Quotes & Sayings About Peonies

Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound,
then from my eyes,
my ears,
my mouth.
It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps of the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout. — E. Lockhart

Gardens come and go, but I find myself getting attached to certain perennials. My tulips are bridesmaids, with fat faces and good posture. Hollyhocks are long necked sisters. Daffodils are young girls running out of a white church, sun shining on their heads. Peonies are pink-haired ladies, so full and stooped you have to tie them up with string. And roses are nothing but (I hate to say it) bitches
pretty show-offs who'll draw blood if you don't handle them just right.
-Vangie Galliard Nepper, From her
"Garden Diary," March 1952 — Michael Lee West

I equate peonies with love because they're the first blooms of summer. — Isaac Mizrahi

Dirt is chaos, gritty, full of bugs and decay, but from that dirt comes such immense beauty. Roses, tulips, tomatoes, peonies, raspberries, oranges, magnolias...and even me. — R.S. Grey

Abner Larrabee's wife, who is a social leader in town, wailed piteously in a letter to the editor of the Mammoth Falls Gazette that her prize peonies had been stoned to death just before they reached the full glory of their bloom. She complained bitterly about "wanton boys who create mischief with their teen-age pranks" and wondered when the mayor was going to do something about the problem of juvenile delinquency. — Bertrand R. Brinley

Where do dreams come from?
... they slink out of books, they lurk in the stacks of libraries. Out of pages turned they rise like the scent of peonies and infect the brain with their promises. — Marge Piercy

The way Grey speaks, one would think she had been garlanded in rubies and peonies rather than the semen of men who address her with a contempt that borders on revulsion. — Antonella Gambotto-Burke

To have children is to plant roses, muguets, lavender, lilac, gardenia, stock, peonies, tuberose, hyacinth ... it is to achieve a whole sense,a grand sense one did not priorly know. It is to give one's garden another dimension. Perfume of life itself. — Julia Glass

Yeah. I told you he was crazy, right? I heard he does some weird stuff at home, too.' He said it with a conspiratorial stage whisper. 'Like mowing his lawn, and trimming his peonies.'

'Peonies?' I balked. 'God, he really is a freak. — Francesca Zappia

What would it be like if i thought i was pretty
what would it be like if i carried that knowledge around
like i do the knowledge that i am a writer
pretty like peonies pretty like satin pretty like the child i was
would i speak to you differently
would i be healthier less stressed
less worried
would i buy more shoes or fewer
would i be more or less afraid
of death would i find something else
to hate about myself
would i get this jealous
when your eyes aren't touching me
in this city of movie star beauties
would i be able to write such raw and seductive words
would you have fallen in love with me sooner
would i have frightened you away
before you had the chance? — Francesca Lia Block

I don't think men get enough flowers. A deeper pink or red peonies are my favorite. But I'll take anything, really. — Waris Ahluwalia

That woman in there with her mountain of Kleenex would be happy without peonies in August, Red. This is about him growin' a pair, mannin' up and tellin' her he can't hand her the world. She didn't want the world. She wanted him. He didn't have enough confidence in himself to believe that a woman like her would want a man like him and in the end, he took away the only thing she really ever wanted. — Kristen Ashley

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. — John Keats

On growing peonies:
The fact that a flower as gentle and delightful as the peony should be so exacting and dictate such harsh terms hits me with the force of a cold shower. It's just like my girlfriends when I was a teenager, it was always the loveliest and most yielding ones who ran everything...[and] According to the English gardening book, peonies are so fussy that you might as well not bother. You'd need to go back generations to discover the composition of the soil, you'd have to go right back to the Big Bang to find out how the elements are distributed in your garden. — Bodil Malmsten

Once lively peonies now
wind-weary, and ragged
at the edges, hang their heavy
crowns; rain on their backs,
one final act, before
detaching from the stem
and falling down. — Kristen Henderson

The little boy nodded at the peony and the peony seemed to nod back. The little boy was neat, clean and pretty. The peony was unchaste, dishevelled as peonies must be, and at the height of its beauty.( ... ) Every hour is filled with such moments, big with significance for someone. — Robertson Davies

Lilacs on a bush are better than orchids. And dandelions and devil grass are better! Why? Because they bend you over and turn you away from all the people in the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again. And when you're all to yourself that way, you're really proud of yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone. Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder. — Ray Bradbury

There was Fiona Fiddick's faculties for both humour and sewing, which enabled her to hide the words FEED ME in an embroidered nosegay of coral peonies which Miss Sheffleton proudly hung upon the classroom wall. — Lyndsay Faye

...why not let nature show you a few things? Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life... Lilacs on a bush are better than orchids. And dandelions and devil grass are better! Why? Because they bend you over and turn you away from all the people and the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again. And when you're all to yourself that way, you're really yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone. Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder. As Samuel Spaudling, Esquire, once said, 'Dig in the earth, delve in the soul.' Spin those mower blades, Bill, and walk in the spray of the Fountain of Youth. — Ray Bradbury

This is Luke's favorite thing to say about me, to remind me. I'm a survivor. It's the finality of the word that bothers me, its assuming implication. Survivors should move on. Should wear white wedding dresses and carry peonies down the aisle and overcome, rather than dwell in a past that can't be altered. The word dismisses something I cannot, will not, dismiss. — Jessica Knoll

Her hand closes on smooth metal. Her fingers test the sharpness of the edge. Perfect. It's a fresh blade.
The girls' voices rustle in her head. Their clamoring pushes out all rational thought. She rolls up her sleeve.
The bite of the blade kills the noise. It wipes out the memory of those staring faces. Willow looks at her arm, at the life springing from her. Tiny pinpricks of red that blossom into giant peonies. — Julia Hoban

Others said May was best, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens along Main Street were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips. — Alice Hoffman

I have raised beds, perennial beds, cut flower beds. I have an island on a pond that's just covered in peonies. I have an herb garden, tons of vegetables, raspberries. I have everything. I'm a green guy. — Steve Zahn