There’s nothing better than to close your eyes, nestled under the cool shade of a tree, listening to a good book. These authors would hardly disagree. In fact, there’s a long tradition of praising the summer months for all their glory.
But how could anyone who’s ever seen a summer—big explosion of green and skies lit up electric with splashy sunsets, a riot of flowers and wind that smells like honey—pick the snow?”
Lauren Oliver, Delirium
. . . prodigal summer, the season of extravagant procreation. It could wear out everything in its path with its passionate excesses, but nothing alive with wings or a heart or a seed curled into itself in the ground could resist welcoming it back when it came.”
Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer
I should remember the rose garden in summer, and the birds that sang at dawn. Tea under the chestnut tree, and the murmur of the sea coming up to us from the lawns below. I would think of the blown lilac, and the Happy Valley. These things were permanent, they could not be dissolved. They were memories that cannot hurt.”
Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called—called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.”
Jack London, The Call of the Wild
The beauty of that June day was almost staggering. After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing.”
Dan Simmons, Drood
Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience. Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.”
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Got a favorite quote about summer? Let us know in the comments!