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Victoria Finlay Quotes

Human life is fragile: we live in the space between one breath and the next. We often try to maintain an illusion of permanence, through what we do, say... how we enjoy ourselves... Yet it is an illusion that is

Human life is fragile: we live in the space between one breath and the next. We often try to maintain an illusion of permanence, through what we do, say... how we enjoy ourselves... Yet it is an illusion that is constantly being undermined by change and death.

Victoria Finlay
Space, Trying, Next
Victoria Finlay (2006). “Jewels: A Secret History”, p.343, Ballantine Books

In precious opals there might be a dash of red here, a seductive swirl of blue there, and in the center, perhaps, a flirtatious glance of green. But each stone flickers with a unique fire and a good opal is one with an opinion of its own.

Victoria Finlay
Unique, Fire, Blue
Victoria Finlay (2006). “Jewels: A Secret History”, p.108, Ballantine Books

If Bacchus ever had a color he could claim for his own, it should surely be the shade of tannin on drunken lips, of John Keat's 'purple-stained mouth,' or perhaps even of Homer's dangerously wine-dark sea.

Victoria Finlay
Wine, Dark, Color

Human life is fragile: we live in the space between one breath and the next. We often try to maintain an illusion of permanence, through what we do, say, wear, buy, and how we enjoy ourselves and who and how we love. Yet it is an illusion that is constantly being undermined by change and death. We can use diamonds in whatever way we like. They are empty things, pretty as water, yet within them—if we want to see it—there is blood, dust, love, curses, and suffering. There is desire to make someone happy, there is admiration, there is ostentation…and there is a company’s profit curve.

Victoria Finlay
Dust, Blood, Space

In 1879 the Bengali scholar S.M. Tagore compiled a more extensive list of ruby colors from the Purana sacred texts: ‘like the China rose, like blood, like the seeds of the pomegranate, like red lead, like the red lotus, like saffron, like the resin of certain trees, like the eyes of the Greek partridge or the Indian crane…and like the interior of the half-blown water lily.’ With so many gorgeous descriptive possibilities it is curious that in English the two ancient names for rubies have come to sound incredibly ugly.

Victoria Finlay
Eye, Blood, Color

Patterns drawn in ultraviolet might make those ordinary little petals into the exotic peacocks of the botanical world, and yet we cannot appreciate them.

Victoria Finlay
Appreciate, Ordinary, Exotic
Victoria Finlay (2002). “Color: A Natural History of the Palette”

Throughout Asia and Europe, pearls were traditionally believed to ease a range of conditions, including eye diseases, fever, insomnia, 'female complaints', dysentery, whooping cough, measles, loss of virility, and bed-wetting ... Though nobody seems to advertise the potential for pearls to cure bed-wetting anymore.

Victoria Finlay
Eye, Loss, Insomnia
Victoria Finlay (2006). “Jewels: A Secret History”, p.84, Ballantine Books

Funny how we look for miracles in our lives when our life is one big miracle in itself.

Victoria Finlay
Miracle, Looks, Life Is

Once upon a time Apache land would have stretched farther than the horizon, through New Mexico almost to Texas, but as white men found gold, silver, turquoise, and copper beneath its surface they carved up the territory like children sneaking to the fridge and slicing off a chocolate cake bit by bit: hoping at first that the loss wouldn’t be noticed but ultimately not really caring.

Victoria Finlay
Children, Loss, Caring
Victoria Finlay (2006). “Jewels: A Secret History”, p.152, Ballantine Books

Communists liked history very much. It just had to be the right history. They liked to remember it selectively.

Victoria Finlay
Remember, Communist
Victoria Finlay (2006). “Jewels: A Secret History”, p.34, Ballantine Books

I realized it was like a dating agency: the ions are the lost souls looking for mates; the electrolyte is the agency that can help them find each other.

Victoria Finlay
Agency, Ions, Dating
Victoria Finlay (2006). “Jewels: A Secret History”, p.138, Ballantine Books

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