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Quotations about Fruits
The strawberry... It is born of the copious dews, the fragrant nights, the tender skies, the plentiful rains of the early season. The singing of birds is in it, and the health and frolic of lusty Nature. It is the product of liquid May touched by the June sun. It has the tartness, the briskness, the unruliness of spring, and the aroma and intensity of summer. ~John Burroughs
Fruit only angers my need for chocolate. ~Jason Love
Did you notice how her hair smells like fruit? Not the real fruit but the good kind, like in candy. ~The Middle, "The Core Group," 2016, written by Ilana Wernick [S8, E1. Axl, to Frankie, about his girlfriend April
Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is? ~Frank Scully
I feel that the juices of the fruits which I have eaten, the melons and apples, have ascended to my brain and are stimulating it. They give me a heady force. ~Henry David Thoreau, journal, 1851
I loved to climb high in the trees, very tall,
And to gather the beechnuts late in the Fall;
To pick the ripe berries, so luscious and sweet,
That grew in the meadows, right down at my feet.
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "A Leaf from Memories' Book" (1940s)
To make an apple pie, you need wheat, apples, a pinch of this and that, and the heat of an oven. The ingredients are made of molecules, which in turn, are made of atoms. Except for hydrogen, the atoms are made in stars. A star is a kind of cosmic kitchen inside which atoms of hydrogen are cooked into heavier atoms. The hydrogen was made in the Big Bang, the explosion that began the Cosmos. If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. ~Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980 [a little altered
Any fool can count the seeds in an apple. Only God can count all the apples in one seed. ~Robert H. Schuller (1926–2015)
Man has always thrived as he has eaten freely of fruits. ~H. Irving Hancock, "The Food Value of Fruits," 1909
Most people who eat them are agreed that there is more in the grapefruit than meets the eye. ~Punch, 1934
Apples have other virtues than those that nourish merely. They refresh the spirits by their taste and perfume... A dish of the choice kinds standing in one's study shall perfume his composition and rejoice his temper whensoever he tastes them. ~Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888)
Keep as near as ever you can to the first sources of supply — fruits and vegetables. ~Benjamin Ward Richardson (1828–1896)
The more we depend upon the fresh fruit just as it is plucked from the tree, the greater will be the blessing. ~Ellen Gould White, "The Preparation of Healthful Foods: The Value of Fresh Fruits," 1900
Always eat grapes downwards — that is, always eat the best grape first; in this way there will be none better left on the bunch, and each grape will seem good down to the last. If you eat the other way, you will not have a good grape in the lot... ~Samuel Butler
The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past. It is a fruit which will probably become extinct in New England... Since the... general introduction of grafted fruit, no native apple-trees, such as I see everywhere in deserted pastures, and where the woods have grown up around them, are set out. I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many pleasures which he will not know! ~Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
Midsummer berries, wild as the note
A robin flings to dusk...
~Frances Frost, "Strawberries," Pool in the Meadow: Poems for Young and Old, 1933
The strawberry, in the main, repeats the form of the human heart, and perhaps, of all the small fruits known to man, none other is so deeply and fondly cherished, or hailed with such universal delight, as this lowly but youth-renewing berry. ~John Burroughs
There is something in the flavor and aroma of the fresh strawberry that no amount of skill has been able to preserve. ~E. F. White, "Spring Soda Fountain Thoughts," 1908
Garfield: My inner beast desires a snack!
Jon: How about a nice, frothy fruit smoothie?
Garfield: Inner beasts don't do frothy and fruity.
~Jim Davis, Garfield, 2006
Lemon juice is good for everything. ~Ethel Pochocki (1925–2010), "Chester's Rare Affliction," The Attic Mice, 1990
In every orchard Autumn stands,
With apples in his golden hands.
~Alexander Smith
Three wild strawberries, nodding on their long stems, hung over my face... The berries were not the round and rosy ones of the meadow, but the long, slender, dark crimson ones of the forest. One, two, three... each one as it touched my lips was a drop of nectar and a crumb of ambrosia, a concentrated essence of all the pungent sweetness of the wildwood, sapid, penetrating, and delicious. I tasted the odour of a hundred blossoms and the green shimmering of innumerable leaves and the sparkle of sifted sunbeams and the breath of highland breezes and the song of many birds and the murmur of flowing streams, — all in a wild strawberry. ~Henry Van Dyke, Fisherman's Luck, 1899
Oh, you may have the wild rose
As gentle as a maiden's dream;
I'll take a fairer bloom that blows—
The wild strawberry (with cream)!...
~Gerald Raftery (1905–1986), "Nature Lover," 1941
Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard... ~Walt Whitman
This is the way of an apple tree—
Fruit to make you whole,
In autumn for the body,
In April for the soul.
~Alice Mackenzie Swaim, "To Make You Whole," Crickets Are Crying Autumn, 1960
The best food on this planet is ripe fruit... ~Dr. Paul Edwards, as quoted by Evora Bucknum Perkins
Oh! what strange fruit is in my trees
To call the phosphorescent bees,
That they should leave their hives to come
And suck my one prodigious plum?
~Tom Prideaux (1908–1993), "The Egotist in His Orchard," c.1924
And, of course, the funniest food: kumquats. I don't even bring them home anymore. I sit there laughing and they go to waste. ~George Carlin, "Fussy Eater
Apple-tree, apple-tree, crowned with delight,
Give me your fruit for a pie if you will;—
Crusty I'll make it, and juicy and light!—
Give me your treasure to mate with my skill!
~Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron, "September," A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband with Bettina's Best Recipes, 1917
On the island of Skip-scoop-anellie
There is made every known kind of jelly;
Kumquat and pine-apple, citron and quince
Pomegranate, apricot, all are made since
Someone discovered that jelly-fish ate
Fruit from a fish-hook as though it were bait.
Any particular jelly you wish,
Lower the fruit to the jellyfied fish,
After you've given it time to digest
Pull up the jelly-fish. You know the rest.
~The Lincoln Imp, "Skip-scoop-anellie," written in the 9th grade at the Lincoln School, New York City, c.1920
That a slender wooden tree twig can give birth to luscious pears, apples, peaches remains an extraordinary feat. ~
Buy me no meat, but mellow
Apricots, melons yellow,
Cream, and strawberries.
These have the sweetest savor
Eaten in forest cave, or
Lying by brooks that rave or
Streamlet that singing tarries.
~Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585), "Summer's Revel," translated by Curtis Hidden Page, 1903
And Country Mouse forgot her problems for the future over a plate brimful of strawberries and cream. ~Barbra Ring, Fjeldmus paa utenlands-reise, 1908, translated from the Norwegian by J. L. Ethel Aspinall, The Tomboy Cousin, 1927
How deep or perhaps slaty sky-blue are those blueberries that grow in the shade! It is an unexpected and thrilling discovery to find such ethereal fruits in dense drooping clusters under the fresh green of oak and hickory sprouts. ~Henry David Thoreau, journal, 1852
Is there anything like the odor of strawberries? The next best thing to tasting them is to smell them; one may put his nose to the dish while the fruit is yet too rare and choice for his fingers. Touch not and taste not, but take a good smell and go mad! ~John Burroughs
Yes, a veritable apple-bearing tree, too, here in the very midst of pines and beeches, a mile away from any orchard. I was here one day last spring and found it, all white with blossom. So I resolved I'd come again the fall and see if it had been apples... I suppose it sprang years ago from some chance-sown seed... The apples proved to be delicious. Under the tawny skin was a white, white flesh, faintly veined with red; and, besides their own proper apple taste, they had a certain wild, delightful tang no orchard-grown apple ever possessed. ~L. M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island, 1915
One summer a friend said to me: You should see a psychiatrist about your abnormal affection for your strawberries... ~Ruth Stout, The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book, 1971
A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money. Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something Brussels sprouts never do. ~P. J. O'Rourke, The Bachelor Home Companion, 1987
A man who was fond of wine was offered some grapes at dessert after dinner. "Much obliged," said he, pushing the plate aside; "I am not accustomed to take my wine in pills." ~Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, A Handbook of Gastronomy (Physiologie du goût), 1825, translated from French
What is that fruit, so round and sweet,
So nice to smell, so good to eat,
Which gives the children such a treat?
An Orange!
~Anonymous, "The Orange," 1800s, in imitation of Ann Taylor's "My Mother"
Avocados are butter that grows on trees. ~Duff Goldman, on Extreme Weight Loss: Love Can't Weight, 2015, duff.com
PRUNE A plum that has seen better days. ~Charles Wayland Towne, The Foolish Dictionary, Executed by Gideon Wurdz, Master of Pholly, Doctor of Loquacious Lunacy, etc., 1904
In the Moon-of-Strawberries-and-Raspberries
Stain the green world, O Maker-of-all-good-things,
With a bursting yield of berries...
~Lew Sarett, "Chant for the Moon-of-Flowers," Slow Smoke, 1925
In the Moon-of-Blueberries ask our mother earth
To let the sap go up her stalks of corn
In sparkling currents; make the huckleberries
So plentiful that when we shake the twigs
Above the mó-kuk, the sagging fruit will patter
Down on the birchbark bucket—round blue rain...
~Lew Sarett, "Chant for the Moon-of-Flowers," Slow Smoke, 1925
In the Moon-of-Changing-Color-of-the-Leaves
Make cranberries plentiful in the wet mush-kéegs
And may the goose-plums on the tree be many,
So full of clear red honey that they burst
Their skins and spatter sweet upon the earth...
~Lew Sarett, "Chant for the Moon-of-Flowers," Slow Smoke, 1925 [modified
It would be a pleasant pastime to find suitable names for the hundred varieties which go to a single heap at the
I don't think it's possible to eat strawberries without feeling a little bit sensual. ~Keith Wynn, tweet, 2020
This special feeling towards fruit, its glory and abundance, is I would say universal... We respond to strawberry fields or cherry orchards with a delight that a cabbage patch or even an elegant vegetable garden cannot provoke. ~Jane Grigson, 1981
Ripe grapes with purpling lustre shine
Where graceful droops the clinging vine.
~Phebe A. Holder, "A Song of October," in The Queries Magazine, October 1890
Men have sung the praises of fishing and hunting, they have extolled the joys of boating and riding, they have dwelt at length upon the pleasures of automobiling. But there is one — sport, shall I call it? — which no one seems to have thought worth mentioning: the gentle sport of berrying... huckleberrying! How can I adequately sing the praises of the gentle, the neat, the comfortable huckleberry!... Yes, when the sun is hot and the wind is cool, when the woods have gathered their birds and their secrets to their very hearts, when the sky is deeply, warmly blue, and the clouds pile soft, then give me a pail and let me wander up, up to the great open berry lots. I will let the sun shine on me and the wind blow me, and I will love the whole big world, and I will think not a single thought, and at sundown I will come home with a full pail and a contentedly empty mind. ~Elisabeth Woodbridge, "The Lure of the Berry," The Jonathan Papers, 1912 [a little altered
The market is full of delights in July:
Fresh vegetables, berries, red cherries for pie!
~Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron, "July," A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband with Bettina's Best Recipes, 1917
Mon ami, an apple is an excellent thing — until you have tried a peach! ~George du Maurier, Trilby, 1894
PEACHES AND CREAM will convert any man on the face of the earth... ~Josh Billings, revised by H. Montague
A Frenchman once said that there is only fifteen minutes in the life of a pear when it is worth eating. ~Harry Bowling, "Pears and Acorns," 1913
He reckoned that there was only a quarter of an hour in the life of a pear when it is just right to eat. Before that it isn't ripe enough, and after that it is beginning to go sleepy. ~Gardeners' Chronicle and Horticulture Trade Journal, 1984
Of ice and glass the tinkle,
Pellucid, silver-shrill;
Peaches without a wrinkle;
Cherries and snow at will,
From china bowls that fill
The senses with a sweet
Incuriousness of heat;
A melon's dripping sherds;
Cream-clotted strawberries;
Dusk dairies set with curds —
To live, I think of these!
~William Ernest Henley (1849–1903), "Ballade Made in the Hot Weather"
Toward the end of November, [the wild apples] have generally, like the leaves, lost their beauty, and are beginning to freeze... Perhaps a few on the ground show their red cheeks above the early snow... But generally at the beginning of the winter they freeze hard...
Before the end of December, generally, they experience their first thawing. Those which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and quite unpalatable to the civilized taste, such at least as were frozen while sound, let a warmer sun come to thaw them, for they are extremely sensitive to its rays, are found to be filled with a rich, sweet cider, better than any bottled cider that I know of, and with which I am better acquainted than with wine. All apples are good in this state, and your jaws are the
CIDER may be a good temperance beverage, but I have seen folks so drunk on it that they couldn't tell one of the 10 commandments from a
From all Life's grapes I press sweet wine. ~Henry Harrison Brown (1840–1918)
Miss Minnie McFinney, of Butte,
Fed always, and only, on frutte.
Said she: "Let the coarse
Eat of beef and of horse,
I'm a peach, and that's all there is tutte."
~Anonymous, c. early 1900s
The fruiterers' shops were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.
The Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! The blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, the raisins so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint. The figs were moist and pulpy; the French plums blushed in their modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes. ~Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843 [a little altered
Right glad am I when Christmas comes,
With puddings, mince-pies, tarts, and buns,
And, best of all, thy golden suns,
Round Orange!
~Anonymous, "The Orange," 1800s, in imitation of Ann Taylor's "My Mother"
Later that same night, alone again, I cried and decided to drown my sorrows in an Orange Julius. ~Woody Allen, "How Bogart made me the superb lover I am today," in LIFE, 1969
The field was broad, and the strawberries sweet,
That hung where wind and sunshine meet.
They parted the grass with fingers fair,
And gathered strawberries red with care:
They parted the grass, and their fingers grew
Scarlet with strawberry blood or dew...
~Sara L. Vickers Oberholtzer, "The Strawberry Tryst," Come for Arbutus, and Other Wild Bloom, 1882
The life of Marian Evans had much I never knew — a doom of fruit without the bloom, like the Negra fig... ~Emily Dickinson, 1885
Banana Rule: The rule that states while someone is eating a banana, no one can make eye contact with that person.
One cantaloupe is ripe and lush,
Another's green, another's mush.
I'd buy a lot more cantaloupe
If I possessed a fluoroscope.
~Ogden Nash (1902–1971), "The Cantaloupe"
An identity long ago observed, or, I may say, never not observed, as if the gardener among his vines is in the presence of his ancestors, or shall I say, the orchardist is a pear raised to the highest power. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hence various trees their various fruits produce,
Some for delightful taste, and some for use.
Hence sprouting plants enrich the plain and wood,
For physic some, and some design'd for food.
~Richard Blackmore, "Wisdom of God in the Vegetable Creation," 1712
Peace was restored with an ample helping of berries. ~Hughes Mearns, I Ride in My Coach, 1923
Walnuts the fruiterer's hand, in autumn, stain,
Blue plums and juicy pears augment his gain...
~John Gay, Trivia: or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London, 1716
Patty: Angela, orange juice doesn't grow on trees.
Angela: It sorta does.
~My So-Called Life, "Father Figures," 1994, written by Winnie Holzman
Already on the southward wall the peaches gave out a sweet, hot smell. He liked to gather peaches straight from the wall, with the warmth of the sun on them, knowing that no hands but his had touched them. He liked to feel his teeth tearing the creamy peach-flesh from its crimson heart; to suck out of it the sweet-smelling juice. He ate two, nosing and fingering the velvet skin, before he peeled it. They were delicious. ~May Sinclair, A Cure of Souls, 1924
Trees bend down with plum and pear,
Rosy apples scent the air,
Nuts are ripening everywhere.
~Mrs. Hawtrey, "Autumn," 1800s
It would be well for us to do less cooking and to eat more fruit in its natural state. ~Ellen Gould White, "The Preparation of Healthful Foods," 1900
Fruits and vegetables are blood purifiers, appetizers, tonics; hence, save doctor's bills.
Fruits used as vegetables include eggplant, cucumber, peppers, okra, tomatoes, squash and pumpkin, among others. ~Marion Harris Neil, "The Proper Way to Cook Summer Vegetables," 1908
Dilly got up, and, still holding her papers in her apron, walked swiftly to the window. There she stood, a moment, looking out into the orchard, where the grass lay tangled under the neglected, happy trees. Her eyes traveled mechanically from one to another. She knew them all. That was the "sopsyvine," its red fruitage fast coming on; there was the Porter she had seen her father graft; and down in the corner grew the August sweet. Life out there looked so still and sane and homely. She knew no city streets, — yet the thought of them sounded like a pursuit. ~Alice Brown, Tiverton Tales, 1899 [apples
Most compilers of anthologies of poetry or of epigrams are like people eating cherries or oysters: they start by picking out the best and end up eating the lot. ~Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort (c.1740–1794), translated by Douglas Parmée
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published 2000 Jun 22
revised Jan 2014, Apr 2020
last saved 2024 Sep 12
www.quotegarden.com/fruit.html