Beneath The Surface Quotes

“Let’s hope she’s like the others, who look only at the surface. Let’s hope she’d never think that a girl with black-velvet eyes and cut-glass cheekbones could be a witch.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“Some people have a hidden richness waiting to be discovered. They don’t advertise it, but it’s there for those willing to scratch beneath the surface.”
― John Mark Green

“Always question what other things than the top layer are proceeding on beneath.”
― Jay Woodman

“A good witch knows that there's far more to a forest than its trees. Beneath the surface lies another world--- a world most people don't know about and few ever see. Down there, in the dark, the wood giants talk to each other. Fungal webs the size of whales send tiny mushrooms to scout the surface. Their carcasses dissolved, animals reassemble into moss and flowers. The world underneath is ignored by most. A good witch ignores nothing.
A smart witch looks where no one else dares. She visits places the others shun, and sees all the things they don't care to see. She studies the countless connections between the worlds above and below. She follows all roots to find out where they go. She turns over rocks and sees what wriggles out.
Her fearlessness will be rewarded with knowledge, and that knowledge with skill. But a wise woman also knows that the courage to look beneath the surface is often the difference between a live witch and a dead one.”
― Kirsten Miller, The Women of Wild Hill

“She had never looked to see what lay beneath the surface, because the surface was easy enough to polish and keep bright.”
― Kate Elliott, Child of Flame

“If you'd ever shaken hands with an earthquake you'd understand I'm an entity of trembling infinities beneath everything you see.”
― Curtis Tyrone Jones

“Many years ago, around the early 1980's, I penned a story about fruit crumble in a rather delightful, now defunct, magazine called Food Illustrated. The point of the piece was not so much the crust (to which I suggested adding coarse brown sugar or ground almonds or oats) or the luscious fruit (gooseberries, damsons, rhubarb or plums) that lay sleeping beneath.
The point was to identify what I consider to be the best bit, neither crust nor crumble but the layer of fruit-soaked dough that lies just beneath the crust. It is often a rich purple color or, in the case of apple crumble, the hue of heather honey. The hidden dough takes on a consistency that is both dry and wet and for which the most accurate description might be plumptious, if that was actually a word. I referred to it then as the undercrust, a term I have watched slowly spread.
The undercrust of a crumble is only one of several such silken treats that await us. The layer of soggy dough where shortcrust pastry meats gravy in a steak or chicken pie for instance. The point at which custard meets sponge in a trifle or, now I come to think of it, that bit of the suet dumpling that sits in the sauce of the stew, richly sodden with flavor and plump with aromatic liquor.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts