Weekend Words: Red
This week, attention returned to the red planet, where the robotic rover Curiosity sent back evidence of long-vanished rivers and lakes — and potentially life — on Mars.
This week, attention returned to the red planet, where the robotic rover Curiosity sent back evidence of long-vanished rivers and lakes — and potentially life — on Mars.
“Friday I tasted life. It was a vast morsel. A Circus passed through the house — still I feel the red in my mind though the drums are out. The Lawn is full of south and the odors tangle, and I hear to-day for the first time the river in the tree.”
—Emily Dickinson, letter to Mrs. J. G. Holland
“Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.”
—Wallace Stevens, “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock”
“Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.”
—Wilfred Owen, “Greater Love”
“Even as a child, I knew what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to wear red lipstick.”
—Patti Smith
“Man…
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law—
Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed.”
—Alfred Lord Tennyson, “In Memoriam A. H. H.”
“Designers want me to dress like Spring, in billowing things. I don’t feel like Spring. I feel like a warm red Autumn.”
—Marilyn Monroe
“Blue is the male principle, stern and spiritual. Yellow the female principle, gentle, cheerful and sensual. Red is matter, brutal and heavy and always the colour which must be fought and vanquished by the other two.”
—Franz Marc
“I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath.”
—David Lynch
