Wes > Wes's Quotes

“there is no one right way of handling storms at sea. There is only what works for different boats and their captains in different storms, an improvised alchemy of conditions and intuition.”
― Peter Nichols, A Voyage for Madmen

“One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork.”
― Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang

“I thought I was wrong once,” Seldom said, “but I found out later I was mistaken.”
― Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang

“Them people'll do anything for money. You'd be surprised. They ain't like us, Doc. They're Christians.”
― Edward Abbey, Monkey Wrench Gang

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break....I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

“Wilderness. The word itself is music.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“most of my wandering in the desert i've done alone. not so much from choice as from necessity - i generally prefer to go into places where no one else wants to go. i find that in contemplating the natural world my pleasure is greater if there are not too many others contemplating it with me, at the same time.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“So I lived alone.
The first thing I did was take off my pants. Naturally.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“It doesn't matter where you're from - or how you feel... There's always peace in a strong cup of coffee.”
― Gabriel Bá, Daytripper

“Only when you accept that one day you'll die can you let go, and make the best out of life. And that's the big secret. That's the miracle.”
― Gabriel Bá, Daytripper

“My dreams tell me who I am.”
― Fábio Moon, Daytripper

“… that’s what friends do. They care. They find each other and stick together when things get rough. Friends are worth the effort.”
― Fábio Moon, Daytripper

“We live in a society populated by strangers. Each day, we feel more distant from each other, more alone, all while being surrounding by millions. Each day we watch as our city turns into a desert, one in which we are all lost -- looking for that oasis we like to call... "love." The more we wait, the more everything--and everyone--looks like a grain of sand escaping between our fingers before vanishing into the wind. How do we find something--or someone-- we can no longer see, but which is right there before us? And how do we hold on to what is most precious in life?”
― Fábio Moon, Daytripper

“Even when he was awake, he would carry his dreams with him. They reminded him of who he is and what he wanted out of life. His dreams would tell him what to do, how to navigate in this world.”
― Fábio Moon, Daytripper

“One can waste years this way, systematically postponing precisely the things one cares about the most.”
― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

“Life would be pretty monotonous if the sky was always blue.”
― Robin Lee Graham, Dove: An Extraordinary Around-the-World Adventure―The Solo Voyage of Five Years and 33,000 Miles

“Nobody can be entirely protected from the mishaps of life. If anything should happen to Lee—and it would be the end of me if it did—I would still feel that I did the right thing for him. Success or failure, he is fulfilling his destiny. We all have only one life, some are short and some are long. He loves life and wants a little more out of it than to follow convention out of fear of what others may think, or to be just another face in the crowd that follows the herd.”
― Robin Lee Graham, Dove

“happiness has no frontiers, that it’s a state of mind and not a possession, not a set route through life, not a goal to be gained but something that steals in gently like an evening mist or the morning sunlight—something beyond our control.”
― Robin Lee Graham, Dove

“Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. Pasquo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.”
“That’s only three.”
Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“What business does memory have with time?”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. These are first-person memories—I memories. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, and these are trickier: you watch yourself in disbelief.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“We want what we want—we love who we love.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“He was ready to stop trying to matter; he was ready to simply live.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“And so it goes...”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five