Arrangements Quotes

“There are many types of marriage relationships and all of them can work, but none is sadder than the one that doesn't represent peace in your heart.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Tonight Ray will tape the the drenched oasis inside of the silver bowl that sits on the top of the candelabra and fill it with the pale green hydrangeas, pink English garden roses, lilies of the valley, and extravagant lavender sweet peas that R.L., the local florist/antique dealer, delivered a few hours ago. The flowers are all soaking in their respective sugar water jugs in her kitchen- out of the direct sunlight, of course- as is the oasis which she'll mold into every bowl and vase in the house with a similar arrangement. She's even going to make an arrangement in a flat sweetgrass basket to hang on the front door and a round little pomander of pale green hydrangea with a sheer white ribbon for Little Hilda to hold as she greets the guests in the foyer.
Ray is tempted to snip the last blossoms of gardenias growing secretly behind Cousin Willy's shed. In her estimation they are the quintessential wedding flower, with their intoxicating fragrance and their delicate cream petals surrounded by those dark, waxy leaves. She bought the seedlings when R.L. and the gals weren't looking at the Southern Gardener's Convention in Atlanta four years ago, and no one has any idea she's been growing them. Sometimes she worries that the fragrance will give her away, but they bloom the same time as the confederate jasmine, which grows along the lattice work of the shed, and she can always blame the thick smell on them. It would take a truly trained nose to pick the gardenias out, and Ray possesses the trained nose of the bunch.”
― Beth Webb Hart, The Wedding Machine

“Maybe the moral is, nothing works. 98”
― Tim Kreider, I Wrote This Book Because I Love You: Essays

“She assembled wafers as thin as cigarette paper, crisped, crimped, creased in a thousand different ways; she played with flakes of chocolate, orange peel, candied fruit, arabesques of coulis and marrons glacés. The pastry boy watched her, clapping his hands together. "You're an artist! This is one artist!" he said, over and over. The chef viewed such extravagance differently" "Well, okay, because it's this evening, but making things look pretty isn't the point. We don't cook to make things look pretty, for Christ's sake."

Camille smiled as she topped the crème anglaise with a red coulis.
Alas, no, it wasn't enough just to make things pretty. Something she knew all too well.”
― Anna Gavalda, Hunting and Gathering