“If summer had a flavor, it was pink bubble gum.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“Great love endures time, heartache, and distance. And even when all seems lost, true love lives on.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“It's like I'm trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, and everyone is hiding the pieces from me.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“I was making scrambled eggs smothered in Tabasco, his favorite, when he told me about Stephanie. The way she made him laugh. The way she understood him. The way they connected. I pictured the image of two Lego pieces fusing together, and I shuddered. It’s funny; when I think back to that morning, I can actually smell burned eggs and Tabasco. Had I known that this is what the end of my marriage would smell like, I would have made pancakes.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“Life is too short to worry about the consequences when you love someone as I love you.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“Hayat, birine seni seviyorum demenin kararsızlığını yaşamak için çok kısa.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“They're wood violets," she said. "I haven't seen them on the island since...."
"They're very rare," Henry said, filling the void that Bee had left when her voice trailed off. "You can't plant them, for they won't grow. They have to choose you."
Bee's eyes met Henry's, and she smiled, a gentle, forgiving smile. It warmed me to see it. "Evelyn has a theory about these flowers," she said, pausing as if to pull a dusty memory off a shelf in her mind, handling it with great care. "Yes," she said, the memory in plain view. "She used to say they grow where they are needed, that they signal healing, and hope.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“I could smell garlic, butter, and wine - the world's most delicious flavor combination. It made me feel warm, like the first few sips of wine always do.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“The city loves you when you're flying high and kicks you when you're down.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“I never intended on kissing Elliot. Married women don’t behave like that, at least not married women like me. It wasn’t proper. But the tide was high, and there was a cold breeze blowing, and Elliot’s arms were draped around my body like a warm shawl, caressing me in places where he shouldn’t have been, and I could scarcely think of much else. It was like how we used to be.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“The Puget Sound is like a time machine, hiding things and then spewing them back onto its shores at the time and place of its choosing.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“But it wasn't their separation that was consuming my mind just then; it was Evelyn's garden. Bee had taken us there when we were children, and it was all rushing back: a magical world of hydrangeas, roses, and dahlias, and lemon shortbread cookies on Evelyn's patio. It seemed like only yesterday that my sister and I sat on the little bench under the trellis while Bee hovered over her easel, capturing on her canvas whatever flower was in bloom in the lush beds. "Your garden," I said, "I remember your garden."
"Yes," Evelyn said, smiling.
I nodded, a little astonished that this memory, buried so deep in my mind, had risen to the surface just then like a lost file from my subconscious. It was as if the island had unlocked it somehow.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“There is something oddly therapeutic about trudging through marshy sand, the feeling of squishiness below the feet signaling to the brain that it's OK to just let go for a while.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“Bainbridge Island could never hide its glory, even under the cover of darkness. I watched from the window as the ferry loomed into Eagle Harbor, passing the island's pebble-covered shores and shake-shingled homes that clung courageously to the hillside. Glowing orange interiors beckoned, as if the people inside were making one extra place as they gathered around fireplaces to sip wine or hot cocoa.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“Just before six, Bee pulled three wineglasses out of the cabinet and uncorked the bottle of white that Greg had selected for us.
"Light the candles, dear, will you please?"
I reached for the matches and thought about the dinners at Bee's house during my childhood. Bee never served a meal without candles. "A proper supper requires candlelight," she'd told my sister and me years ago. I though it was elegant and exciting, and when I asked my mom if we could start the same tradition at home, she said no. "Candles are for birthday parties," she said, "and those only come once a year.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“...anyone who willingly has more than two children is clinically insane.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“Poet is Priest
Money has reckoned the soul of America
Congress broken thru to the precipice of Eternity
the president built a War machine which will vomit and rear Russia out of Kansas
The American Century betrayed by a mad Senate which no longer sleeps with its wife.
Franco has murdered Lorca the fairy son of Whitman
just as Maykovsky committed suicide to avoid Russia
Hart Crane distinguished Platonist committed suicide to cave in the wrong America
just as millions of tons of human wheat were burned in secret caverns under the White House
while India starved and screamed and ate mad dogs full of rain
and mountains of eggs were reduced to white powder in the halls of Congress
no godfearing man will walk there again because of the stink of the rotten eggs of America
and the Indians of Chiapas continue to gnaw their vitaminless tortillas
aborigines of Australia perhaps gibber in the eggless wilderness
and I rarely have an egg for breakfast tho my work requires infinite eggs to come to birth in Eternity
eggs should be eaten or given to their mothers
and the grief of the countless chickens of America is expressed in the screaming of her comedians over the radio”
― Allen Ginsberg, quote from Kaddish and Other Poems
“Finding that one person,” he added, touching her hand to bring her gaze back to him, “it’s a shift of paradigm that changes everything. What we always thought we wanted, what we know, what we don’t. But when it clicks into place, that’s also when everything makes sense, often for the very first time of our lives.”
― Joey W. Hill, quote from Hostile Takeover
“At that moment, he realised that he did not exist to her in the same way that he existed in his own perception. She held a copied version, an interpretation of him, filtered through the matrix of her priorities and desires.
Therefore, surely, he only held a copy of her.”
― K.J. Bishop, quote from The Etched City
“So overnight I’ve somehow turned into a woman who has sex with a complete stranger, a slightly weird stranger might I add, that results in my clothes getting ruined to the point of incineration and I have no memory of said sex. Which I suppose in a way is kind of a shame because he is really fit.”
― Samantha Towle, quote from First Bitten
“... you cow,' Estelle added. 'I heard that.' 'Give the woman the geriatric audiology medal,' Estelle said. 'I heard that, too', her mother said, from the other side of the door.”
― Fiona Wood, quote from Six Impossible Things
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