Cactus Quotes - Page 2

• The Big Cactus. I will stick you.

  Shaquille O'Neal

  Basketball, Sticks, Bigs

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• Rearing three children is like growing a cactus, a gardenia, and a tubful of impatiens. Each needs varying amounts of water, sunlight and pruning. Were I to be absolutely fair, I would have to treat each child as if he or she were absolutely identical to the other siblings, and there would be no profit for anyone in that.

  Phyllis Grissim-Theroux

  Children, Sibling, Water

  26 Copy quote

• The canyon country does not always inspire love. To many it appears barren, hostile, repellent - a fearsome mostly waterless land of rock and heat, sand dunes and quicksand, cactus, thornbrush, scorpion, rattlesnake, and agaraphobic distances. To those who see our land in that manner, the best reply is, yes, you are right, it is a dangerous and terrible place. Enter at your own risk. Carry water. Avoid the noonday sun. Try to ignore the vultures. Pray frequently.

  Edward Abbey

  Country, Distance, Land

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• My dad is like a cactus - introverted and tough. I'm a people person, like my mom, but I got my competitiveness from my dad. He came to this country from Belarus with nothing and built a real business. He's my hero for giving me that need to run a business and for having enormous confidence in me.

  Gary Vaynerchuk

  Mom, Running, Country

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• In the first place you can't see anything from a car; you've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail you'll begin to see something, maybe. Probably not.

  Edward Abbey

  Nature, Blood, Hands

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

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• The desert seems to be a brown wasteland of dry, prickly scrub whose only purpose is to serve as a setting for the majestic saguaros. Then, little by little, the plants of the desert begin to identify themselves: the porcupiny yucca, the beaver tail and prickly pear and barrel cacti, buckhorn and staghorn and devil's fingers, the tall, sky-reaching tendrils of the ocotillo.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Sky, Devil, Dry

  Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.60, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• You can't learn anything from saguaro cactus, from ocotillo. They are just passing through; their roots, their much heralded dormancy in the dry season, these are only illusions of permanence. They know even less than you do.

  Barry Lopez

  Education, Time, Learning

  Barry Lopez (2013). “Desert Notes and River Notes”, p.6, Open Road Media

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• Mexican cars are just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat.

  Richard Hammond

  Car, Mexican, Lazy

  "Mexican anger over BBC 'feckless, lazy' claims" by Simon Hooper, www.cnn.com. February 2, 2011.

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• You told us to leave you in the desert, because you planned to start a new life as cactus," Catarina said, her voice flat. "Then you conjured up tiny needles and threw them at us. With pinpoint accuracy.

  Cassandra Clare

  Voice, New Life, Desert

  Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson (2015). “The Bane Chronicles”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

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• The one thing that seems to be consistent through all my work that I like, and I experimented a lot, is the viewer is allowed to meditate on something that normally we don't stop and stare at, whether it's people or a cactus.

  Richard Misrach

  Photography, People, Consistent

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• What are plants doing? What are plants all about? They serve human beings by being decorative, but what is it from its own point of view? It's using up air; it's using up energy. It's really not doing anything except being ornamental. And yet here's this whole vegetable world, cactus plants, trees, roses, tulips, and edible vegetables, like cabbages, celery, lettuce - they're all doing this dance.

  Alan Watts

  Life, Views, Vegetables

  Alan Watts (1977). “The essence of Alan Watts”, Celestial Arts Publishing Company

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• Many of the Huichols and North American peyotists claim that when one eats peyote, one is "tasting oneself: if the user is pure, this cactus is "sweet." Barbara Myerhoff, accompanying the Huichols during their 1965 and 1966 hunts, recorded that they urge new participants to "Chew it well. It is sweet, like tortillas.

  Peter Stafford

  Sweet, Peyote, Psychedelic

  Peter Stafford (2013). “Psychedelics Encyclopedia”, p.133, Ronin Publishing

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• It is only the story...that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence.The story is our escort;without it,we are blind.Does the blind man own his escort?No,neither do we the story;rather,it is the story that owns us.

  Chinua Achebe

  Men, Doe, Stories

  FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from May 29, 2011

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• I had forgotten that talking to you is like trying to pet a cactus." Saiman said dryly. "Thank you for reminding me." "Always happy to oblige.

  Ilona Andrews

  Talking, Pet, Trying

  Ilona Andrews (2013). “Magic Rises: A Kate Daniels Novel”, p.47, Penguin

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• Even from far away, I could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music.

  Rick Riordan

  Running, People, Naked

  Rick Riordan (2006). “The lightning thief”

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• When I write "paradise" I mean not only apple trees and golden women but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and Gila monsters, sandstorms, volcanoes and earthquakes, bacteria and bear, cactus, yucca, bladderweed, ocotillo and mesquite, flash floods and quicksand, and yes - disease and death and the rotting of flesh.

  Edward Abbey

  Mean, Writing, Disease And Death

  "Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness". Book by Edward Abbey ("Down the River", p. 147), 1968.

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• Wilf: God bless the cactuses! The Doctor: That's cactI. Alien: And that's racist!

  Russell T Davies

  Doctors, Racist, Aliens

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• In the Middle Ages people took potions for their ailments. In the 19th century they took snake oil. Citizens of today's shiny, technological age are too modern for that. They take antioxidants and extract of cactus instead.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Snakes, Oil, People

  "The Return of the Primitive" by Charles Krauthammer, content.time.com. January 29, 1996.

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• I'm always very interested in breeding. Raising cacti is breeding. My lotus plant collection is breeding. The insects are breeding.

  Takashi Murakami

  Lotuses, Plant, Insects

  Interview with Alison Gingeras, www.interviewmagazine.com. July 15, 2010.

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• Isn’t that why you have that gun mounted on the front? Or is it for other reasons, because I would’ve thought that a man with your powers would be past the urge to compensate.” Barabas grinned. “I had forgotten that talking to you is like trying to pet a cactus,” Saiman said dryly. “Thank you for reminding me.” “Always happy to oblige.

  Ilona Andrews

  Gun, Past, Men

  Ilona Andrews (2013). “Magic Rises: A Kate Daniels Novel”, p.47, Penguin

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• That cactus went right through my eye. It left my eye flat. They took me to a doctor, and he said, 'We'll have to take the eye out.' ...I fought like a tiger. I said, 'No! Leave the eye alone. I am sure it will grow back.' The doctor said, 'You're too young to know.' ...But in a year's time that fluid came back, and that eye is just as good as the other one today.

  Bernard Jensen

  Eye, Dark, Doctors

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• These Germans seem an odd race, a mixture of clay and spirit - what with their beer-drinking and smoking, and their slow, stolid ways, you would think them perfectly earth; but ethereal fire is all the while working in them, and bursing out in most unexpected jets of poetry and sentiment, like blossoms on a cactus.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Drinking, Beer, Thinking

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• The name says it all. That's where Dad (Hades) tries out his new punishment ideas, but he says the traditional ones still work best: the lava flows, the minefields full of exploding surprises, burning at the stake, running naked through cactus patches... You name it, we've got it here - Nico di Angelo

  Rick Riordan

  Running, Dad, Punishment

  26 Copy quote

• Flailing and thrashing, Buttercup wept and tossed and paced and wept some more, and there have been three great cases of jealousy since David of Galilee was first afflicted with the emotion when he could no longer stand the fact that his neighbor Saul's cactus outshone his own. (Originally, jealousy pertained solely to plants, other people's cactus or ginkgoes, or, later, when there was grass, grass, which is why, even to this day, we say that someone is green with jealousy.) Buttercup's case rated a close fourth on the all-time list. It was a very long and very green night.

  William Goldman

  Night, Long, People

  William Goldman (2013). “The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure”, p.53, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Anyone can win a slam-dunk contest. The real Superman is dead. He was assassinated by Pat Riley. I'm the Big Cactus now and ready to roll again.

  Shaquille O'Neal

  Basketball, Real, Winning

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