Atmospheric Quotes

“It touched me to be trusted with something terrible.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

“What happens to our island affects all of us, including my boys.” Isa looked Marco in the eyes, like a boa constrictor eyeing its prey. “That gives me every right to an opinion.”
― Margarita Barresi, A Delicate Marriage

“Christ, I feel like a naughty schoolboy again,” said Alec as they walked into King’s Bench Walk. “We have just had a dressing-down by the headmaster. Strider could easily be a man handy with a cane.”
“That man Strider is a crook,” said Bing-Wallace. “His utterances are like the product of a performance of Joseph Pujol … Le Pétomane!”
“Who is Joseph Pujol?”
“He is a well-known French flatulist performer.”
“What?” Alec stopped dead,
“A fartist, dear boy, a performer of farts.” Bing-Wallace began to giggle, as did Alec.”
― Hugo Woolley, The Wasp Trap

“It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.”
― Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines

“He spoke slowly. “You know, you might think you are strong by holding on to all of this, but I think letting it go might make you stronger.”
― Alyssa Hall, And Then I Heard the Quiet

“I hate crickets,” he said. “Yes,” she replied. “Crickets are like cilantro. You either love ‘em or hate ‘em." “Did you just say cilantro?” The look on his face suggested she had just lost her mind. ”
― Alyssa Hall, And Then I Heard the Quiet

“Roads? Who spoke of roads? We go by the moor and the hills, and tread granite and heather as the Druids did before us.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“Night changed the streets.
It dressed them in the mourning clothes named darkness, and applied the makeup called mystery.”
― Hideyuki Kikuchi, A Wind Named Amnesia / Invader Summer

“A bracing wind swirls about the boy and alights gently upon his shoulder to gape frightfully at droplets of fate joined infirmly to a sweep of atmospheric and lunar forces far beyond their capabilities to resist. He takes a long, deep breath of air—cleansed through its migration—and he closes his eyes.

Scattered waves roll back in to the sea.”
― Ashim Shanker, Don't Forget to Breathe

“I felt I'd walked into a scene from a movie in which someone was going mad, the air heavy with suspense.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“The lights in the bar cast their mirror images into the eyes of the audience: a dozen moons reflected in bowls of water. Everyone and everything is stillness and silence—a bated breath given physical form.”
― Steve Hugh Westenra, The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle

“There was a shadowy light, not exactly twilight, but an uncertain vivid yet hazy illumination, wherein people walked like spirits, bathed in light and not revealed.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

“The following day, the scent Garrance has created is soon dispersed through the restaurant via an electric diffuser---the aromas of citrus, coconut, and ginger hitting me in waves. Ravenous, I set to making a roasted red pepper and garlic hummus, incorporating the urfa biber to see if it really makes a difference. I dip my finger into the dark purplish-brown flakes to taste, and I'm blown away by the earthiness of the flavors. I smack my lips, tasting undertones of raisins, chocolate, and maybe a little coffee.
Even though I've made a crudité platter with some pan-seared padron peppers sprinkled with sea salt and homemade garlic-infused naan, I can't help shoving spoonfuls of the hummus into my eager mouth.”
― Samantha Verant, The Spice Master at Bistro Exotique

“Aus dem dämmrigen Dunkel der Nacht trat eine feste, schwarze Masse von Gebäuden hervor, die sich über einer gewaltigen Fläche ausbreiteten. Das Dorf Mokroje zählte zweitausend Seelen; um diese Stunde schlief jedoch schon alles, nur hier und da schimmerten spärliche Lichter durch die Dunkelheit.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“immaculate middle-of-the-night quiet

rainlessness

the late moony sadness
of the one specific mosquito

dear someone

you habituate me to the invisible
I exit through you not as myself”
― Deborah Landau, The Last Usable Hour

“In the torpor of the afternoon the remembered road had the slightly menacing and elusive familiarity of a place in a dream when one thinks: I have been here, yet where is it and what is going to happen?”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“Plötzlich begann er, von Manderley zu erzählen. Er sprach nicht über sein Leben dort, sagte kein Wort über sich selbst, erzählte mir jedoch, wie dort an einem Frühlingsnachmittag die Sonne unterging und auf der Landspitze ein letztes Leuchten hinterließ. Das Meer, noch kalt vom langen Winter, sehe dann aus wie Schiefer, und von der Terrasse aus könne man den Wellenschlag der Flut hören, die in die kleine Bucht strömte.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Today, at any moment, more water rushes through the atmosphere than flows through all the world's rivers combined.”
― Cynthia Barnett, Rain: A Natural and Cultural History

“There was . . . a mirror that crawled across the wall in a wooden frame. When I go into Miri's room all I can see, all I can think of is that enormous mirror, like a lake on the wall.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, White Is for Witching

“The road into Pines was empty, and Ethan walked down the middle of the double yellow.”
― Black Crouch

“Самое главное – это атмосфера и мгновения.
Это – то прозрачное и величественное, что существует в жизни. И воспоминания состоят именно из этих мгновений, которые, как яркие вспышки, появляются среди мрака прошлого. Когда ты внезапно можешь осознать, что было важным для тебя в то далекое время. И эти воспоминания наполняют тебя сегодняшнего. И как волны бесконечного, движущегося моря памяти приходят на берег жизни.
И ты начинаешь чувствовать себя свободным и бесконечным в своем путешествии по этому морю.”
― Ekaterina Yakovina, Cherez Goroda k Sebe

“Tonight, we celebrate the precious quiet of wintertime,' she said. 'And how lovely is this time of silence and work and anticipation and decay?' She looked up. 'Here at Catherine, we know not to fear death. Because even in death, there is life. Death is not the black night, but its white moon. The honeyed egg of rebirth.'
Her voice was low. She had a slight unplaceable accent.
'So please,' she said, 'let us praise tonight, this room, and each other. Let us feast and be glad in the darkest of times.'
She raised her glass.
'To winter,' she said, 'and to tonight.”
― Elisabeth Thomas, Catherine House

“The first project I'd like to do is create a custom scent for the restaurant---special seasonal recipes to seduce people into entering the establishment, ensuring hunger and lust: vanilla, almond, and coconut; citrus and sandalwood; pepper, ginger, and chili. You'll pipe it onto the terrace and place it in the bathrooms, creating a magical atmosphere. A scent that transports you.”
― Samantha Verant, The Spice Master at Bistro Exotique

“The island of Hawaii is a great place to study atmospheric pollution on atmospheric radiation transmission due to its erupting volcano.”
― Steven Magee

“As Dina walked down the hall, the floorboards seamlessly transformed into blue and white tiles beneath her feet. She found herself standing in the heart of the house: a riad with a bubbling mosaic fountain, vines twisting up the walls and, above her, fuchsias blooming in terra-cotta pots and miniature date trees coiling around the pillars. It was more of a garden than a room, really. The ceiling was open to the night sky, burnished stars in an inky darkness.
It wasn't the real sky of course, but the house's magic was powerful. Dina could even hear crickets chirping in the distance and the cinnamon scent of the earth in Khemisset, where her mother had grown up. She exhaled deeply, the feeling of being home sinking into her bones.”
― Nadia El-Fassi, Best Hex Ever

“He stared at the tree, and the tree stared back.”
― Milan Sno

“The pale blue evening light of fading shadows crashes violently against the hill behind the town—facing radical orange and poisoned greens. It steams upward against a bluish sky that has swallowed every cloud in this modern summer May.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“This hidden paradise felt suspended between earth and sky, as if it belonged to both and neither at once.”
― Elle Christopher, Where Loyalty Lies

“The ones we remember are not always the ones we should."

— Names on a Crooked Wall”
― Saddam Abuallail, Names on a Crooked Wall: A Novel of Memory, Shadows, and the Names We Leave Behind

“The sea wasn’t merely water—it was a creature. Mysterious, ancient, awake.”
― Deni Ar Dente