The sail butterfly [Iphiclides podalirius] is migratory.

The large bulbous nose, the greenish- gray hair and lashes, the gray- white eyes, all had the deathly color of leather buried for centuries in Davy Jones’s locker, and the neatly folled cloth bundle under his arm seemed a mariners’s kit.
—Dawn Powell, The Golden Spur, 1962.

With his red and blue pencil the blue- eyed, red- faced official made little crosses here and there on the papers, showing Krug where to sign.
—Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister, 1947.

Violet hills and burnt umber buttes rested in their still American places like novels on Zane Grey’s bookshelf.
—Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, 1977.

I’m sitting in my mother’s arms in a brown aura of gloom sent up by her bathrobe — it has cords hanging, like the cords in movies, bellrope for Catherine Empress, but brown, hanging around the bathrobe belt — . . . old Chrismas morning bathrobe with conventional diamonds or squares design, but the brown of the color of life, the color of the brain, the gray brown brain, and the first color I noticed after the rainy grays of my first views of the world in the spectrum from the crib so dumb.
—Jack Kerouac, Dr. Sax, 1959.

Cold- hearted orb that rules the night / Removes the colors from our sight / Red is gray and yellow white / And we decide which is right / And which is an illusion?
—Justin Hayward & Graeme Edge (The Moody Blues), "Nights in White Satin," 1967.

Dawn, and the little flocks of silver- enameled tanks on every hill and the fifty- five thousand barrel tanks in the valley made you think of diamonds in a dime- store brooch — so much wealth in such an outlandish place.

The purple ribbons of oil splashed down every hill and turned brown and gold in the sun. Up the valley the lights on the drilling rig winked out.
Jim Thompson, Character at Iraan, 1930; Fireworks: The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, 1988.

"You'll be standing to one side of worry, invisible enough to feel a principle of form spiraling like a galaxy's recursion of nesting light."
—Christopher Buckley, Camino Cielo (1997)

Six women dancing together on a red stage naked / The leaves are green on all the trees in Paris now / I will be home in two months and look you in the eyes
—Allen Ginsberg, "Message, 1958," from Collected Poems 1947—1997.

It was one of those blue and lavender nights when the luminous color seems to have been blown over the scene with an air brush. Even the darkest shadows held some purple.
—Nathaniel West, The Day of the Locust, 1933.

A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue : vowels, / I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins: / A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies / Which buzz around cruel smells,

Gulfs of shadow; E, white- ness of vapours and of tents, / Lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow- parsley; / I, purples, spat blood, smile of beautiful lips / In anger or in the raptures of penitence;

U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas, / The peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows / Which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads;

O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds, / Silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels: / O the Omega, the violet ray of Her Eyes!
—Arthur Rimabuad, "Vowels" (Voyelles), 1871, translated by Oliver Bernard, 1962.

Oh say can you see in the dark you / observe Minerva nerveless in Nirvana because Zeus rides reindeer thru Bethlehem’s blue sky. / Its Buddha sits in Mary’s belly waving Kuan Yin’s white hand at the Jang- tze that Mao sees, / tongue of Kali licking Krishna’s soft blue lips.
—Allen Ginsberg, Holy Ghost on the Nod over the Body of Bliss, 1966, from Collected Poems 1947-1997.

I can remember every second of that morning, if I shut my eyes I can see the deep blue colour of the sky and the mango leaves, the pink and red hibiscus, the yellow handkerchief she wore round her head, tied in the Martinique fashion with the sharp points in front, but now I see everything still, fixed for ever like the colours in a stained- glass window. Only the clouds move.
—Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 1966.

We are cross- stitching silk roses on a pale background. We can colour the roses as we choose and mine are green, blue and purple. Underneath, I will write my name in fire red, Antoinette Mason, née Cosway, Mount Calvary Convent, Spanish Town, Jamaica, 1839.
—Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 1966.

Both of us were able to look in by standing on the basement, and clinging to the ledge, and we saw — ah! it was beautiful — a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson- covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass- drops hanging on silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with little soft tapers. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there. Edgar and his sister had it entirely to themselves; shouldn’t they have been happy? We should have thought ourselves in heaven!
—Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, 1847.

When they’re dancing where the lights are soft and low, / All the glory of the sunset’s purple glow / Is reflected in your eyes where beauty dwells, / And I hear blue and orange birds and silver bells.
—"Blue and Orange Birds and Silver Bells," recorded by Della Reese with the Jimmy Hamilton Orchestra in 1953.

When we last met the red petals of the flowers were falling like rain on the green moss. / After we had separated, the faded leaves lay scattered in the evening mist.
—Hsi Hsiang Chi, The Romance of the Western Chamber, translated by S.I. Hiung, 1936.

Some scientists (especially physicists) [and] some artists (especially musicians) . . . noticed long ago that a musical sound, for example, provokes an association of a precise color. . . . Stated otherwise, you ‘hear’ the color and you ‘see’ the sound. . . .

YELLOW . . . possesses the special capacity to ‘ascend’ higher and higher and to attain heights unbearable to the eye and the spirit; the sound of trumpet played higher and higher becoming more and more ‘pointed,’ giving pain to the ear and to the spirit. BLUE, with the completely opposite power to ‘descend’ into infinite depths, develops the sounds of the flute (when it is light blue), of the cello (when it has descended farther), of the double bass with its magnificent deep sounds; and in the depths of the organ you ‘see’ the depths of blue. GREEN is well balanced and corresponds to the medium and the attenuated sounds of the violin. When skillfully applied, RED (vermillion) can give the impression of strong drum beats, etc.”
—Wassily Kandinsky, Concrete Art, 1938.

First China’s sons, with early art elate, / Form’d the gay tea- pot, and the pictured plate; / Saw with illumined brow and dazzled eyes / In the red stove vitrescent colours rise; / Speck’d her tall beakers with enamel’d stars, / Her monster- josses, and gigantic jars; / Smear’d her huge dragons with metallic hues, / With golden purples, and cobaltic blues; / Bade on wide hills her porcelain castles glare, / And glazed Pagodas tremble in the air.
—Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), Botanic Garden.

All I know / Of a certain star / Is, it can throw / (Like the angled spar) / Now a dart of red, / Now a dart of blue; / Till my friends have said / They would fain see, too, / My star that dartles the red and the blue! / Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: / They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. / What matter to me if their star is a world? / Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
—Robert Browning (1812-89).