Exotic Quotes

“You are enough to drive a saint to madness or a king to his knees.”
― Grace Willows, To Kiss a King

“She was a ray of sunshine, a warm summer rain, a bright fire on a cold winter’s day, and now she could be dead because she had tried to save the man she loved.”
― Grace Willows

“All worries are less with wine.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Oh honey, someday a real man is going to make you see stars and you won't even be looking at the sky."

Excerpt from Grace Willow's Last Minute Bride”
― Grace Willows

“The exotic and the erotic ideals go hand in hand, and this fact also contributes another proof of a more or less obvious truth - that is, that a love of the exotic is usually an imaginative projection of a sexual desire.”
― Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony

“You are enough to drive a saint to madness or a king to his knees

Excerpt from To Kiss a King by Grace Willows
Coming this summer to Amazon Kindle and paperback.”
― Grace Willows, To Kiss a King

“It makes a difference how you feel on this planet Earth: a citizen, a temporary tourist, or an exotic cast-away.”
― Talismanist Giebra, Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.

“I dance like my legs are made of Jell-O. I know, exotic and romantic, right? But my dancing also now comes in Duck Soup Flavor, and is FOR SALE in small, medium, and buffet-style.”
― Jarod Kintz, BearPaw Duck And Meme Farm presents: Two Ducks Brawling Is A Pre-Pillow Fight

“Recently painted a deep plum color, the shutters folded back across the glass like a gentle accordion. As they did, a large bay window, framed by hanging baskets of wispy honeysuckle and Persian jasmine, revealed itself to the morning sun. The flowers in the baskets matched the dewy blossoms planted in two deep barrels directly below the ledge.”
― Marsha Mehran, Rosewater and Soda Bread

“I need an exotic star but not the universe.”
― Talismanist Giebra, Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.

“Then just when I thought I was going to really break down for a good cry, I remembered a large bag of pistachio nuts in the back of the pantry. I don't know what made me think of them. I had hidden them beneath several packages of dried pasta. Sam liked pistachio nuts. I bought them for a cake recipe I had seen in Gourmet. I stood up like a sleepwalker, my hands empty of sheets or shoes. I would take care of all this once the cake was in the oven. The recipe was from several months ago. I didn't remember which issue. I would find it. I would bake a cake.
My father liked exotic things. On the rare occasions we went out to dinner together over the years, he always wanted us to go to some little Ethiopian restaurant down a back alley or he would say he had to have Mongolian food. He would like this cake. It was Iranian. There was a full tablespoon of cardamom sifted in with the flour, and I could imagine that it would make the cake taste nearly peppered, which would serve to balance out all the salt. I stood in the kitchen, reading the magazine while the sharp husks of the nuts bit into the pads of my fingers. I rolled the nut meat between my palms until the bright spring green of the pistachios shone in my hands, a fist full of emeralds. I would grind the nuts into powder without letting them turn to paste. I would butter the parchment paper and line the bottom of the pan. It was the steps, the clear and simple rules baking, that soothed me. My father would love this cake, and my mother would find this cake interesting, and Sam wouldn't be crazy about it but he'd be hungry and have a slice anyway. Maybe I could convince Camille it wasn't a cake at all. Maybe I could bring them all together, or at least that's what I dreamed about while I measured out the oil.”
― Jeanne Ray, Eat Cake

“A flamingo is a pink giraffe bird. That’s pretty exotic until you consider that a Pekin duck is the Amelia Earhart of avians.”
― Jarod Kintz, Ducks are the stars of the karaoke bird world

“Tomorrow is an exotic demo version.”
― Talismanist Giebra, Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.

“Welcome to planet Earth, find an exotic version of yourself.”
― Talismanist Giebra, Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.

“I put a handful of Criollo beans into the grinder. Their scent is very far from sweet. I can smell oud, and sandalwood, and the dark scents of cumin and ambergris. Seductive, yet faintly unsavory, like a beautiful woman with unwashed hair.
A moment in the grinder, and the beans are ready to use. Their volatile essence fills the air, freed from one form into another. The Maya tattooed their bodies, you know, in order to placate the wind. No, not the wind. The gods. The gods.
I add hot water to the beans and allow them time to percolate. Unlike coffee beans, they release an oily kind of residue. Then I add nutmeg, cardamom and chili to make the drink that the Aztecs called xocoatl- bitter water. That bitterness is what I need.”
― Joanne Harris, The Strawberry Thief

“I could smell the rich dark scent- she uses only the finest beans, shipped from a plantation off the west coast of Africa- the chocolate infused with spices, the names of which sound like islands in a vanished archipelago. She tells me their names- Tonka. Vanilla. Saffron. Clove. Green ginger. Cardamom. Pink peppercorn. I have never travelled, père, and yet those names take me elsewhere, to undiscovered islands, where even the stars are different.
I pick up the chocolate. It is perfectly round, a marble between my fingers. I used to play marbles once, long ago, when I was a boy. I used to put them to my eye and turn them round and round, to see the colors winding through the glass. I put the chocolate, whole, in my mouth. The red glaze tastes of strawberries. But the heart is dark and soft, and smells of autumn, ripe and sweet; of peaches fallen to the ground and apples baked in cinnamon. And as the taste of it fills my mouth and begins to deliver its subtleties, it tastes of oak and tamarind, metal and molasses.”
― Joanne Harris, The Strawberry Thief

“Of all the names that linger in my memory after a long journey, this one is the dearest to me (Therapia). Perhaps because it sounds so Greek, blithe as a swelling paean to carefree days spent on lovely shores? Perhaps because it came at the beginning and now belongs to a long ago, glorified time-for the journey had just begun.”
― Annemarie Schwarzenbach, All the Roads Are Open: The Afghan Journey

“prerelease:

Snuggie Bobo grew up in the rural Midwest, but soon became enticed with running the streets of the hood. It became an area to be conquered by all means necessary! This, of course, led to a long stay in ‘upstate’ maximum security correctional college nicknamed ‘Gladiator School’. It was the school of hard knocks where men left better criminals than they entered. In the process of trying to omit the truth of the past years’ regrets, Snuggie became educated, going as far as obtaining a PhD with the hopes to rejoin society. Unfortunately, society tends to look down upon street hoods and ex-felons! Now, Snuggie lives in Chicagoland spinning tales based on this lived history to bring the reader into his world. Sean Jr. was one of the people in this world. He was a gay brother, who lost his father to crack. His father was dealing with their family problem. Sean’s mother abused him due to his forbidden illness: lusting for men. Snuggie knew Sean since he was knee-high to a grasshopper and years later took him in. He was his mentor. These are tales out of Sean and Snuggie’s life.
© Snuggie Bobo 2023”
― Snuggie Bobo

“Time to cut the cake, newlyweds." Caroline ushers us over to the sweet little two-tier cake, round and covered in white fondant with what appear to be traditional henna tattoo patterns drawn on it in pale gold. We take the mother-of-pearl-handled knife, apparently the one Caroline and Carl used at their wedding, and, his hand on mine, cut a small slice. We feed each other a generous bite, marveling at the tender almond cake with the poached apricots and white chocolate mousse, light-as-air buttercream scented with vanilla and orange blossom water.”
― Stacey Ballis, Recipe for Disaster

“A treasure trove of spices that would have made the thieving Ali Baba jealous sat huddled in one corner of the van. The motherly embrace of 'advieh'- a mixed all-spice of crushed rose petals, cardamom, cinnamon, and cumin; the warm tomb of turmeric; and that spice worth more than its weight in gold- 'za'feran,' saffron.”
― Marsha Mehran, Pomegranate Soup

“Our tapas look exquisite: little squares of spiced honey-cake decorated with goat's cheese and roast pears, chicken livers on port on slices of potato with onion marmalade, rolled up radicchio with honey and haddock. Ben has been to buy some boxes from the patisserie to stow our treasures. The exotic menu is made up of taramasalata, roulade of tuna and capers, salad of peppers sautéed in garlic, and aubergine caviar. It isn't very exotic for an inhabitant of the Balkans but it probably would be for someone from Vietnam or Brittany. The giant salad really is a giant: there's a whole meal in it, from the first course to the dessert and all that with no rice and no tinned sweet corn. Slivers, slivers of all sorts of different things- vegetables, cheese, fruit- all blended without crushing each other, side by side without working against each other.”
― Agnès Desarthe, Chez Moi: A Novel

“Even the narrow canals around the Rialto teemed with floating shops- a small barge piled with jumbled green grapes, a boat heaped with oranges and limes, and another listing under a mountain of melons. I jogged along, drunk on all the colors and smells of the known world: pyramids of blood oranges from Greece, slender green beans from Morocco, sun-ripened cherries from Provence, giant white cabbages from Germany, fat black dates from Constantinople, and shiny purple eggplants from Holland.”
― Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischief

“If you are happy, you may not be tempted to buy anything except the real necessities of life. Businesses, therefore, exaggerate negativities in the world to sell their products and services. They try to convince you that if you wish to be happy, you must buy their car, home or clothes or visit the exotic locations managed by them.”
― Awdhesh Singh, 31 Ways to Happiness

“Afterwards, Ada turned slow cartwheels on the terrace, watching the world change kaleidoscopically from purple to orange as the queen's crepe myrtles took turns with the hibiscus. The gardener was sweeping the lawn and his helper was cleaning down the curved cane chairs on the wide verandah.
Ordinarily, cartwheeling was one of Ada's favorite things to do, but this afternoon her heart wasn't in it. Rather than enjoying the way the world spun around her, she felt dizzy, even queasy. After a time, she sat instead on the edge of the verandah near the spider lilies.”
― Kate Morton, The Clockmaker's Daughter

“Ada tore open the package to find a small black leather book inside. Between its covers were no words, but instead page after page of pressed flowers: orange hibiscus, mauve Queen's crepe myrtle, purple passionflower, white spider lilies, red powder puffs. All of them, Ada knew, had come from her very own garden, and in an instant she was back in Bombay. She could feel the sultry air on her face, smell the heady fragrance of summer, hear the songs of prayer as the sun set over the ocean.”
― Kate Morton, The Clockmaker's Daughter

“Beauty is a construct, but theory is not at the reality we live, she thought. Theory didn't live in the bones. Theory didn't erase the years of self-scrutiny in a mirror and not seeing anyone at all, not a protagonist or a beauty, one a television sidekick, a speechless creature, who at best was 'exotic,' desirable but simple and foreign.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim, The Last Story of Mina Lee

“Find the exotic where you are.”
― Adrienne Posey

“many of the alien plants that have succeeded in North America are not a random sample of all plants that evolved elsewhere, but rather are a subset that were imported specifically because of their unpalatability to insects”
― Douglas Tallamy

“Coming Soon:

Story 1: The Delights of Sean Jr., Gay Urban Stories of a Player’s Lust.”
― Snuggie Bobo

“No lilies. They're a symbol of death. I want the room to be filled with exotic flowers: Passiflora caerulea--- it's a blue passionflower representing that I'm a passionate man. If you can arrange for a bowl of water or mud, I'd also like a few lotus flowers, and a bird-of-paradise flower. Amaryllis will brighten things up--- I'm thinking a mix of salmon and orange. Maybe some hyacinths, calathea, and lilacs for the scent. Throw in some irises, dahlias... oh, and peonies, but not from Leo's greenhouse because they're suffering from a blight, azaleas, hydrangeas...”
― Sara Desai, 'Til Heist Do Us Part