and trust. I wanted, desperately, not to disappoint her.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“She was perfect. I knew this the moment she emerged from my body, white and wet and wailing. Beyond the requisite ten fingers and ten toes, the beating heart, the lungs inhaling and exhaling oxygen, my daughter knew how to scream. She knew how to make herself heard. She knew how to reach out and latch on. She knew what she needed to do to survive. I didn’t know how it was possible that such perfection could have developed within a body as flawed as my own, but when I looked into her face, I saw that it clearly was.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“For eight years I dreamed of fire. Trees ignited as I passed them; oceans burned.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“You should see the way she smiles when I rattle off the names of the orchids in the greenhouse: oncidium, dendrobium, bulbophyllum, and epidendrum, tickling her face with each blossom. I wouldn't be surprised if 'Orchidaceae' was her first word.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“I would keep her, and raise her, and love her, even if she had to teach me how to do it.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Now, as an adult, my hopes for the future were simple: I wanted to be alone, and to be surrounded by flowers. It seemed, finally, that I might get exactly what I wanted.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Do you really think you’re the only human being alive who is unforgivably flawed? Who’s been hurt almost to the point of breaking?”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“The language of flowers is nonnegotiable, Victoria,” Elizabeth said,”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“We replanted. The loss was substantial, but it was overshadowed completely by losing you.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“If it was true that moss did not have roots, and maternal love could grow spontaneously as if from nothing, perhaps I had been wrong to believe myself unfit to raise my daughter. Perhaps the unattached, the unwanted, the unloved, could grow to give love as lushly as anyone else.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“I had been loyal to nothing except the language of flowers. If I started lying about it, there would be nothing in my life that was beautiful or true.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“For eight years I dreamed of fire. Trees ignited as I passed them; oceans
burned. The sugary smoke settled in my hair as I slept, the scent like a cloud left on my pillow as I rose. Even so, the moment my mattress started to burn, I bolted awake. The sharp, chemical smell was nothing like the hazy syrup of my dreams; the two were as different as Carolina and Indian jasmine, separation and attachment. They could not be confused.
Standing in the middle of the room, I located the source of the fire. A neat row of wooden matches lined the foot of the bed. They ignited, one after the next, a glowing picket fence across the piped edging. Watching them light, I felt a terror unequal to the size of the flickering flames, and for a paralyzing moment I was ten years old again, desperate and hopeful in a way I had never been before and never would be again.
But the bare synthetic mattress did not ignite like the thistle had in late October. It smoldered, and then the fire went out.
It was my eighteenth birthday.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“The open forgiveness in her eyes, the uncensored love, terrified me.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Over time, we would learn each other, and I would learn to love her like a mother loves a daughter, imperfectly and without roots.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“Prese un giglio tigre arancione
da un secchio.
«Per te» mi disse porgendomelo.
«No non mi piacciono i gigli» risposi.
E non sono una regina pensai.
«Dovrebbero piacerti» replicò.
«Ti si addicono.»”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

“I’m talking about the language of flowers. It’s from the Victorian era, like your name. If a man gave a young lady a bouquet of flowers, she would race home and try to decode it like a secret message. Red roses mean love; yellow roses infidelity. So a man would have to choose his flowers carefully.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, quote from The Language of Flowers

Video

About the author

Popular quotes

“Incarnation' does not originally mean (as it tends to today in some theologies of history, and in some kinds of Anglican today) that God took all of human nature as it was, put his seal of approval on it and thereby ratified nature as revelation. The point is just the opposite; that God broke through the borders of man’s definition of what is human, and gave a new, formative definition in Jesus.”
― John Howard Yoder, quote from The Politics of Jesus

“Hallblithe was created by William Morris and appeared in The Story of the Glittering Plain Which Has Also Been Called the”
― quote from The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“Not everyone you meet is going to like you, and that's okay.”
― Jen Calonita, quote from Broadway Lights

“By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, th qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power.

Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, whch being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows --”
― Plato, quote from Timaeus/Critias

“The river never changes. it may alter it's path a bit, but it never changes. It's us who change. We come back here and we're are different. Not it."

Form can't be extracted from the essence like some broth reduction."

This river's taught me a good bit. Probably why I don't leave here. It winds, weaves, snakes around. Rarely goes the same twice. But, in the end, it always ends up in the same place and the gift is never the same." ..."it's the journey that matters.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Where the River Ends

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.