Buddy Levy > Quotes

“...fortune always favors the bold.”
― Buddy Levy, Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs

“Just before noon on February 28, 1882, the thin outline of a glowing orb pierced the southern skyline and hung there, like a wafer pasted in the air. Though faint, the sight was glorious: It was the first time they had seen the sun in 137 days.”
― Buddy Levy, Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition

“It would be better not to know how to write. Then one would not have to sign death sentences.”16”
― Buddy Levy, Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs

“Ultimately, with ice pressing in on them from all sides, Greely had made the decision to commit the boats and men to the mercies of the floes, with the forlorn hope that tides and winds would propel them south to Cape Sabine. If that failed, they would abandon everything not essential and attempt to cross ice bridges from floe to floe until they reached land. Some of Greely’s men disagreed with him, muttering that his decisions were madness and amounted to suicide. One of the men said he feared “another Franklin disaster.” The expedition doctor scribbled furiously in his journal: “It is terrible to float in this manner, in the snow, fog, and dark. This seems to me like a nightmare in one of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories.” And in many ways, it was.”
― Buddy Levy, Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition

“Greely had managed to lead this unlikely unit in one of the epic expeditions in the history of Arctic exploration and scientific discovery. It was remarkable.”
― Buddy Levy, Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition

“In the cold, calm weather they moved well, Bartlett’s group making fifteen miles by late afternoon.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“He saw long lines of dark V-shapes winging their way south, and he knew they must be close to the island”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“They’d lost”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“My Life with the Eskimo,”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“By late in the afternoon, they arrived at Camp 6 to find Kuraluk’s family already resting cozily inside a traditional dome-shaped igloo,”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“And though he thought he’d seen everything in the North, this mountain range of ice was a new wrinkle.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“he could see an open lane skirting around the floe on which the pod of five enormous animals were sunning”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“through the carved maze trail to retrieve the bears they’d shot.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“Great care was taken in the skinning of the ugruks, for it is their skins that are used in the making of umiaks”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“Bartlett ordered that they make their way toward Wrangel Island in the same teams that had originally departed Shipwreck Camp.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“By August 23, the Bear was ready to depart for Wrangel Island.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“Near midnight, they finally dragged themselves into Shore Camp on Icy Spit.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“According to Friar Carvajal, who watched the gruesome battle with an arrow sticking from his side, these Indians had more than just their homes to defend; they were fighting as the subjects, and allies, of the Amazons. For what Carvajal and the others witnessed next was mystifying. Amid the throng of warriors there appeared ten or twelve extremely tall women warriors, with pale white skin and long hair twisted into braids and wound about their heads. “They are very robust,” reported Orellana’s priest, “and go about naked, but with their privy parts covered, with their bows and arrows in their hands, doing as much fighting as ten Indian men, and indeed there was one who shot an arrow a span deep into one of the brigantines, and others less deep, so that our brigantines looked like porcupines.” The Spaniards were battling hand to hand with Amazons, live and in the flesh. According to their annals, the women fought at the front line, in the role of leaders or captains spurring on the men, and what the Spaniards witnessed amazed them, for the Amazons “fought so courageously that the Indian men did not dare turn their backs, and anyone who did turn his back they killed with clubs right there before us, and this is the reason why the Indians kept up their defense for so long.”
― Buddy Levy, River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana and the Deadly First Voyage through the Amazon

“They’d estimated a trip of at least eighty miles one way, so it was an ambitious and risky undertaking.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“Cochran managed to reach Point Barrow on the evening of August 21. There, they would deliver mail and take on coal and water”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“perhaps within just fifteen or twenty miles.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“he knew this wall of ice had only recently formed, thrown up in his way as yet one more test of his courage and will.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“On the last day of September, Bartlett was up in the barrel when he sighted land.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“He held many of them in his arms as they whispered their final words and breathed their last breaths. The pages of his book and journals reveal a profound sense of caring and humanity, a deep responsibility for those he was destined to lead. The dedication he wrote at the beginning of his book offers insight into the man, and it seems fitting to close this book with that same dedication, to serve as a reminder of what grace looks like: To the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition These volumes are dedicated: To its dead who suffered much— To its living who suffered more. Their energy accomplished Farthest North Their fidelity wrought out success; Their courage faced death undauntedly; Their loyalty and discipline in all the dark days Ensured that this record Of their services should be given to the world.”
― Buddy Levy, Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition

“It was their huge white ivory tusks—protruding two feet long straight out of their mouths like spears”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“Fuel was precious; it ran the stoves that heated their food, and the stoves gave off a modicum of heat inside the igloos.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“By now, nearly everyone had harsh words about Stefansson,”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“Mock-turtle soup, salmon, fricasseed guillemot, spiced musk-ox tongue, crab-salad, roast beef, eider-ducks, tenderloin of musk-ox, potatoes, asparagus, green corn, green peas, cocoanut-pie, jelly-cake, plum-pudding with wine-sauce, several kinds of ice-cream, grapes, cherries, pineapples, dates, figs, nuts, candies, coffee, chocolate.”
― Buddy Levy, Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition

“that fired the public imagination.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

“with their thick, tough skin and dense, almost impenetrable heads, they were extremely difficult to kill.”
― Buddy Levy, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk