“Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. "The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; he was now browsing among the tulips.”

— James Thurber, book The Unicorn in the Garden

"The Unicorn in the Garden", The New Yorker (31 October 1939); Fables for Our Time & Famous Poems Illustrated (1940). This is a fable where a man sees a Unicorn in his garden, and his wife reports the matter to have him taken away, to the "booby-hatch". Online text with illustration by Thurber http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/unicorn1.html <br class="br">From Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time

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James Thurber90

American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright 1894–1961

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Source: Almost Heaven

“She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red rose.”

Oscar Wilde book The Happy Prince and Other Tales

"The Nightingale and the Rose"
The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)

“In 1966 there was a Scripture Rally in Trafalgar Square. A widower, Mr. Honick, went to it. He was about 63. A widow, Mrs. Rawnsley, also went. She was about 60. He went up to her and introduced himself. He was not much to look at. "He looked like a tramp," she said. "He has been picking up fag ends." They got on well enough, however, to exchange addresses. His was 36 Queen's Road, Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire. Hers was 74 Downton Avenue, Streatham Hill, London, S. W.2. Next day he went to her house with a gift for her. It was a rose wrapped in a newspaper. Afterwards their friendship grew apace. She was sorry for him, she said. She smartened him up with better clothes. She had him to meals. She went to his house: he went to hers. They wrote to one another in terms of endearment. We were not shown the letters, but counsel described them as love letters.”

Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge

Burgess v. Rawnsley (1975) 30 P. & C.R. 221.
Judgments

“Good men don't become legends," he said quietly.
"Good men don't need to become legends." She opened her eyes, looking up at him. "They just do what's right anyway.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

“The man changed position, turned his back on the wardrobe blocking the door and let his right arm slide down toward the side on which the dog is lying. A minute later, he was awake. He was thirsty. He turned on his bedside light, got up, shuffled his feet into the slippers which were, as always, providing a pillow for the dog's head, and went into the kitchen. Death followed him. The man filled a glass with water and drank it. At this point, the dog appeared, slaked his thirst in the water-dish next to the back door and then looked up at his master. I suppose you want to go out, said the cellist. He opened the door and waited until the animal came back. A little water remained in his glass. Death looked at it and made an effort to imagine what it must be like to feel thirsty, but failed. She would have been equally incapable of imagining it when she'd had to make people die of thirst in the desert, but at the time she hadn't even tried. The dog returned, wagging his tail. Let's go back to sleep, said the man. They went into the bedroom again, the dog turned around twice, then curled up into a ball. The man drew the sheet up to his neck, coughed twice and soon afterward was asleep again. Sitting in her corner, death was watching. Much later, the dog got up from the carpet and jumped onto the sofa. For the first time in her life, death knew what it felt like to have a dog on her lap.”

José Saramago book Death with Interruptions

Source: Death with Interruptions (2005), p. 172

“The purple morning left her crimson bed,
And donned her robes of pure vermilion hue,
Her amber locks she crowned with roses red,
In Eden's flowery gardens gathered new.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Già l'aura messaggiera erasi desta
A nunziar che se ne vien l'aurora:
intanto s'adorna, e l'aurea testa
Di rose, colte in Paradiso, infiora.
Canto III, stanza 1 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

“Like a good and happy man increasing his virtue, he kissed her. She did not move away from him. She remained in the embrace of his right arm, her face nuzzling his shoulder, her eyes closed. He tipped her chin to look and measure opportunity. She could not open her eyes. Honorably he searched, but on her face he met no quarrel.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

"The Pale Pink Roast" (1959)