Stephanie Jones > Stephanie's Quotes

“It was a truth universally acknowledged, Alys suddenly thought with a smile, that people enter our lives in order to recommend reads.”
― Soniah Kamal, Unmarriageable

“When the aromatic savour of the pine goes searching into the deepest recesses of my lungs, I know it is life that is entering. I draw life in through the delicate hairs of my nostrils.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

“Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.”
― Mary Oliver

“The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn't quite yet ready to hear it, and their story began with three simple words. We were there.”
― Kristin Hannah, The Women

“Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“The presence of a person does not destruct from, but enhances the silence, if if the other person is the right sort of hill companion. The perfect hill companion is the one whose identity is for the time being merged in that of the mountains, as you feel your own to be.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

“To love a place is not enough. We must find ways to heal it.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“To aim for the highest point is not the only way to climb a mountain.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
― Mary Oliver

“It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
― Mary Oliver