“The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”
― Desert Solitaire
― Desert Solitaire
“I had never realized before how quickly men deteriorate without razors and clean shirts. They are like potted plants that go to weed unless they are pruned and tended daily. A single day's growth beard makes a man look careless; two days', derelict; and four days', polluted. Blix and Weston hadn't shaved for three.”
― West with the Night
― West with the Night
“There is a certain animal vitality in most of us which carries us through any trouble but the absolutely overwhelming. Only a fool has no sorrow, only an idiot has no grief - but then only a fool and an idiot will let grief and sorrow ride him down into the grave.”
― Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast
― Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast
“The shock of the real. For a little while we are again able to see, as the child sees, a world of marvels. For a few moments we discover that nothing can be taken for granted, for if this ring of stone is marvelous then all which shaped it is marvelous, and our journey here on earth, able to see and touch and hear in the midst of tangible and mysterious things-in-themselves, is the most strange and daring of all adventures.”
― Desert Solitaire
― Desert Solitaire
“I look at my yesterdays for months past, and find them as good a lot of yesterdays as anybody might want. I sit there in the firelight and see them all. The hours that made them were good, and so were the moments that made the hours. I have had responsibilities and work, dangers and pleasure, good friends, and a world without walls to live in.”
― West with the Night
― West with the Night
Jen’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Jen’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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