Home > Topic > diaphanous
1 " A writer's goal is to weave the ordinary into fine silk and the truly extraordinary into diaphanous clarity ... "
― C.J. Heck
2 " I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws. "
― S.J. Perelman
3 " We all travelled light, taking with us only what we considered to be the bare essentials of life. When we opened our luggage for Customs inspection, the contents of our bags were a fair indication of character and interests. Thus Margo’s luggage contained a multitude of diaphanous garments, three books on slimming, and a regiment of small bottles each containing some elixir guaranteed to cure acne. Leslie’s case held a couple of roll-top pullovers and a pair of trousers which were wrapped round two revolvers, an air-pistol, a book called Be Your Own Gunsmith, and a large bottle of oil that leaked. Larry was accompanied by two trunks of books and a brief-case containing his clothes. Mother’s luggage was sensibly divided between clothes and various volumes on cooking and gardening. I travelled with only those items that I thought necessary to relieve the tedium of a long journey: four books on natural history, a butterfly net, a dog, and a jam-jar full of caterpillars all in imminent danger of turning into chrysalids. Thus, by our standards fully equipped, we left the clammy shores of England. "
― Gerald Durrell
4 " I used to walk out, at night, to the breakwater which divides the end of the harbor form the broad moor of the salt marsh. There was nothing to block the wind that had picked up speed and vigor from its Atlantic crossing. I’d study the stars in their brilliant blazing, the diaphanous swath of the milk Way, the distant glow of Boston backlighting the clouds on the horizon as if they’d been drawn there in smudgy charcoal. I felt, perhaps for the first time, particularly American, embedded in American history, here at the nation’s slender tip. Here our westering impulse, having flooded the continent and turned back, finds itself face to face with the originating Atlantic, November’s chill, salt expanses, what Hart Crane called the “unfettered leewardings,” here at the end of the world. "
― Mark Doty , Heaven's Coast: A Memoir
5 " She stayed beside me until I slept, waveringly, brilliantly, hooded in diaphanous scarlet, and occasionally she left an imperative written in lipstick on my dusty windowpane. BE AMOROUS! she exhorted one night and, another night, BE MYSTERIOUS! Some nights later, she scribbled: WHEN YOU BEGIN TO THINK, YOU LOSE THE POINT. "
― Angela Carter , The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
6 " Hidden by diaphanous clouds of mist and fog floating gracefully over vales of heather and flowing runnels, she began to dance. "
― Lawren Leo , Love's Shadow: Nine Crooked Paths
7 " Above me I feel your lovemy GoddessFull of the promise that through youmy GoddessAll things ripen and come to fruitionmy GoddessAs the diaphanous boundary between worldsmy GoddessIs illuminated by the white light of your signmy GoddessI ask that some small ray of your love descendmy GoddessFill this seaborne chalicemy GoddessSo that I might pour it over memy GoddessAnd take your gentle touch to the children of the night "
― P.C. Cast , The Fledgling Handbook 101
8 " I think this dress will stun the nobility, and leave them stupefied with envy and lust," Madame Sandrine announced with relish." I'm just glad it's not crimson, like everything else you drape," Farah said to her husband as she glanced at her transformation in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors across from the raised podium on which she stood. The creation of blue silk evoked the midnight sky, as it wrapped her bosom and waist in bejeweled gathers before cascading from her hips in a dark waterfall. The shamelessly cut bodice was lent a hint of respectability by folds of a shimmering diaphanous silver material draping from a choker of gems about her neck and flowing down her shoulders like moonbeams. To call them sleeves would have been a mistake, for all they concealed.Madame Sandrine threw a teasing look over her shoulder at Blackwell. " How fitting that the color of blood is the one you prefer the most." " Not for her," Dorian rumbled.The seamstress lifted a winged eyebrow, but didn't comment. " Voila. I believe that is all I'll need from you today, Madame Blackwell. I can have these finished in the morning, and in the meantime I have a lovely soft gray frock hemmed with tiny pink blossoms that will bring out the color in your cheeks. "
