Quotes about gray

A collection of quotes on the topic of gray, likeness, evening, time.

Quotes about gray

“For some reason, people think that music must tell us only about the pinnacles of the human spirit, or at least about highly romantic villains. Most people are average, neither black nor white. They're gray. A dirty shade of gray. And it's in that vague gray middle ground that the fundamental conflicts of our age take place.”

Dmitri Shostakovich book Testimony

Page 94
Testimony (1979)

People, Age, Music, Thinking

“When I’m old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint. With a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.”

Ava Gardner (1922–1990) American actress

Music, Painting, Housing, Sea

“My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.”

William Golding (1911–1993) British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate

“Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day. Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous. Do not abuse life. Live in to-day. Be reverent towards each day. Love it, respect it, do not sully it, do not hinder it from coming to flower. Love it even when it is gray and sad like to-day. Do not be anxious. See. It is winter now. Everything is asleep. The good earth will awake again. You have only to be good and patient like the earth. Be reverent. Wait. If you are good, all will go well. If you are not, if you are weak, if you do not succeed, well, you must be happy in that. No doubt it is the best you can do. So, then, why will? Why be angry because of what you cannot do? We all have to do what we can.... Als ich kann.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Gottfried to Jean-Christophe. Part 3: Ada
Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Youth (1904)

Love, Life, Bad luck, Happiness

“Annabeth's face, her blond hair and gray eyes, the way she laughed, threw her arms around him, and gave him a kiss whenever he did something stupid.
She must have kissed me a lot, Percy thought.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Stupidity, Way, Kiss

“Every time a boy falls off a tricycle, every time a black cat has gray kittens, every time someone stubs a toe, every time there's a murder or a fire or the Marines land in Nicaragua, the police and the newspapers holler, 'Get Capone!' I'm sick of it. As soon as I possibly can, I'll clear out of here.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Boy, Cats, Time

“All colors made me happy: even gray.
My eyes were such that literally they
Took photographs.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

Happiness, Color

“Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Statement as he put on his glasses before delivering his response to the first Newburgh Address http://www.earlyamerica.com/milestone-events/newburgh-address/ (15 March 1783), quoted in a letter https://democraticthinker.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/newburgh-crisis-viwashingtons-newburgh-address/ from General David Cobb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cobb_(Massachusetts) to Colonel Timothy Pickering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Pickering (25 November 1825) <br class="br">1780s, The Newburgh Address (1783)

Country

“Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf" came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying "wolf, wolf" and there was no wolf behind him.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lectures on Literature

Source: Lectures on Literature

Boy, Literature, Wolf, Cry

“It's not gray," Clary felt compelled to point out. "It's green."
"If there was such a thing as terminal literalism, you'd have died in childhood," said Jace.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Childhood

“I sank back in the gray, plush seat and closed my eyes. The air of the bell jar wadded round me and I couldn't stir.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

“Maybe the only thing that hints at a sense of Time is rhythm; not the recurrent beats of the rhythm but the gap between two such beats, the gray gap between black beats: the Tender Interval.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Source: Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

Sense, Time

“Though I may seem at times somewhat distant from you, through the gray mist of philology, I am never far, my thoughts always circle around you.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: Selected Letters

Distant, Time

“Those locks of jet are turned to gray,
And she is strange and far away
That might have been mine own to-day —

That might have been mine own, my dear,
Through many and many a happy year —
That might have sat beside me here.”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

Faces in the Fire (1860), st. 8 & 9
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Happiness

“Cause maybe you're loveable.
Maybe you're my snowflake.
And your eyes turn from green to gray.
And in the winter I'll hold you in a cold place.
And you should never cut your hair,
'Cause I love the way you flick it off your shoulder.And you will never know
Just how beautiful you are to me.
But maybe I'm just in love
When you wake me up.”

Ed Sheeran (1991) English singer-songwriter and producer

Wake Me Up, written with Jake Gosling
Song lyrics, + (2011)

Love, Beauty, Way, Winter

“When from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.And once again I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy), immediately the old gray house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theater.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

Mais, quand d’un passé ancien rien ne subsiste, après la mort des êtres, après la destruction des choses, seules, plus frêles mais plus vivaces, plus immatérielles, plus persistantes, plus fidèles, l’odeur et la saveur restent encore longtemps, comme des âmes, à se rappeler, à attendre, à espérer, sur la ruine de tout le reste, à porter sans fléchir, sur leur gouttelette presque impalpable, l’édifice immense du souvenir.<p>Et dès que j’eus reconnu le goût du morceau de madeleine trempé dans le tilleul que me donnait ma tante (quoique je ne susse pas encore et dusse remettre à bien plus tard de découvrir pourquoi ce souvenir me rendait si heureux), aussitôt la vieille maison grise sur la rue, où était sa chambre, vint comme un décor de théâtre.
"Overture"
In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol I: Swann's Way (1913)

Happiness, People, Faith, Hope

“I have left off crying, and giggling as well. Now make up your mind. I don't care anything for all this talk. You told me what your price for the job was and I have come up with it. Here is the money. I aim to get Tom Chaney and if you are not game I will find somebody who is game. All I have heard out of you so far is talk. I know you can drink whiskey and I have seen you kill a gray rat. All the rest has been talk. They told me you had grit and that is why I came to you. I am not paying for talk. I can get all the talk I need and more at the Monarch boardinghouse.”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 5, pp. 82-83 : 'Mattie Ross' to 'Rooster Cogburn'

Money, Game, Drink, Cry

“Do not unjustly eat fish the water has given up,

And do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals,

Or the white milk of mothers who intended its pure draught
for their young, not noble ladies.
And do not grieve the unsuspecting birds by taking eggs;
for injustice is the worst of crimes.
And spare the honey which the bees get industriously
from the flowers of fragrant plants;
For they did not store it that it might belong to others,
Nor did they gather it for bounty and gifts.
I washed my hands of all this; and wish that I
Perceived my way before my hair went gray!”

Al-Maʿarri (973–1057) Medieval Arab philosopher

As quoted in "The Meditations of Al-Maʿarri", Studies in Islamic Poetry (1921) by R. A. Nicholson, Verse 197, pp. 134–135

Food, Way, Flowers, Bird

“Oh, torture. Torture. My pubic hairs went gray.”

Steven Spielberg (1946) American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur

Rolling Stone

“In the night all cats are gray.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 33.

Cats, Night

“Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called him Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Many Long Years Ago (1945), The Tale of Custard the Dragon

Dogs

“And, finally, our nations are strongest when we empower our young people –- because ultimately, you're the one who has to break down these old stereotypes and these old barriers, these old ways of thinking. Prejudices and stereotypes and assumptions -- those are what happens to old minds like mine. I'm getting gray hair now. I was more youthful when I first started this office. And that’s why young people are so important in these efforts.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Address to the People of India (January 2015)

People, Youth, Way, Thinking

“"True love gives true love of the best:
Then take," I cried, "my heart to thee!"
The very heart from out my breast
I plucked, I gave it willingly;
Her very heart she gave to me —
Then died the glory from the west.In the gray light I saw her face,
And it was withered, old, and gray;
The flowers were fading in their place,
Were fading with the fading day.”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

Stolen Waters (1862)
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Love, Flowers, Light, Heart

“When in the spring the withered gray of the pastures gives place to green, this is due to the millions of young shoots which sprout up freshly from the old roots. In like manner the revival of thought which is essential for our time can only come through a transformation of the opinions and ideals of the many brought about by individual and universal reflection about the meaning of life and of the world.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 10

Life, World, Spring, Universe

“Like some magistrate grown gray in office,
Calmly he contemplates alike the just
And unjust, with indifference he notes
Evil and good, and knows not wrath nor pity.”

Aleksandr Pushkin Boris Godunov

Boris Godunov (1825)

Evil, Indifference

“O bitter is it to abide
In weariness alway:
At dawn to sigh for eventide,
At eventide for day.
Thy noon hath fled: thy sun hath shone:
The brightness of thy day is gone:
What need to lag and linger on
Till life be cold and gray?”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

The Valley of the Shadow of Death (1868)
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Life, Sun

“Combating climate change cannot be the work of governments alone. Citizens, especially the next generation, you have to keep raising your voices, because you deserve to live your lives in a world that is cleaner and that is healthier and that is sustainable. But that is not going to happen unless you are heard. It is in the nature of things, it is in the nature of the world that those of us who start getting gray hair are a little set in our ways, that interests are entrenched”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Queensland University Address (November 2014)
Context: As we develop, as we focus on our econ, we cannot forget the need to lead on the global fight against climate change. [... ] Here in the Asia Pacific, nobody has more at stake when it comes to thinking about and then acting on climate change. Here, a climate that increases in temperature will mean more extreme and frequent storms, more flooding, rising seas that submerge Pacific islands. Here in Australia, it means longer droughts, more wildfires. The incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threated. Worldwide, this past summer was the hottest on record. No nation is immune, and every nation has a responsibility to do its part. [... ] We are mindful of the great work that still has to be done on this issue. But let me say, particularly again to the young people here: Combating climate change cannot be the work of governments alone. Citizens, especially the next generation, you have to keep raising your voices, because you deserve to live your lives in a world that is cleaner and that is healthier and that is sustainable. But that is not going to happen unless you are heard. It is in the nature of things, it is in the nature of the world that those of us who start getting gray hair are a little set in our ways, that interests are entrenched -- not because people are bad people, it’s just that’s how we’ve been doing things. And we make investments, and companies start depending on certain energy sources, and change is uncomfortable and difficult. And that’s why it’s so important for the next generation to be able to step and say, no, it doesn’t have to be this way. You have the power to imagine a new future in a way that some of the older folks don’t always have.

World, Way, Nature, Change

“I find earth not gray but rosy;
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

"At the 'Mermaid'"(1876).
Context: I find earth not gray but rosy;
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy; Do I stand and stare? All's blue.

“I found abundant “mental sunshine,” which bathed all the gray world suddenly in the clear light of reason and understanding. Word after word, sentence after sentence stabbed into the darkness like thunderclaps and lightningbolts of revelation, tearing and ripping away the cobwebs of more than thirty years of darkness, brilliantly illuminating the mysteries of the heretofore impenetrable murk in a world gone mad.”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

As quoted by George P. Thayer in The Further Shores of Politics: The American Political Fringe Today, 2d ed. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), p. 27.
undated

World, Understanding, Tear, Light

“If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Source: 1850s, Autobiographical Sketch Written for Jesse W. Fell (1859)

Personality

“Patience is the only way you can endure the gray periods.”

Teri Hatcher (1964) American actress, presenter, writer

Source: Burnt Toast: And Other Philosophies of Life

Way, Patience

“As dull as Nate Gray is," Will said, "his head is not actually filled with gears, Henry. He's a human.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“It is better than going on loving someone who cannot love me back. Better wasting all that feelings"
-Tessa gray”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel

Love, Feeling

“It's easy to say you will do what's right and shun what's wrong, but when you get close enough to any given situation, you realize that thereno black or white. There are gradations of gray.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

“One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the Earth!”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Women

“Quick question. Does this magical skill with gray matter come with a total lack of compunction for your kind, or is it just you who were born without a conscience?

V: I beg your pardon?”

Jessica Bird book Lover Unbound

Source: Lover Unbound

Question

“It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within--not without." ~ Poirot”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

Truth

“Hair is gray and the firers are burning. So many dreams on the shelf. You say I wanted you to be proud of me. I always wanted that myself.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

Dreams

“Simon’s love life was complicated, but there was a pang, just for a moment, for this woman talking graphic novels with him.
Ah, well. Tessa Gray, foxy nerd, was probably dating someone already.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Whitechapel Fiend

Love, Life

“So I buy it. The most perfect little cardigan in the world. People will call me the Girl in the Gray Cardigan. I’ll be able to live in it. Really, it’s an investment.”

Sophie Kinsella book The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic

Source: Confessions of a Shopaholic

People, World, Girl, Perfection

“When a question has no correct answer, there is only one honest response.
The gray area between yes and no.
Silence.”

Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

Question, Silence

“I didn't remember what month that was, or what year even. I only knew the memory lived in me, a perfectly encapsulated morsel of a good past, a brushstroke of color on the gray, barren canvas that our lives had become.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Color, Memory, Past

“No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

People, Beauty, Home, Country

“His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.”

Hans Christian Andersen The Ugly Duckling

Fairy Tales (1835)
Source: The Ugly Duckling

Beauty, Bird

“Even the intellectual crowd will have none of me. Physically, I look like one of them. Graying at the temples, I walk with a slight limp and wear thick glasses.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

“Ordinary adults don't like children to speak of things that are denied them by their own gray minds.”

Jasper Fforde book The Eyre Affair

Source: The Eyre Affair

Children

“Oh confound that gray-and-scarlet suit!" Sophie said. "I refuse to believe that I was the one that got caught with it!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“I once asked a young dissertation writer whether her suddenly grayed hair was due to ill health or personal tragedy; she answered: “It was the footnotes”.”

Joanna Russ book How to Suppress Women's Writing

Source: How to Suppress Women's Writing

Health, Personality

“Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs.”

John Keats Ode to a Nightingale

Stanza 3
Poems (1820), Ode to a Nightingale

Men, Youth, Sadness, Thinking

“There’s so much gray to every story—nothing is so black and white.”

Lisa Ling (1973) American journalist, television presenter, and author

“Abe swept in, resplendent in a gray and yellow suit that coordinated bafflingly well with Adrian's paint job.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Painting

“I think people understand things different when they get older. It’s not a question of getting soft, or seeing things in the gray areas instead of black and white. I really believe I’m just understanding things different. Better.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

People, Understanding, Question, Thinking

“Clary,” Jocelyn said. “I want you to meet Tessa Gray.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones.”

John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Source: Of Mice and Men

“Will looked up in apparent relief when Charlotte and Tessa came in. "Will," Charlotte said, "You remember Miss Gray?"
"My recollection of her," said Will, "is most vivid indeed.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“(If plan KTB kill the bastard) didn't work, well, gray would resort to Plan B: Operation Oh Sh”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Jewel of Atlantis

“She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "nothing" I walked in a gray world of nothing.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

World, Personality

“Old Dan must have known he was dying. Just before he drew his last breath, he opened his eyes and looked at me. Then with one last sigh, and a feeble thump of his tail, his friendly gray eyes closed forever.”

Wilson Rawls book Where the Red Fern Grows

Source: Where the Red Fern Grows

“The day was gray, the color of Europe.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Color

“They will be like shadows, they will be like wraiths, gray members of a congregation of nightmare; hark! his long wavering howl… an aria of fear made audible.
The wolfsong is the sound of the rending you will suffer, in itself a murdering.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Source: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Fear, Suffering

“I used to think I knew what was right and what was wrong, and who the good guys are, and who the bad guys are. Then the world got very gray, and I didn't know anything for a long time”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Incubus Dreams

Source: Incubus Dreams

World, Guy, Thinking, Time

“If you're in the room, I want to be next to you. If you're gone, I think about you. You're who I want to talk to. In a fight, I want you at my back. When we're together the sun is shining. When we're apart, everything is in shades of gray.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Fang

Thinking, Sun, Fight

“gray hair is gods graffiti”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

God

“People don't change. There are two kinds of people in the world: winners and losers. Black and white. I don't know where gray fits in, or if you can even live in that shade.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

People, World, Change

“The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered gleam of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Death, Spring, Drink

“My eyes were gray—more like my cousin Annabeth’s than my mom’s.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Moms

“His beauty did not blaze like Will's did in fierce colors and repressed fire, but it had its own muted perfection, the loveliness of snow falling against a silver gray sky.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Beauty, Color, Perfection

“People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been--for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Men, People, Understanding, Suffering

“I rot on the wall, my own
Dorian Gray.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

"The Double Image"
To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960)

“I know how you are with your words, and, Will- I love all of them. Every word you say. The silly ones, the mad ones, the beautiful ones, and the ones that are only for me. I love them, and I love you." - Tessa Gray”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Love, Beauty, Madness

“Even the solitude, I've actually grown to quite like… I do like the feeling of getting into my little car, knowing for the next couple of hours I'll have only the roads, the big gray sky and my daydreams for company.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

Cars, Feeling, Solitude

“I wonder if I cry whether my tears would be gray.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer book Life As We Knew It

Source: Life As We Knew It

Tear, Cry

“He flushed, the colour dark against his pale skin. 'I mean. Tessa Gray, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?' Jem…”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“I can't believe that I changed so little. I expected to look old and hollow and gray, but I guess it's only me on the inside that has shriveled and deteriorated.”

Beatrice Sparks (1917–2012) American writer

Source: Go Ask Alice

Change

“I am Tessa Gray,” she said in a low, clear voice. “And I believe in the importance of stories.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Whitechapel Fiend

“Are you sure, Gray?'
He lifted his eyes. 'No… I'm not. I'm not sure of a damn thing.' He slipped his hands free of the monsignor's and peeled the battery off the phone, cutting the last ring in half. 'But that doesn't mean I won't act.”

James Rollins book The Judas Strain

Source: The Judas Strain

“Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken....”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Quoted, This Side of Paradise (1920)

Love, God, War, Fear

“Look!" said Foaly, pointing with some urgency into the vast steel-gray gloom, "Someone who cares!”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Atlantis Complex

“A world of contradictions, wherein everything is gray and almost nothing is black and white.”

David Sheff Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

Source: Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

World

“These wrinkles are nothing
These gray hairs are nothing,
This stomach which sags
with old food, these bruised
and swollen ankles,
my darkening brain,
they are nothing.
I am the same boy
my mother used to kiss.”

Mark Strand (1934–2014) Canadian-American poet, essayist, translator

Food, Boy, Kiss

“I find it most remarkable that we who are so intimately involved in the battle between good and evil are even more involved with the shades of gray in between them.”

Christopher Golden (1967) American writer

Source: Sons of Entropy

Evil

“Quintus…” Geryon mused. “Short gray hair, muscular, swordsman?”
“Yeah.”
“Never heard of him”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

“Hey!” I said, indignation filling me. “I’m immortal! Doesn’t that mean I won’t get saggy boobs and gray hair? Because if it doesn’t mean that, I want a refund—”

Katie MacAlister (1964) Author

Source: Holy Smokes

“Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and flutteringly, like a loved one’s ashes, the gray scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark heart of New York.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Love, Heart, Night

“When his brain died, all of the memories
held in his gray matter, along with all of the knowledge he had acquired, would simply evaporate
in a flood of chemical reactions.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

Knowledge, Memory

“Did she ever regret her choices? Were her decisions more clear-cut than mine - or are there always shades of gray whe it comes to matters of the heart?”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Love the One You're With

Decision, Heart

“There are only shades of gray. Black and white are nothing more than lofty ideals in our minds, the standards by which we try to judge things, and map out our place in the world in relevance to them.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

World

“Gray day. Everything is gray. I watch. But nothing moves today.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

““Where is it written that one should only care about big things? I fought for big things, long ago… for issues, principles, a country. Where are all of them now?”
The steely gray eyes were narrow and sad when next he looked up at Gordon. “I found out something, you know. I discovered that the big things don’t love you back. They take and take, and never give in return. They’ll drain your blood, your soul, if you let them, and never let go.
“I lost my wife, my son, while away battling for big things. They needed me, but I had to go off trying to save the world.” Powhatan snorted at the last phrase. “Today I fight for my people, for my farm—for smaller things—things I can hold.””

David Brin book The Postman

Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 9 (p. 229; see also p. 305)

Love, People, World, Sadness

“Earth, left silent by the wind of night,
Seems shrunken 'neath the gray unmeasured height.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

"December".
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70)

Night

“Get it down quickly, don't worry about the background. Just go for the tonal values. You see? When you look at it, and above all when you see how to render it as you see it, thats is, in such a way that its make the same impression on the viewer as it does on you, you don't look for, you don't see the lines on the paper over there, do you? And then, when you look at the whole thing you don't try to count the scales on the salmon, of course you don't. You see them as little silver pearls against grey and pink – isn't thats right? – look at the pink of the salmon, with the bone appearing white in the centre and then grays, like the shades of mother of pearl. And the grapes, now do you count each? No, of course not. What strikes you is their clear, amber colour and the bloom which models the form by softening it. What you have to decide with the cloth is where the highlights come and then the planes which are not in the direct light. Halftones are for the magasin pittoresque engravers. The folds will come by themselves if you put them in the proper place. Ah! M. Ingres, there's the man! We're all just children. There's the one who knew how to paint materials! Ask Bracquemond [Paris' artist and print-maker]. Above all, keep your colours fresh. [instructing his new protegee, the Spanish young woman-painter Eva Gonzales, circa 1869]”

Edouard Manet (1832–1883) French painter

Manet, recorded by Philippe Burty, as cited in Manet by Himself, ed. Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Little Brown 2000, London; p. 52
1850 - 1875

Children, Way, Light, Appearance

“.. upon the frightening gray sky one can see a black mountain, completely black even with black houses, and all of a sudden a fire-red house appears, a violet path with snowflakes and on the path a black chain of people like crows.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

Quote from Werefkin's letter to Alexej von Jawlensky, 1910 Lithuanian Martynas-Mazvydas-National Library, Vilnius, RS (F19-1458,1.31) as reprinted in Weidle, Marianne Werefkin, Die Farbe beisst mich ans Herz, 108; as quoted in 'Identity and Reminiscence in Marianne Werefkin's Return Home', c. 1909; Adrienne Kochman http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring06/52-spring06/spring06article/171-ambiguity-of-home-identity-and-reminiscence-in-marianne-werefkins-return-home-c-1909 <br class="br">1906 - 1911

People, Mountain, Appearance, Housing

“Come, blessed Darkness, come and bring thy balm
For eyes grown weary of the garish day!
Come with thy soft, slow steps, thy garments gray,
Thy veiling shadows, bearing in thy palm
The poppy-seeds of slumber, deep and calm.”

Julia Caroline Dorr (1825–1913) American writer

Darkness, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“The last book, the one on the bottom, was a copy of the 1,500-page Gray’s Anatomy. The weight was all wrong in her hands. She opened the cover, revealing a space hollowed out with surgical precision.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 130

Books

“[The] chief [of the gods of Cimmeria] is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods? … There is no hope here or hereafter in the cult of my people. In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Queen of the Black Coast" (1934)

Men, God, People, Pleasure

“The crowd of ragged Confederates on the White House lawn had doubled and more since he went in to confer with Lincoln. The trees were full of men who had climbed up so they could see over their comrades. Off in the distance, cannon occasionally still thundered; rifles popped like firecrackers. Lee quietly said to Lincoln, "Will you send out your sentries under flag of truce to bring word of the armistice to those Federal positions still firing upon my men?" "I'll see to it," Lincoln promised. He pointed to the soldiers in gray, who had quieted expectantly when Lee came out. "Looks like you've given me sentries enough, even if their coats are the wrong color." Few men could have joked so with their cause in ruins around them. Respecting the Federal President for his composure, Lee raised his voice: "Soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia, after three years of arduous service, we have achieved that for which we took up arms-" He got no further. With one voice, the men before him screamed out their joy and relief. The unending waves of noise beat at him like a surf from a stormy sea. Battered forage caps and slouch hats flew through the air. Soldiers jumped up and down, pounded on one another's shoulders, danced in clumsy rings, kissed each other's bearded, filthy faces. Lee felt his own eyes grow moist. At last the magnitude of what he had won began to sink in.”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 180

Men, Color, Kiss, Tree

“The mountains dwindled away into hills covered with a dark, stunted scrub. Beyond them the land flattened out to the horizon, a treeless immensity of white and gray-green, a spongy mossiness flecked with a million icy ponds. The wind blew, sometimes hard, sometimes harder.”

Leigh Brackett (1915–1978) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Ginger Star (1974), Chapter 10 (p. 63)

Mountain

“The old laws of England — they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo — Liberty!”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

St. 82
(1819)

Children, Age, Law

“The gods are growing old;
The stars are singing Golden hair to gray
Green leaf to yellow leaf,—or chlorophyl
To xanthophyl, to be more scientific.”

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) American poet

Captain Craig (1902)

God, Star, Singing

“Although I can look a bit grumpy myself, I love it when the sun shines in the water, but besides that I think my country is colored and what I particularly noticed when I came from abroad: our country is colored sappy fat, that's why our beautiful- colored and built cattle, their flesh, milk and butter, nowhere you can find this, but they [the cows] are also fed by that sappy, greasy and colored land - I have often heard strangers say, those Dutch painters all paint gray and their land is green.... the more I observe the more colored and transparent nature becomes and then the air seen altogether, something very different and yet so [strong] in harmony, it is delightful when one has learned to see, because that too must be learned, I repeat, our country is not gray, even not in gray weather, the dunes aren't gray either.”

Paul Gabriël (1828–1903) painter (1828-1903)

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch / citaat van Paul Gabriël, in Nederlands: Alhoewel ik er zelf wat knorrig uit kan zien houd ik er veel van dat het zonnetje in het water schijnt, maar buiten dat ik vind mijn land gekleurd en wat mij bijzonder opviel wanneer ik uit den vreemde kwam: ons land is gekleurd sappig vet, vandaar onze schoone gekleurde en gebouwde runderen, hun vleesch melk en boter, nergens vind men dat zoo maar ze worden ook door dat sappige vette en gekleurde land gevoed - ik heb vreemdelingen dikwijls horen zeggen, die Hollandsche schilders schilderen allemaal grijs en hun land is groen.. ..hoe meer ik opserveer hoe gekleurder en transparanter de natuur word en dan de lucht erbij gezien een heel ander iets en toch zoo in harmonie, het is verrukkelijk wanneer men heeft leeren zien, want ook dat moet geleerd worden, ik herhaal het ons land is niet grijs, zelfs niet bij grijs weer, de duinen zijn ook niet grijs.
written note of Paul Gabriël, 1901; as cited in De Haagse School. Hollandse meesters van de 19de eeuw, ed. R. de Leeuw, J. Sillevis en C. Dumas); exhibition. cat. - Parijs, Grand Palais / Londen, Royal Academy of Arts / Den Haag, Haags Gemeentemuseum, Parijs, Londen, Den Haag 1983, p.183 - 23
after 1900

Love, Beauty, Color, Nature