I made the first 'Blumen' picture after looking at Robert Mapplethorpe's Pictures book. I was struck by how much freedom Mapplethorpe was able to extract from his model's restraint-that in tying up and cropping his models, he appears to be able to work with people as forms. I never thought about my flowers as related to his (which I saw as annoyingly erotic); I thought of them in relationship to bondage. I wanted to make the flowers more aggressive and ironic and less docile and sensual.
It is true there is a scent in the desert, though there may be no flower or tree or blade of grass within miles. It is the essence of the untrodden, untarnished earth herself!
True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.
Didn't you know that people hide love like a flower too precious to be picked?
Look how the blue-eyed violets glance love to one another.
I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.
Gardening is one of the rewards of middle age, when one is ready for an impersonal passion, a passion that demands patience, acute awareness of a world outside oneself, and the power to keep on growing through all the times of drought, through the cold snows, towards those moments of pure joy when all failures are forgotten and the plum tree flowers.
Joe Klein is the flower of American political journalism, a sharp raconteur who shows traces of the gonzo style that was in vogue when he was honing his craft at Rolling Stone back in the day.
Dark-green and gemm'd with flowers of snow, With close uncrowded branches spread Not proudly high, nor meanly low, A graceful myrtle rear'd its head.
Today as in the time of Pliny and Columella, the hyacinth flourishes in Wales, the periwinkle in Illyria, the daisy on the ruins of Numantia; while around them cities have changed their masters and their names, collided and smashed, disappeared into nothingness, their peaceful generations have crossed down the ages as fresh and smiling as on the days of battle.
When it's time for the flowers to bloom, they'll bloom. When it's time for spring to come, it'll come.
Literature is a vast forest and the masterpieces are the lakes, the towering trees or strange trees, the lovely, eloquent flowers, the hidden caves, but a forest is also made up of ordinary trees, patches of grass, puddles, clinging vines, mushrooms, and little wildflowers.
You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play.
I love spring flowers: daffodils and hyacinths are the ultimate flower for me. They are the essence of spring.
Flowers are nice, but love is better.
Of all the flowers, me thinks a rose is best.
I began my pilgrimage on the first of January in 1953. It is my spiritual birthday of sorts. It was a period in which I was merged with the whole. No longer was I a seed buried under the ground, but I felt as a flower reaching out effortlessly toward the sun.
Hours fly, Flowers die: New days, New ways: Pass by! Love stays.
It is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.
I used mythology to tell the story [in Living with Love], with the story of the minotaur and the matador and fighting and fighting for love and the color red and flowers and horns and death and naked men. You know, the important things in life.
