You Know It's Summer When Quotes & Sayings

When you're writing a movie or a play and writing isn't going well, which is for me the normal condition - it's an exceptional day when suddenly I've got something and it's going well - you can call the studio or the producer or whoever is waiting for it and say, I know I said I was going to have it in by the end of the summer. — Aaron Sorkin

Do you know what a summer rain is?
To start with, pure beauty striking the summer sky, awe-filled respect absconding with your heart, a feeling of insignificance at the very heart of the sublime, so fragile and swollen with the majesty of things, trapped, ravished, amazed by the bounty of the world.
And then, you pace up and down a corridor and suddenly enter a room full of light. Another dimension, a certainty just given birth. The body is no longer a prison, your spirit roams the clouds, you possess the power of water, happy days are in store, in this new birth.
Just as teardrops, when they are large and round and compassionate, can leave a long strand washed clean of discord, the summer rain as it washes away the motionless dust can bring to a person's soul something like endless breathing. — Muriel Barbery

Hakan was a chieftain ready for battle. Fear, the haze of it like when the Danes had attacked her village, skittered across her skin.
"Break the fast with me," she pleaded softly.
He hooked a finger under her chin. "You've convinced me to do many things I've not done before." He looked at the trees where her loom sat idle. "Like spend a summer day in the shade, and now you want me to keep my ship, my men, waiting. What will you have me do next?"He paused as if drinking in the sight of her. He hadn't shaved, and his jaw bore several days' growth. She itched to know the feel of those blonde whiskers. Her lips parted with bold, unspoken invitation. — Gina Conkle

I once went to a fraternity house when I was in high school ... you know, you would rent them during the summer for really cheap, and students are in there. So I met some people who rented a room. I just remember it being very dirty. — Spencer Grammer

When he was kidnapped by the Iron King and taken into the Nevernever, she didn't hesitate to go after him. And she didn't stop there. When her magic was sealed by Mab, leaving her defenseless in the Winter Court, she somehow managed to survive, even when she thought you had turned on her. When the Scepter of the Seasons was stolen by the Iron fey, she went after it, despite having no magic and no weapon with which to defend herself. And when the courts asked her to destroy the false king, she accepted, even though the Summer and Iron glamours within her were making her sick, and she couldn't use either of them effectively. She still went into the Iron Kingdom to
face a tyrant she didn't know if she could overcome.
"Now," Ariella finished, turning toward me, "do you still believe humans are weak? — Julie Kagawa

What do you know? This is where it all began," he said.
"Began?"
"This is exactly where I was when I wanted to kiss you," he whispered, his lips brushing along my neck causing me to melt under his touch. "So bad."
"Except this time there's no drunk netballer squawking at us," I teased.
"I wouldn't care if the seven horseman of the Apocalypse charged through the garden right now, nothing's gonna stop me from doing this." He leaned down and captured my lips with tenderness, a completely perfect kiss, like it always was. — C.J. Duggan

Three a.m. drunks, all over America, were staring at the walls, having finally give it up. You didn't have to be drunk to get hurt, to be zeroed out by a woman; but you could get hurt and become a drunk. You might think for a while, especially when you were young, that luck was with you, and sometimes it was. But there were all manner of averages and laws working that you know nothing about, even as you imagined things were going well. Some night, some hot summer Thursday, night you became the drunk, you were out there alone in a cheap rented room, and no matter how many times you'd been out there before, it was no help, it was even worse because you had got to thinking you wouldn't face it again. All you could do was light another cigarette, pour another drink, check the peeling walls for lips and eyes. What men and women did to each other was beyond comprehension. — Charles Bukowski

This is the circus of Dr. Lao.
We show you things that you don't know.
We tell you of places you'll never go.
We've searched the world both high and low
To capture the beasts for this marvelous show
From mountains where maddened winds did blow
To islands where zephyrs breathed sweet and low.
Oh, we've spared no pains and we've spared no dough;
And we've dug at the secrets of long ago;
And we've risen to Heaven and plunged Below,
For we wanted to make it one hell of a show.
And the things you'll see in your brains will glow
Long past the time when the winter snow
Has frozen the summer's furbelow.
For this is the circus of Dr. Lao.
And youth may come and age may go;
But no more circuses like this show! — Charles Grandison Finney

That is the normal succession of things in this part of the world; you can see the various stages all over Scratch Flat. There is, for example, a small red maple swamp above my house on the northwest side of the drumlin. The swamp was probably a pond sixty years ago, but now in summer, unless you know your trees, you cannot distinguish it from the surrounding woodlands. It is only in spring, when the groundwater levels are high, that the remnant of the ice sheet makes itself apparent. Then the waters rise around the trunks of the red maple trees and, after reaching a critical level, run down across the small meadow to the north of my house. — John Hanson Mitchell

A BIRTHDAY
Something continues and I don't know what to call it
though the language is full of suggestions
in the way of language
but they are all anonymous
and it's almost your birthday music next to my bones
these nights we hear the horses running in the rain
it stops and the moon comes out and we are still here
the leaks in the roof go on dripping after the rain has passed
smell of ginger flowers slips through the dark house
down near the sea the slow heart of the beacon flashes
the long way to you is still tied to me but it brought me to you
I keep wanting to give you what is already yours
it is the morning of the mornings together
breath of summer oh my found one
the sleep in the same current and each waking to you
when I open my eyes you are what I wanted to see. — W.S. Merwin

sometimes, as you ought to remember, you want some conversation, some meat along with the sizzle. Bonnie had the sizzle, but I knew it wasn't going to be enough, even for the summer, when she picked up a copy of East of Eden I had on the nightstand and said she didn't know I was religious." "Religious?" "She figured Eden - so it must be a biblical story. She didn't even know who Steinbeck was." And he could still shake his head over that. "Even an overbite can't make up for that. — Nora Roberts

Do you remember infinity?"
Slowly, I turned around. "What about it?"
Tossing something toward me, he said, "Catch."
I reached out and caught it in the air. A silver necklace. I held it up and examined it. The infinity necklace.
It didn't shine the way it used to; it looked a bit coppery now. But I recognized it. Of course I recognized it.
"What is this?" I asked.
"You know what it is," he said.
I shrugged. "Nope, sorry."
I could see that he was both hurt and angry. "Okay, then. You don't remember it. I'll remind you. I bought
you that necklace for your birthday."
My birthday.
It had to have been for my sixteenth birthday. It was the only year he ever forgot to buy me a birthday
present - the last summer we'd all been together at the beach house, when Susannah was still alive. — Jenny Han

Look what the cat dragged in," Ms. Skoglund said. "Were you waylaid by all your female admirers?"
"It's nothing like that," the boy said. "Besides, you know I only have eyes for you."
"Sure you do," Ms. Skoglund said. "I mean, why bother with one of those skinny little things your age when you can go for someone who's trying to lose another thirty pounds before her twenty-year class reunion next summer? That makes sense. — Jon S. Lewis

Was in lower school. And she figures it's your fault that things have changed." "That's just idiotic!" Ximena said. "I know!" I said. "It's like Savanna being mad at me for having been in a TV commercial once. It makes no sense." "How do you know all this?" asked Ximena. "Did she tell you?" "No!" I said. "Did you know about the note beforehand?" "No!" I said. Summer rescued me. "So what did Ellie say when she read Maya's note?" she asked Ximena. "Oh, she was so mad," answered Ximena. "She and Savanna want to go all out on Maya, post something super-mean about her on Facebook or whatever. Then Miles drew this cartoon. They want to post it on Instagram." She nodded for Summer to hand me a folded-up piece of loose-leaf paper, which I opened. On it was a crude drawing of a girl (who was obviously Maya) kissing a boy (who was obviously Auggie Pullman). Underneath it was — R.J. Palacio

You know it is summer in Ireland when the rain gets warmer. — Hal Roach

Letter to Bill Smith, 1921

Wish to hell I was going North when you men do. Doubt if I get up this summer-Jo Eezus (Jesus), sometimes I get to thinking about the Sturgeon and Black during the nocturnal and damn near go cuckoo. May have to give it up for something I want more but that does not keep me from loving it with everything I have. Dats de way tings are. Guy loves a couple of or three steams all his life and loves 'em better than anything in the world--falls in love with a girl and the goddamn streams can dry up for all he cares. Only the hell of it is that all that country has as bad a hold on me as ever--there's as much pull this spring as there ever was--and you know how it's always been--just don't think about it all daytime, but at night it comes and ruins me--and I can't go. — Ernest Hemingway,

When autumn comes, it doesn't ask. It just walks in, where it left you last. And you never know, when it starts; until there's fog inside the glass around your summer heart. — John Mayer

Anyway, she loved horses a lot, my mother. When she was growing up she had a horse she said got lonely sometimes? and he liked to come right up to the house and put his head in at the window to see what was going on.
"What was his name?
"Paintbox." I'd loved it when my mother told me about the stables back in Kansas: owls and bats in the rafters, horses nickering and blowing. I knew the names of all her childhood horses and dogs.
Paintbox! Was he all different colors?
"He was spotted, sort of. I've seen pictures of him. Sometimes - in the summer - he'd come and look in on her while she was having her afternoon nap. She could hear him breathing, you know, just inside the curtains. — Donna Tartt

Do you hear the snow against the windowpanes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, 'Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.' And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about - whenever the wind blows ... — Lewis Carroll

I know that when a supersexy older girl with hips and breasts and nice hair wants to take off your glasses and to paint you a smoky eye she's merely trying to enroll you in a beauty contest she's already won. It's a kind of slummy, condescending gesture, like when rich people ask poor people where they summer. To me, this smacks of a blatant, insensitive "let them eat cake" type of chauvinism. — Chuck Palahniuk

Wash your dress in running water. dry it on the southern side of a rock. let them have four guesses and make them all wrong. take a fistful of snow in the summer heat. cook haluski in hot sweet butter. drink cold milk to clean your insides. be careful when you wake: breathing lets them know how asleep you are. don't hang your coat from a hook in the door. ignore curfew. remember weather by the voice of the wheel. do not become the fool they need you to become. change your name. lose your shoes. practice doubt. dress in oiled cloth around sickness. adore darkness. turn sideways in the wind. the changing of stories is a cheerful affair. give the impression of not having known. — Colum McCann

Before Summer Rain


Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid — Rainer Maria Rilke

Just tell me, Percy, do you still have the birthday gift I gave you last summer?" I nodded and pulled out my camp necklace. It had a bead for every summer I'd been at Camp Half-Blood, but since last year I'd also kept a sand dollar on the cord. My father had given it to me for my fifteenth birthday. He'd told me I would know when to "spend it," but so far I hadn't figured out what he meant. All I knew that it didn't fit the vending machines in the school cafeteria. — Rick Riordan

Oh, that,' said Ginny, giggling. 'Well-Percy's got a girlfriend.'
Fred dropped a stack of books on George's head.
'What?'
'It's that Ravenclaw prefect, Penelope Clearwater,' said Ginny. 'That's who he was writing to all last summer. He's been meeting her all over the school in secret. I walked in on them kissing in an empty classroom one day. He was so upset when she was-you know-attacked. You won't tease him, will you?' she added anxiously.
'Wouldn't dream of it,' said Fred, who was looking like his birthday had come early. — J.K. Rowling

When I figured out how to work my grill, it was quite a moment. I discovered that summer is a completely different experience when you know how to grill. — Taylor Swift

There is a time in late September when the leaves are still green, and the days are still warm, but somehow you know that it is all about to end, as if summer was holding its breath, and when it let it out again, it would be autumn. — Sharyn McCrumb

I want to tell Tobet about when i was standing in this exact same place last summer, wishing for him to be real. But it's hard to remember life before Tobey. He makes eveything seem possible. Like whatever you feel is true, really true in your heart, you can make happen. And you just know, when it happens, its for real. And there are a million possibilities.
Like the possibility of going separate ways.
Together. — Susane Colasanti

Shush, listen to me. I've been thinking this over. I could see this new thing was weighing down on you, but I know you're going to be all right." "I'm not so sure." "That's OK. I can be sure for both of us. We've been together in this house for fifteen years, so I know what I'm talking about. When I first started with you I thought it was only a matter of time before depression would take you over. And there was that one summer when it came close, but it didn't happen. Every day you get up and learn something new. Every day you find something to be happy about. Every single day you have a smile for me. You worry more about your mother than you do about yourself. — Nicola Yoon

When the nurse leaves, Doctor Rose mouths, "Act like you're in pain." Then she mimics a painful expression in case Summer doesn't understand. On the contrary, Summer's an expert at interpreting body language and reading lips. It's all thanks to her observant nature while enslaved on the Cosmos. Who else could tell that Peter's discomfort is due to him wearing the same pair of underwear for a week straight? Ah, yes, she always knew when day six and seven approached. She watched the crew member with much amusement as he waddled, pulled wedgies, and scratched his bum relentlessly. Not that anyone else cared to know that little nugget of information. — Laura Kreitzer

Out of all my friends, I believe I'm the only kid whose dad made us work to cut rebars; we laid bricks in construction sites and did other real work every summer for minimum wage. Our dad said that it's important in the future that when we tell people to dig a hole, that you personally know how long it will take to dig that hole. — Eric Trump

She is quiet for a moment. "have you ever been swimming in the summer", she asks, "when a cloud comes in front of the sun? You know how, for a few seconds, you're absolutely freezing in th water and you think you'd better get out and dry off? But then all of a sudden the sun's back out and you're warm again and when you tell people how much fun you had swimming you wouldn't even think to mention those clouds." Cara shrugs. "That's what it's like, with my father." -Cara — Jodi Picoult

If he was a ghost in the life he remembered, Jeff thought, he was also a ghost in his present life, just the same way. Except, in all the fourteen years, just a couple of times. With Melody that first summer he had felt alive. On the beach on the island. And when he played the guitar. Most of the time, he thought, he practiced not being anybody. If you weren't anybody then nobody could - what? Hurt you or leave you behind? Make you unhappy? But then they couldn't make you happy either, could they? If you played it safe, then you kept safe. Jeff figured he was pretty good at keeping safe - he didn't even look in mirrors because he didn't want to see Melody's eyes. But one result of that was that Jeff didn't know anything about himself. And he thought, sitting in the little boat, alone on the creek, alone with the creek and the sky and the marshes, that he might want to know more. — Cynthia Voigt

Do you know what the title was of the Pope, which ought to be used? Servant of the servants of God. It's a little different from the stars. Stars are beautiful to look at. I like to look at them in the summer when the sky is clear. But the Pope must be, must be the servant of the servants of God. — Pope Francis

Shall I tell you the secret of true love? her father once asked her. A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother's porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums. That's Mama! Inej had cried. Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same color, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart. That — Leigh Bardugo

One that is ever kind said yesterday:
'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All that you need is patience.'
Heart cries, 'No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again:
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways
When all the wild Summer was in her gaze.'
Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted! — W.B.Yeats

Do you know what a showmance is? It is like being at a summer camp when you're a teenager. You spend summertime away from your home. When you spend three months very closely with someone at a particular place, it is like a summer love. You have no choice but to get involved with that person. — Maksim Chmerkovskiy

We went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have two, or it is no use. When the footman had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: Poor little doggie, you saved HIS child! — Mark Twain

When it's summer, people sit a lot. Or lie. Lie in the sense of recumbency. A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic. Many a person has been saved from summer alcoholism, not to mention hypertoxicity, by Dostoyevsky. Put The Idiot in your lap or over your face, and you know where you are going to be for the afternoon. — Roy Blount Jr.

But I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father's kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well- read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
SO I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
-Kurt Vonnegut "A man without a country" p. 132 — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Because just before I arrived, he showed up on the bus. He, meaning Damien.
He reminded me of the pain I'd felt when he died. He reminded me of what it's like to feel your heart explode in your chest cavity at the realization of living your life without the only person you've ever loved. And he reminded me of the promise I'd made to him months ago. I told him that I'd love him forever.
That I'd never let go.
But part of me wants to let go.
Deep down inside I know that I can't go on loving a ghost forever. I tell myself this every day. Then I see him and I forget about having those thoughts. Because when I do see him, he looks like the Damien I met on that humid summer day, who was smirking at me, and driving his candy apple red Cadillac in reverse. When I see him he looks so vivid.
So full of life.
Not so ... so ...
So dead. — Lauren Hammond

Have I heard all the stories I need to hear?" she asked, stupidly. But he answered as if it were a good question.
"No, you haven't. But you don't have time to hear any more from me. So listen for stories wherever you go. It won't always be someone telling them; sometimes they come in other ways. And Summer, when you tell yourself stories, make them true. And make them surprising. That's how you will know they might be true. — Katherine Catmull

Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know — Neil Young

I had a bag of Fritos, they were Texas grilled Fritos. These Fritos had grill marks on them. They remind me of summer, when we used to fire up the barbeque and throw down some Fritos. I can still see my dad with the apron on. Better flip that Frito, dad, you know how I like it. — Mitch Hedberg

Though spiritual truth is inscrutable, still we all benefit from it through the embodiment of form. Just as you see the changes brought by the stars, moon and sun turning in the sky, the rain from clouds in due season, summer and winter, and all the transformations of time. You see all these things happen, and know that it is right and in accordance with wisdom. But how does that distant cloud know it is necessary to rain at its appointed time? Or how does this earth, when it receives a seed, know to return it tenfold? Well, Someone does this. Behold that Someone through the embodiment of this world, and find nourishment. Just as you use the body of another person to contact their essence, use the embodiment of this world to touch That reality. — Rumi

Miss Ellis?" Mrs. Perterson says. "It's your turn. Introduce Alex to the class"
"This is Alejandro Fuentes. When he wasn't hanging out on street corners and harrassing innocent people this summer, he toured the inside of jails around the city, if you know what i mean. His secret desire is to go to college and become a chemistry teacher, like you Mrs. Peterson."
Brittney flashed me a triumpnet smile, thinking she won this round. Guess again, gringa. "This is Brittney Ellis," I say, all eyes focused on me. "This summer she went to the mall, bought new clothes to extend her wardrobe, and spent her daddy's money on plastic surgery to enhance her, ahem, assets. Her secret desire is to date a Mexicano before she graduates."
Game on ... — Simone Elkeles

Anyway, camp is weird. It might take a couple of days to like it, or sometimes it hits you when you're home at the end of the summer, and you're, like, 'Wow, that was amazing. I'm reverse homesick - I'm camp-sick.' And then you can't stop thinking about it and feeling this very real feeling, you know? — Stacy Davidowitz

Have you not explained to your friend? She seems confused."
"I've told her what she needs to know."
"I would suspect, Nephew, that she needs to know more. Particularly when I see
how you look at her."
Taka gave another sudden start, but didn't turn. What did his uncle see when he looked at her? Murderous tendencies? Vast annoyance? Or something else?
"And she looks at you the same way," the old man added, and it was Summer's
turn to jump. Definitely vast annoyance, then. And something else. — Anne Stuart

What?" The word exploded out of me. "What do you want me to tell you? You want to hear about how they tied us up like animals to bring us into the camp - or, hey! How about that time a PSF once beat in a girl's skull so badly she actually lost an eye? You want to know what it was like to drink rotten water for an entire summer until new pipes finally came? How I woke up afraid and went to bed in terror every single day for six years? For God's sake, leave me alone! Why do you always have to dig and dig when you know I don't want to talk about it? — Alexandra Bracken

That fall, after the summer when they both died, she and my father, there was a point when I wanted to say to them, All right, you have died, I know that, and you've been dead for a while, we have all absorbed this and we've explored the feelings we had at first, in reaction to it, surprising feelings, some of them, and the feelings we're having now that a few months have gone by--- but now it's time for you to come back. You have been away long enough. — Lydia Davis

Camus-boy, you're always going to be the same you, just older. It's not like there's a moment when you wake up and go, Shit, I'm grown-up, I don't feel like myself anymore.'
I don't tell him, but this is the scariest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. Being grown-up should feel like a big transition. It can't be something that, despite my best efforts, I've been drifting closer and closer to every summer. It needs to be a shock. I need to know at what point to stop holding on. And that moment will suck, and probably every moment after that will suck, but at least I'll know that everything that came before really was valid. I really was young and innocent. I wasn't fooling myself. — Hannah Moskowitz

You can feel people staring: it's like heat that rise from the pavement during summer, like a poker in the small of your back. You don't have to hear a whisper, either, to know that it's about you.
I use to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom to see what they are staring at. I wanted to know what made their heads turn, what it was about me that was so incredibly different. At first I couldn't tell. I mean, I was just me.
Then one day. When I looked in the mirror, I understood. I looked into my own eyes and I hated myself, maybe as much as all of them did.
That was the day I started to believe they might be right.
jodi picoult — Jodi Picoult

How about that one? Is that a constellation?" I asked, pointing upward. We were down in the small valley where the truck was parked. Alex sat leaning against a rock; I was between his legs with my back against his chest, his arms around me as we stared up at the stars.
"Yeah, that's the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades." He bent his head, and I caught my breath as his warm mouth nuzzled at my neck. I hadn't gotten even remotely used yet to how good it felt to be kissed by Alex.
"It's so sexy how you know all of this," I said when I could speak again.
"Yeah?" I heard the grin in his voice. "I know the summer constellations, too. Will that get me bonus kisses?"
"I think it might, actually. — L.A. Weatherly

I suppose I'm happy when I know I've given a horse a good ride, no matter where it is. I like playing golf in the summer; I'm happy when I hit a good shot, and I enjoy watching Arsenal playing beautiful football, but overall I can't believe you can be happy when you're not winning. I honestly can't accept that. — Tony McCoy