Waverley Quotes & Sayings

The outside world might have finally turned into autumn, but inside the Waverley house it still smelled of summer. It was lemon verbena day, so the house was filled with a sweet-tart that conjured images of picnic blankets and white clouds like true-love hearts. — Sarah Addison Allen

Bay looked down at the wispy dress, her fingers trailing over it. It really was perfect. It was a faded teal green with layers of beige netting forming a sheer cowl neck. Old sequins were sewn down the side, forming the shapes of flowers, and a silk sash sat below the hips. — Sarah Addison Allen

The hard-drinking newspaperman is, or used to be, a stock character of fiction. Now he is being phased out of literature just as he is being phased out of life. — Waverley Root

With her dark eyes, elegant nose and olive complexion, Claire looked timeless, old-worldly. — Sarah Addison Allen

Sweetly and subtly perfumed ... so soft it is best eaten with a spoon, a tenderness more appealing to gourmets than to those who have to pick, ship, handle and store it in constant fear of ruinous spoilage. — Waverley Root

In medieval times the habit arose of expressing a man's wealth, no longer in terms of the amount of land in his estate, but of the amount of pepper in his pantry. One way of saying that a man was poor was to say that he lacked pepper. The wealthy lacked pepper. The wealthy kept large stores of pepper in their houses, and let it be known that it was there: it was a guarantee of solvency. — Waverley Root

The turnip is a capricious vegetable, which seems reluctant to show itself at its best. — Waverley Root

Her grandmother had a life, a life Claire hadn't known about or even imagined. She had tried so hard to know everything about Grandma Waverley, to be everything she was. But Grandma Waverley must have sensed something in Sydney, a kindred soul, with Sydney's brightness and popularity. She gave Claire the wisdom of her old age, but she gave Sydney the secrets of her youth. — Sarah Addison Allen

Bay remembered the Waverley house full of pumpkin pie scents in the fall. There had been mountains of maple cakes with violets hidden inside, lakes of butternut soups with chrysanthemum petals floating on top. — Sarah Addison Allen

Nature was indeed at her artistic best when she created the nutmeg, a delight to the eye in all its avatars, from the completely garbed to nudity. — Waverley Root

Food critic and writer Waverley Root described the common American near beer as "such a wishy-washy, thin, ill-tasting, discouraging sort of slop that it might have been dreamed up by a Puritan Machiavelli with the intent of disgusting drinkers with genuine beer forever."[21] — Waverly Root

After Russell left her house that morning, Claire was a cooking fool. She finished making fig and pepper bread, and started in on soup. Simmering soup on a cold day was like filling a house with cotton batting. The comforting scent of it plumped and muffled and cuddled. She went on to make egg custard tarts for dessert, longing for pansies to place on top to decorate them. — Sarah Addison Allen

Claire Waverley has started a successful new venture, Waverley's Candies. Though her handcrafted confections - rose to recall lost love, lavender to promote happiness and lemon verbena to soothe throats and minds - are singularly effective, the business of selling them is costing her the everyday joys of her family, and her belief in her own precious gifts. — Sarah Addison Allen

Business was doing well, because all the locals knew that dishes made from the flowers that grew around the apple tree in the Waverley garden could affect the eater in curious ways. The biscuits with lilac jelly, the lavender tea cookies, and the tea cakes made with nasturtium mayonnaise the Ladies Aid ordered for their meetings once a month gave them the ability to keep secrets. The fried dandelion buds over marigold-petal rice, stuffed pumpkin blossoms, and rose-hip soup ensured that your company would notice only the beauty of your home and never the flaws. Anise hyssop honey butter on toast, angelica candy, and cupcakes with crystallized pansies made children thoughtful. Honeysuckle wine served on the Fourth of July gave you the ability to see in the dark. The nutty flavor of the dip made from hyacinth bulbs made you feel moody and think of the past, and the salads made with chicory and mint had you believing that something good was about to happen, whether it was true or not. — Sarah Addison Allen

The picnic table in the photo was an old door set up on sawhorses, and the seats were old tree stumps, or maybe thick pieces of firewood, topped with square cushions. Six men were sitting there, not looking at the camera, but at the beautiful woman with long, dark hair, almost to her waist, standing at the head of the table. She was smiling, her arms outstretched, as if welcoming everyone to her world. The apple tree in the background, just barely visible, was stretching a single limb out to her, as if wanting to be in the photo with her.
Even it looked a little in love with her. — Sarah Addison Allen

The turkey has a destiny which ends on San Martino's day. — Waverley Lewis Root

There were some things that hadn't changed about Sydney, like her light-brown hair that had just enough natural curl to make it look like waves of caramel icing on a cake. And her beautiful lightly tanned skin. And the freckles across her nose. She'd lost weight but still had a stunning figure, petite in a way that always made Claire, who was four inches taller, feel heavy and clumsy. — Sarah Addison Allen

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. - It is not fair. - He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. - I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it - but fear I must. — Jane Austen

Thou are boot for many a bruise,
And healest many a wound;
In our Lady's blessed name,
I take thee from the ground. — Walter Scott

What Claire could do with the edible flowers that grew around the cranky apple tree in the backyard was the stuff of legend. Everyone knew that if you got Claire to cater your anniversary party, she would make aioli sauce with nasturtiums and tulip cups filled with orange salad, and everyone would leave the party feeling both jealous and aroused. And if you got her to cater your child's birthday party, she would serve tiny strawberry cupcakes and candied violets and the children would all be well behaved and would take long afternoon naps. Claire had a true magic to her cooking when she used her flowers. — Sarah Addison Allen

Mary had become anxious in her old age, and she hated being away from the house for long. She'd hold the girls' hands tightly and calm herself by telling them what she would make for first frost that year- pork tenderloins with nasturtiums, dill potatoes, pumpkin bread, chicory coffee. And the cupcakes, of course, with all different frostings, because what was first frost without frosting? Claire had loved it all, but Sydney had only listened when their grandmother talked of frosting. Caramel, rosewater-pistachio, chocolate almond. — Sarah Addison Allen

Every country possesses, it seems, the sort of cuisine it deserves, which is to say the sort of cuisine it is appreciative enough to want. — Waverley Lewis Root

It had been rose candy day in the Waverley house, the scent still permeating the air, even though the kitchen was closed for the evening. It smelled as if there were a garden hidden in the walls somewhere.
The back labels on all the rose candy jars read:

'Rose essence is for memory
of long ago first loves,
have a taste and you will see
the one you once dreamed of. — Sarah Addison Allen

The Waverley sisters hadn't been close as children, but they were as thick as thieves now, the way adult siblings often are, the moment they realize that family is actually a choice. — Sarah Addison Allen

The education of our hero, Edward Waverley, was of a nature somewhat desultory. In infancy his health suffered, or was supposed to suffer (which is quite the same thing), by the air of London. — Walter Scott

Bay's room was the first one at the top of the staircase. It was painted a dove gray that turned peacock blue after dark, as if the room absorbed the warmth of daylight and radiated with it at night. — Sarah Addison Allen

She had lived thirty-four years keeping everything inside, and now she was letting everything go, like butterflies released from a box. They didn't burst forth, glad to be free, they simply flew away, softly, gradually, so she could watch them go. Good memories of her mother and grandmother were still there, butterflies that stayed, a little too old to go anywhere. That was okay. She would keep those. — Sarah Addison Allen

I could hardly wait for following chapters, which arrived in dribs and drabs, and I began to feel for all the world like the young T.B. Macaulay walking from London to meet the Cambridge coach bearing the next installment of Waverley novels. — Vernon Sproxton

The Waverley sisters had married men as steadfast and normal as the women were mercurial and strange. — Sarah Addison Allen

Dorsey was out of her league. When a woman like Kay Waverley took you on over a man, you were done for. It was the scandal of the season and all of Monte Carlo agreed; poor little Dorsey wasn't handling it well. — Kathleen Tessaro

The oat is the Horatio Alger of cereals, which progressed, if not from rags to riches, at least from weed to health food. — Waverley Root

Sir Everard had never been himself a student, and, like his sister Miss Rachael Waverley, held the vulgar doctrine, that idleness is incompatible with reading of any kind, and that the mere tracing the alphabetical characters with the eye, is in itself a useful and meritorious task, without scrupulously considering what ideas or doctrines they may happen to convey. With — Walter Scott

It is the destiny of mint to be crushed. — Waverley Lewis Root