Quotes about cherry (75 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos.
"Every Day You Play" (Juegas Todos las Días), XIV, p. 35.
Variant: I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
Source: Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) (1924)

love , Spring , Tree

“Between our two lives
there is also the life of
the cherry blossom.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Life

“I'd sacrificed true love and a popped cherry to the god of deception and hormones." - Zoey Redbird (Ch 24)”

P. C. Cast book Chosen

Source: Chosen

Love , God

“But memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Beauty , Memory , Time

“I will bring you flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want to do with you
what spring does with the cherry trees.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Mountain , Spring , Flowers , Kiss

“So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Love , Parting

“As when you were a child and some tremendous hurt
Was pulled over your head like a sack-
Glints of sunshine through the mesh
And the hum of the cherry trees.

But it doesn’t help, the great hurt
Covers head and torso and knees
And though you are able to move sometimes
Spring brings no happiness.

Yes, shimmering wool cap, pull it down over your face
Stare through the mesh.
Out on the bay, the rings of water multiply soundlessly
Green leaves darken the earth.”

Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015) Swedish poet, psychologist and translator

As When You Were a Child.
För levande och döda (For the Living and the Dead) 1996

Happiness , Tree , Spring , Water

“I want to live life to the ultimate high,
Maybe I'll die young like heroes die,
Maybe I'll kiss you some wild special way.
If nobody kills me or thrills me soon,
I'll die in your arms under the cherry moon.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

Under the Cherry Moon
Song lyrics, Parade Under the Cherry Moon (1986)

Life , Way , Kiss

“On the independence of irrelevant alternatives: Morgenbesser, ordering dessert, is told by the waitress that he can choose between apple pie and blueberry pie. He orders the apple pie. Shortly thereafter, the waitress comes back and says that cherry pie is also an option; Morgenbesser says "In that case I'll have the blueberry pie."”

Sidney Morgenbesser (1921–2004) American philosopher

Gaming the vote: why elections aren't fair (and what we can do about it), William Poundstone, p. 50, ISBN 0-8090-4893-0.

“Razo knew he was best at nothing, except maybe cramming two cherries into a single nostril.”

Shannon Hale River Secrets

Source: River Secrets

“You'd give up drinking to go see your dad?"
"Well, not permanently," he said. "That'd be ridiculous. But maybe I could switch to something slightly cheaper for a while. Like… slushes. Do you know how much I love those? Cherry, especially.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

Love , Drink

“Virgin suicide
What was that she cried?
No use in stayin'
On this holocaust ride
She gave me her cherry
She's my virgin suicide”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Suicide

“America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.”

James Ellroy (1948) Novelist, short story writer, essayist, memoirist

“Slushes. Do you know how much I love those? Cherry, especially.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

Love

“I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

God , Peace , Thinking , Light

“The psychologist, Paul Rozin, an expert on disgust, observed that a single cockroach will completely wreck the appeal of a bowl of cherries, but a cherry will do nothing at all for a bowl of cockroaches.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

“I never see that prettiest thing-
A cherry bough gone white with Spring-
But what I think, "How gay 'twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: Not So Deep As A Well: Collected Poems

Spring , Flowers , Thinking , Tree

“Ellen Cherry was from the south and had good manners. She didn´t have any panties on, but she had good manners.”

Tom Robbins Skinny Legs and All

Source: Skinny Legs and All

“It was silly but incredibly sweet, these people spending so much energy trying to figure me out. The answer: I don't like cherries.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

People

“If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Book title (1978)
Source: When God Created Mothers

Cute , Life

“I am not plain, or average or - God forbid - vanilla. I am peanut butter rocky road with multicolored sprinkles, hot fudge and a cherry on top.”

Wendy Mass book Every Soul a Star

Source: Every Soul a Star

God

“Cherry: You know, I’ve been home now for 24 hours. I must’ve been asked 9,000 times about that incident, we don’t have it [the footage], but I want to talk about it. Figure it out: Here’s a guy who gets eight stitches, eight stitches in his chin. What happened? Who did it? Nobody knows, ok? Nobody knows, ok, so here’s what happens. The referee calls the guy over and he says ‘Did you see what happened?’, ‘Whoaa, not my side’ ‘Did you see what happened?’ ‘Well wait a minute if I tell you, that means five-minute major.’ If the linesman says five-minute major…”

Don Cherry (1934) ice hockey coach, television commentator

Guy , Home , Time , Waiting

“Ah, to be so exciting
Won't need bright lights
No, no we won't
Gonna make our own lighting She got the way to move me, Cherry”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

Cherry, Cherry
Song lyrics, The Feel of Neil Diamond (1966)
Variant: Says she loves me
Yes, yes she does
Gonna show me tonight, yeah She got the way to move me, Cherry

Way , Light

“There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies blow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow:
There cherries grow which none may buy
Till 'Cherry-ripe' themselves do cry.”

Edmund Waller (1606–1687) English poet and politician

Cherry-Ripe http://www.bartleby.com/101/168.html.
Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857)

Cry

“Things That Lose by Being Painted
Pinks, cherry blossoms, yellow roses. Men or women who are praised in romances as being beautiful.Things That Gain by Being Painted
Pines. Autumn fields. Mountain villages and paths. Cranes and deer. A very cold winter scene; an unspeakably hot summer scene.”

Sei Shonagon (966–1025) Japanese author and a court lady

Source: The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (1002), p. 138

Women , Men , Mountain , Autumn

“Ever since Sir Isaac Newton's times, scientists have worked in the same sort of way:
They show a great respect for experiment and observation,
They don't cherry pick data,
They take a skeptical approach to what they do.
And then scientists work together to get a consensus as to what should be believed
And that generates very reliable knowledge and that reliable knowledge drives innovation”

Paul Nurse (1949) Nobel prize winning British biochemist

Newsnight 30th March 2011
Source: BBC iplayer, 37 mins online http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0101g7l/Newsnight_30_03_2011/

Way , Knowledge , Time

“I hold peace and war in my toga but I'l take a cherry flip
Today nobody knows whether he was tomorrow
They beat time with a coffin lid
If somebody had the nerve to rip the tail feathers
out of the trolley car it's a great age…”

Richard Huelsenbeck (1892–1974) German poet

End of the World, Ende der Welt', 1919

War , Age , Peace , Cars

“Come, spur away,
I have no patience for a longer stay,
But must go down
And leave the chargeable noise of this great town.
I will the country see,
Where old simplicity,
Though hid in grey,
Doth look more gay
Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad:
Farewell, you city wits, that are
Almost at civil war;
'Tis time that I grow wise, when all the world grows mad.
More of my days
I will not spend to gain an idiot's praise;
Or to make sport
For some slight puny of the inns of court.
Then, worthy Stafford, say,
How shall we spend the day?
With what delights
Shorten the nights?
When from this tumult we are got secure,
Where mirth with all her freedom goes,
Yet shall no finger lose;
Where every word is thought, and every thought is pure.
There from the tree
We'll cherries pluck and pick the strawberry,
And every day
Go see the wholesome country girls make hay,
Whose brown hath lovelier grace
Than any painted face
That I do know
Hyde Park can show.”

Thomas Randolph (poet) (1605–1635) English poet and dramatist

"An Ode to Master Anthony Stafford, to hasten him into the Country"
Poems (pub. 1638)

War , World , Girl , Sport

“If, after the Foley episode – a maraschino cherry atop the Democrat’s delectable sundae of Republican miseries – the Democrats cannot gain 13 seats, they should go into another line of work.”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Column, October 5, 2006, "What Goeth Before the Fall" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will100506.php3 at jewishworldreview.com.
2000s

“A guy told me he liked cherries… But… I waited to see if he was gonna say tomato… Before I realized he likes cherries just… All right, that joke is ridiculous. That's like a carbon copy of the previous joke but with different ingredients. I don't know what I was trying to pull off there.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Strategic Grill Locations

Guy , Waiting

“Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 2, st. 1.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Tree

“If there is a Tchekov among my readers, I fervently hope that the effects of the Magnet wil be to turn him into a Bob Cherry.”

Charles Hamilton (writer) (1876–1961) English writer of school stories

Oxford Companion to Children's Literature: "Charles Hamilton" (pages 235-7)

Hope

“Bright reds – scarlet, pillar-box red, crimson or cherry – are very cheerful and youthful.”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

Source: Maria Doulton "Simply brilliant: Cher Dior lights up Paris"

Youth , Box

“Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

In response to Hannah More wondering why Milton could write Paradise Lost but only poor sonnets. June 13, 1784, p. 542
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“Rachel Trachtenburg: I really like the food at that place (Sidewalk Cafe). They have salads and pastas and stuff like that. What's your favorite food?
Kimya Dawson: I like cherries.
Rachel: That's a fruit. I said food.
Kimya: Fruit's food.
Rachel: You don't sit down and eat it. You don't eat it at a restaurant, like, "Oh, I'd like a fruit, please." You say, "I'd like a pizza please, or the pasta." Do you like Indian food? Mexican food? Italian food?
Kimya: Japanese food.
Rachel: Okay.”

Rachel Trachtenburg (1993) American musician

Time Out New York Kids http://www.timeoutnykids.com/music/1/w1.mar03.music.opener.html

Food

“Hsueh Pan was a living example [of the] common saying, "To covet the land of Shu after grabbing the region of Lung." After having gratified his passion for Cassia, he began to turn his attention to her maid Cherry, who was by no means unattractive. The maid was willing enough but, knowing her mistress well, was afraid to encourage him. […] Later at bedtime, Cassia made a pretense of not caring where he spent the night. "Go where your heart is," she said to him with a playful push. "I don't want to see you starve your heart out."”

Wang Chi-chen (1899–2001)

[...] To show his gratitude, Hsueh Pan performed his conjugal duty to the best of his ability that night.
Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), pp. 273–274

Passion , Heart , Night , Gratitude

“Cherry ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,
Full and fair ones; come and buy!
If so be you ask me where
They do grow, I answer, there,
Where my Julia's lips do smile;
There's the land, or cherry-isle.”

Robert Herrick book Hesperides

"Cherry Ripe".
Hesperides (1648)

Smile , Cry

“Adela returned on luminous mornings, like Pomona from the fire of the enkindled day, tipping from her basket the colourful beauty of the sun: glistening wild cherries, full of water under their transparent skins, mysterious black cherries whose aroma surpassed that which would be realised in their taste, and apricots, in whose golden pulp lay the core of the long afternoons.”

Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) Polish novelist and painter

“August” http://www.schulzian.net/translation/shops/august1.htm
His father, Adela (the domestic servant)

Beauty , Water , Sun

“Chesterton was important — as important to me in his way as C. S. Lewis had been.
You see, while I loved Tolkien and while I wished to have written his book, I had no desire at all to write like him. Tolkien’s words and sentences seemed like natural things, like rock formations or waterfalls, and wanting to write like Tolkien would have been, for me, like wanting to blossom like a cherry tree or climb a tree like a squirrel or rain like a thunderstorm. Chesterton was the complete opposite. I was always aware, reading Chesterton, that there was someone writing this who rejoiced in words, who deployed them on the page as an artist deploys his paints upon his palette. Behind every Chesterton sentence there was someone painting with words, and it seemed to me that at the end of any particularly good sentence or any perfectly-put paradox, you could hear the author, somewhere behind the scenes, giggling with delight.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

"Mythcon 35 Guest of Honor Speech", in Mythprint (October 2004) http://www.mythsoc.org.nyud.net:8090/mythcon/35/speech/

Love , Books , Way , Nature

“On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon. That night he had a stomach ache.”

Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Night

“Every evening after dinner, a new life began. There was no hurry. Some walked in the garden. Others smoked. About nine o’clock we made our way alone or in twos and threes to the Study House. Outdoor shoes came off and soft shoes or moccasins were put on. We sat quietly, each on his or her own cushion, round the floor in the centre. Men sat on the right, women on the left; never together.

Some went straight on to the stage and began to practice the rhythmic exercises. On our first arrival, each of us had the right to choose his own teacher for the movements. I had chosen Vasili Ferapontoff, a young Russian, tall, with a sad studious face. He wore pince-nez, and looked the picture of the perpetual student, Trofimov, in The Cherry Orchard. He was a conscientious instructor, though not a brilliant performer. I came to value his friendship, which continued until his premature death ten years later. He told me in one of our first conversations that he expected to die young.

The exercises were much the same as those I had seen in Constantinople three years before. The new pupils, such as myself, began with the series called Six Obligatory Exercises. I found them immensely exciting, and worked hard to master them quickly so that I could join in the work of the general class.”

John G. Bennett (1897–1974) British mathematician and author

Source: Witness: the Story of a Search (1962), p. 90–91 cited in: "Gurdjieff’s Temple Dances by John G. Bennett", Gurdjieff International Review, on gurdjieff.org; About Fontainebleau 1923

Life , Death , Women , Men

“When she gets into negotiations with her European counterparts about trade arrangements, could she remind them that cake exists to be eaten and cherries exist to be picked.”

Iain Duncan Smith (1954) British politician

Speech in Parliament https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/03/05/piece-cake-iain-duncan-smiths-peculiar-advice-theresa-may-brexit/ referring to the metaphor, widely-used in reference to the UK government's Brexit policy, that you can't have your cake and eat it (5 March 2018)
2018

“The proprietor had hair so red that pigmentation had flowed out into every visible inch of his skin and even into the pinks of his eyes, as the colour of flowering cherry trees stains their leaves.”

Quentin Crisp book The Naked Civil Servant

Source: The Naked Civil Servant (1968), Ch. 13

Flowers , Tree

“Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 2, st. 2-3.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Spring

“Every fairy child may keep
Two strong ponies and ten sheep;
All have houses, each his own,
Built of brick or granite stone;
They live on cherries, they run wild —
I'd love to be a Fairy's child.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"I'd Love To Be A Fairy's Child".
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

Love , Strong , Housing

“Anybody who claims that people don’t cherry-pick their morality from the Bible, choosing that which comports with their extra-Biblical notions of what’s good and bad, is simply blind.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" Readers’ beefs of the week http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/readers-beefs-of-the-week-3/" September 13, 2014

People

“There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies blow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow;
There cherries grow that none may buy,
Till Cherry-Ripe themselves do cry.”

Thomas Campion (1567–1620) English composer, poet and physician

Cherry Ripe http://www.bartleby.com/106/91.html

For Her , Cry

“We went to see 'Dr No' [first James Bond film, 1962] at Fort-Second Street. It's a fantastic movie, so cool. We walked outside and somebody threw a cherry bomb right in front of us, in this big crowd. And there was blood. I saw blood on people and all over. I felt like I was bleeding all over. I saw in the paper last week that there are more people throwing them - it's just part of the scene - and hurting people. My show in Paris is to be called 'Death in America.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

I'll show the 'Electric-chair' pictures and the Dogs in Birmingham and car wrecks and some suicide pictures.
Source: 1963 - 1967, What Is Pop Art? Interviews with Eight Painters, Part 1 (1963), pp. 116-19

Death , People , Dogs , Cars

“In science, you don't just get to cherry-pick the parts that justify what you were going to do anyway! That's religion! You're thinking of religion.”

John Oliver (1977) English comedian

" Scientific Studies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rnq1NpHdmw#t=14m38s" (ff. 0:14:44), May 8, 2016; in response to Al Roker's advice to "find the study that sounds best to you"
Last Week Tonight (2014–present)

Religion , Thinking , Science , Parting

“A thing called "Cherry Cherry", was my first big national hit. It was a top five record. And international, as well. And you know, that's what broke the dam. … Boom, as soon as that record hit, I was out on the road. And I've been out on the road… since then. … I didn't realize it at first, but I did want to perform. I liked it. It was fun. You know, I went through all of the growth experiences that you go through in any field. But I did like it. And you know, I've been doing it since.”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

Larry King interview (2003)

“This is a common criticism: the idea that the atheist is guilty of a literalist reading of scripture, and that it’s a very naive way of approaching religion, and there’s a far more sophisticated and nuanced view of religion on offer and the atheist is disregarding that. A few problems with this: anyone making that argument is failing to acknowledge just how many people really do approach these texts literally or functionally - whether they’re selective literalists, or literal all the way down the line. There are certain passages in scripture that just cannot be read figuratively. And people really do live by the lights of what is literally laid out in these books. So, the Koran says “hate the infidel” and Muslims hate the infidel because the Koran spells it out ad nauseam. Now, it’s true that you can cherry-pick scripture, and you can look for all the good parts. You can ignore where it says in Leviticus that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night you’re supposed to stone her to death on her father’s doorstep. Most religious people ignore those passages, which really can only be read literally, and say that “they were only appropriate for the time” and “they don’t apply now”. And likewise, Muslims try to have the same reading of passages that advocate holy war. They say “well, these were appropriate to those battles that Mohammed was fighting, but now we don’t have to fight those battles”. This is all a good thing, but we should recognize what’s happening here: people are feeling pressure from a host of all-too-human concerns that have nothing, in principle, to do with God: secularism, and human rights, and democracy, and scientific progress. These have made certain passages in scripture untenable. This is coming from outside religion, and religion is now making a great show of its sophistication in grappling with these pressures. This is an example of religion losing the argument with modernity.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris in interview by Big Think (04/07/2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zV3vIXZ-1Y&t=6s
2000s

Death , God , Hate , War

“I think the reason it’s cheaper is, first of all, we are a private entity and we have a very lean system in here. What we have been able to do here at SpaceX is to cherry-pick, you know, the top one or two percent and give them, you know, capital to execute well and a clear mission, which is low cost, reliable access to space, and no other constraints.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Thinking

“The fact that Marc Cherry's a gay Republican means he should join the Democratic Party.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

Meet the Press (28 November 2004) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/28cnd-talk.html?oref=login

“The cherry orchard is now mine!… I bought the estate on which my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even permitted in the kitchen.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Act III
The Cherry Orchard (1904)

“Most anthologists of poetry or quotations are like those who eat cherries or oysters, first picking the best and ending by eating everything.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Maximes et anecdotes (1795)

“I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.”

Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel

Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fifth Book (1564), Chapter 28.

“I kissed a girl and I liked it,
The taste of her cherry chap stick.
I kissed a girl just to try it,
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it.
It felt so wrong,
It felt so right,
Don't mean I'm in love tonight.
I kissed a girl and I liked it,
I liked it.”

Katy Perry (1984) American singer, songwriter and actress

I Kissed a Girl, written by Katy Perry, Lukasz Gottwald, Max Martin, and Cathy Dennis
Song lyrics, One of the Boys (2008)

Love , Hope , Girl , Kiss

“The absolute morality that a religious person might profess would include what, stoning people for adultery, death for apostasy, punishment for breaking the Sabbath. These are all things which are religiously based absolute moralities. I don’t think I want an absolute morality. I think I want a morality that is thought out, reasoned, argued, discussed and based upon, I’d almost say, intelligent design [pun intended]. Can we not design our society, which has the sort of morality, the sort of society that we want to live in – if you actually look at the moralities that are accepted among modern people, among 21st century people, we don’t believe in slavery anymore. We believe in equality of women. We believe in being gentle. We believe in being kind to animals. These are all things which are entirely recent. They have very little basis in Biblical or Quranic scripture. They are things that have developed over historical time through a consensus of reasoning, of sober discussion, argument, legal theory, political and moral philosophy. These do not come from religion. To the extent that you can find the good bits in religious scriptures, you have to cherry pick. You search your way through the Bible or the Quran and you find the occasional verse that is an acceptable profession of morality and you say, ‘Look at that. That’s religion,’ and you leave out all the horrible bits and you say, ‘Oh, we don’t believe that anymore. We’ve grown out of that.’ Well, of course we’ve grown out it. We’ve grown out of it because of secular moral philosophy and rational discussion.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Richard Dawkins-George Pell Q&A (2012)

Death , Women , People , Religion

“Only a baby small,
Dropt from the skies;
Only a laughing face,
Two sunny eyes;

Only two cherry lips,
One chubby nose,
Only two little hands,
Ten little toes.”

Matthias Barr (1831–1911) British writer

Only a Baby Small

Baby

“It wasn't intelligence — it was propaganda. They'd take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don't belong together.”

Karen Kwiatkowski (1960) retired military officer and author

Interview by Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest, " The Lie Factory http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html", Mother Jones, January/February 2004.

Intelligence

“The tale survives of two men
Who fell in love "at first sight";
Who shared everything
In unbounded intimacy
Including the pillow
And the red embroidered coverlet
Which had been in the family
For generations.
Whether they had bad days,
Domestic arguments
Or inappropriate dreams
We do not know –
No doubt such burrs
Were worked away by time
Polishing its story;
How they found each other
And lived together all their lives,
And died on the same day,
And were buried by the grieving town
On Mount Luofo's peak
With their pillow and red coverlet;
And a pine tree grew
Out of the grave
Like the character for longevity
And true love.Such is the legend.
I like to think of them,
Pan Zhang and Wang Zhangxian,
In the crowd of well-wishers
Waiting in the April sunshine,
Yes, under white cherry trees
In full bloom, for us
Here and now, on this day
Early in the century,
In our very best suits and ties,
With our new rings
Growing warm on our fingers
Like keepsakes of light
Saved from the stars.”

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

From the Song Dynasty

Love , Men , Family , Dreams

“Cherry: …Yeah he’s gone anyhow, going into overtime. Gretzky, verge of elimination. So, what do we do? They say ‘What do we do? How about he [Doug Gilmour] gets hit with the puck? He gets hit with the puck, he’s laying on the [sic]'. The only way he’d get hit with the puck is if his chin was on the ice. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say about that. [Gretzky] gets the overtime winner and that’s wrong as far as I’m concerned. Andreychuk got a five-minute major, he [Gretzky] should’ve got something! At least a slap on the wrist or a dirty look!”

Don Cherry (1934) ice hockey coach, television commentator

On the May 29, 1993 edition of <i>Coach's Corner</i> discussing the alleged non-call by referee Kerry Fraser of a high-stick by Los Angeles Kings captain Wayne Gretzky on Toronto Maple Leafs forward Doug Gilmour in overtime of Game 6 of the 1993 Campbell Conference Final.

Way

“Moderate religious people may of course express distaste for such violence, pretending that the clear calls for grotesque and violent behaviour in their sacred book aren't there and cherry-picking the 'nice bits', but they are still guilty of not opening up the subject of belief to rational discourse, and in doing so are part of the machinery that leads to all the ugliness caused by fundamentalism.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Tricks of the Mind (2006)

People , Books , Parting

“[Operation] Rockingham was spinning reports and emphasizing reports that showed non-compliance (by Iraq with UN inspections) and quashing those which showed compliance. It was cherry-picking intelligence.”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

Sunday Herald, 8 June 2003
2003

Intelligence

“To me there is nothing more important in a democracy than free speech and debate. We should debate everything, we should talk about everything, we should engage ideas we aren't comfortable with, and we should let the best ideas win, that's how a healthy society based on rational ideas and a secular government should work, but too often these days it's simply isn't what's happening, and while the far right in this country went off the deep end a while ago, what I've really been affected by is seeing my side, the people on the Left cherry-picking, fact stifling, debate and labeling everyone they disagree with a racist, a bigot, a homophobe, or worse. These aren't liberal principles, much less are they the ideals our founders intended for us to use when they started this country.”

Dave Rubin (1976) American comedian

Dave Rubin Explains The Rubin Report Rules https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97SafVeKoF4 (September 9, 2015)

People , Democracy , Idea , Country

“I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 477 (6 September 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

Source: Mary Poppins (1934), Ch. 1 "East-Wind"
Context: If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads. He will push his helmet slightly to one side, scratch his head thoughtfully, and then he will point his huge white-gloved finger and say: "First to your right, second to your left, sharp right again, and you're there. Good-morning."
And sure enough, if you follow his directions exactly, you will be there — right in the middle of Cherry-Tree Lane, where the houses run down one side and the Park runs down the other and the cherry-trees go dancing right down the middle.
If you are looking for Number Seventeen — and it is more than likely that you will be, for this book is all about that particular house — you will very soon find it.

Tree

“Love, then unstinted, Love did sip,
And cherries plucked fresh from the lip”

Richard Lovelace (1617–1658) English writer and poet

Love Made in the First Age: To Chloris (l. 13–18).
Context: Love, then unstinted, Love did sip,
And cherries plucked fresh from the lip;
On cheeks and roses free he fed;
Lasses like autumn plums did drop,
And lads indifferently did crop
A flower and a maidenhead.

Love

“Here's an idea: let's get over ourselves, buy a cherry pie, and go fall in love with life.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

The Syntax of Sorcery (2012)
Context: Christians, and some Jews, claim we're in the "end times," but they've been saying this off and on for more than two thousand years. According to Hindu cosmology, we're in the Kali Yuga, a dark period when the cow of history is balanced precariously on one leg, soon to topple. Then there are our new-age friends who believe that this December we're in for a global cage-rattling which, once the dust has settled, will usher in a great spiritual awakening.
Most of this apocalyptic noise appears to be just wishful thinking on the part of people who find life too messy and uncertain for comfort, let alone for serenity and mirth. The truth, from my perspective, is that the world, indeed, is ending – and is also being reborn. It's been doing that all day, every day, forever. Each time we exhale, the world ends; when we inhale, there can be, if we allow it, rebirth and spiritual renewal. It all transpires inside of us. In our consciousness, in our hearts. All the time.
Otherwise, ours is an old, old story with an interesting new wrinkle. Throughout most of our history, nothing – not flood, famine, plague, or new weapons – has endangered humanity one-tenth as much as the narcissistic ego, with its self-aggrandizing presumptions and its hell-hound spawn of fear and greed. The new wrinkle is that escalating advances in technology are nourishing the narcissistic ego the way chicken manure nourishes a rose bush, while exploding worldwide population is allowing its effects to multiply geometrically. Here's an idea: let's get over ourselves, buy a cherry pie, and go fall in love with life.

Love , Life , Idea

“When we see the beauty of the snow, when we see the beauty of the full moon, when we see the beauty of the cherries in bloom, when in short we brush against and are awakened by the beauty of the four seasons, it is then that we think most of those close to us, and want them to share the pleasure.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)
Context: Dr. Yashiro Yukio, internationally known as a scholar of Botticelli, a man of great learning in the art of the past and the present, of the East and the West, has summed up one of the special characteristics of Japanese art in a single poetic sentence: "The time of the snows, of the moon, of the blossoms — then more than ever we think of our comrades." When we see the beauty of the snow, when we see the beauty of the full moon, when we see the beauty of the cherries in bloom, when in short we brush against and are awakened by the beauty of the four seasons, it is then that we think most of those close to us, and want them to share the pleasure. The excitement of beauty calls forth strong fellow feelings, yearnings for companionship, and the word "comrade" can be taken to mean "human being". The snow, the moon, the blossoms, words expressive of the seasons as they move one into another, include in the Japanese tradition the beauty of mountains and rivers and grasses and trees, of all the myriad manifestations of nature, of human feelings as well.

Pleasure , Beauty , Thinking , Season

“Being a member of EU comes with rights and benefits. Third countries (non members as the UK will be after Brexit) can never have the same rights and benefits since they are not subject to the same obligations. The single market and its four freedoms (which includes freedom of movement) are indivisible. Cherry picking is not an option.”

Michel Barnier (1951) French politician

Brexit: EU negotiator says 'time's short' for reaching deal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38221140 BBC News (6 December 2016)
2016

Country , Freedom

“It's tough, the 400, I won't lie. The first 200 is pure speed and then the last 200, it shows who's got that speed endurance training in their legs. And obviously the last 50, you've just gotta pray because lactic is hitting hard. You need to be able to hold that endurance. … A lot of people had doubted me when I first became vegan, but my energy levels increased incredibly and my iron, my B12, everything that people said would become deficient, were amazing. I thought, I'm gonna make sure I'm beating them all on the track. I mean, we're all friends, but it was pretty cool to finish my Australian domestic season undefeated. And to win the nationals was obviously that little cherry on top.”

Morgan Mitchell (1994) Australian athlete

Interview in the documentary-film The Game Changers by Louie Psihoyos (2018).

People , Season , Speed , Lie

“Says she loves me
Yes, yes she does
Gonna show me tonight, yeah She got the way to move me, Cherry”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

Cherry, Cherry
Song lyrics, The Feel of Neil Diamond (1966)

Way , Love , Making love

“Love, then unstinted, Love did sip,
And cherries plucked fresh from the lip;
On cheeks and roses free he fed;
Lasses like autumn plums did drop,
And lads indifferently did crop
A flower and a maidenhead.”

Richard Lovelace (1617–1658) English writer and poet

Love Made in the First Age: To Chloris (l. 13–18).

Indifference , Autumn , Flowers , Love

“They invite cherry-picked young people to meetings like this to pretend that they listen to us. But they clearly don’t listen to us. Our emissions are still rising. The science doesn’t lie. We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people.”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

Source: 'Blah, blah, blah’: Greta Thunberg lambasts leaders over climate crisis, by Damian Carrington, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/28/blah-greta-thunberg-leaders-climate-crisis-co2-emissions, (28 September 2021)

People , Truth , Lie , Science