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“I would keep her, and raise her, and love her, even if she had to teach me how to do it.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

“Meredith Combs, the social worker responsible for selecting the stream of adoptive families that gave me back, wanted to talk to me about blame.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

“Sitting under a tree, I studied my options. The fall flowers were in full bloom: verbena, goldenrod, chrysanthemum, and a late-blooming rose. The carefully tended city beds around the park held layers of textured evergreen but little color.
I set to work, considering height, density, texture, and layers of scent, removing touch-damaged petals with careful pinches. When I had finished, spiraling white mums emerged from a cushion of snow-colored verbena, and clusters of pale climbing roses circled and dripped over the edge of a tightly wrapped nosegay. I removed every thorn. The bouquet was white as a wedding and spoke of prayers, truth, and an unacquainted heart.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

“I pinched tendrils of periwinkle at the roots until they hung in long, limp strands, and grabbed a dozen bright white spider mums. I wrapped the periwinkle tightly around the base of the mums like a ribbon and used florist's wire to create loose curlicues of the leafy groundcover around a multilayered explosion of mums. The effect was like fireworks, dizzying and grand.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

“I could have hired someone else. Someone less flawed, perhaps, or at least better at hiding it. But none of them would have had the talent you have with flowers, Victoria. It's truly a gift. When you work with flowers, everything about you changes. The set of your jaw loosens. Your eyes glaze with focus. Your fingers manipulate the flowers with a gentle respect that makes it impossible to believe you are capable of violence. I'll never forget the first day I saw it. Watching you arranging sunflowers at the back table, I felt like I was looking at a completely different girl."
I knew the girl of whom she was speaking. It was the same one I'd glimpsed in the dressing room mirror with Elizabeth, after nearly a year in her home. Perhaps that girl had survived somewhere within me after all, preserved like a dried flower, fragile and sweet.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

“When my hunger grew to the point of distraction, I climbed onto buses and rode to the Marina, Fillmore Street, or Pacific Heights. I toured high-end delis, lingering at polished marble countertops and sampling an olive, a slice of Canadian bacon, or a sliver of Havarti. I asked the questions Elizabeth would have asked: which olive oils are unfiltered; exactly how "fresh" was the albacore, the salmon, the sole; how sweet were the season's first blood oranges?”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

“Have you ever given anyone a red rose?" Grant asked. I looked at him as if he was trying to force-feed me foxglove. "Moss rose? Myrtle? Pink?" he pressed.
"Confession of love? Love? Pure love?" I asked, to make sure we shared the same definitions. He nodded. "No, no, and no."
I picked a pale blush-colored bud and shredded the petals one at a time.
"I'm more of a thistle-peony-basil kind of girl," I said.
"Misanthropy-anger-hate," said Grant. "Hmm."
I turned away. "You asked," I said.
"It's kind of ironic, don't you think?" he asked, looking around us at the roses. They were all in bloom, and not one was yellow. "Here you are, obsessed with a romantic language- a language invented for expression between lovers- and you use it to spread animosity.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

“At the end of each day, Elizabeth read to me. She had shelves and shelves of children's classics, dusty hardcovers with stamped gold titles: 'The Secret Garden', 'Pollyanna', and 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'. But I preferred her viticulture textbooks, the illustrations of plants and chemical equations clues to the world that surrounded me. I memorized vocabulary- nitrate leaching, carbon sequestration, integrated pest management- and used them in casual conversation with a seriousness that made Elizabeth laugh.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

“Bowing my head, I dipped my nose into the bouquet I'd assembled. There was flax, and forget-me-not, and hazel. There were white roses and pink ones, helenium and periwinkle, primrose, and lots and lots of bellflower. Between the tightly wrapped stems I'd packed velvety moss, barely visible, and I had sprinkled the bouquet with the purple and white petals of Grant's Mexican sage. The bouquet was enormous, and not nearly enough.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers