Desert Quotes - Page 40

• Soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of diamonds as big as the tip of your thumb, of lost cities and of vast mountains, of steam-trains and clipper ships, of pampas, oceans, deserts, tundra.

  Neil Gaiman

  Beautiful, Ocean, Adventure

  Neil Gaiman (2009). “The Graveyard Book”, p.182, A&C Black

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• A thousand plastic flowers don't make a desert bloom. A thousand empty faces don't fill an empty room".

  Frederick Salomon Perls

  Flower, Empty Rooms, Faces

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• Sometimes I get so tired of trying to convince him that I love him and shall love him for ever. He pounces on my words like a barrister and twists them. I know he is afraid of that desert which would be around him if our love were to end, but he can't realise that I feel exactly the same. What he says aloud, I say to myself silently and write it here.

  Graham Greene

  Writing, Tired, I Love Him

  "The end of the affair".

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• It was as if hope had appeared out of nowhere to settle beside her and it wasn't going anywhere, it wasn't going to desert her now.

  Alice Hoffman

  Settling, Ifs

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• at last you, will say (maybe without speaking) (there are mountains inside your skull garden and chaos, ocean and hurricane; certain corners of rooms, portraits of great-grandmothers, curtains of a particular shade; your deserts; your private dinosaurs; the first woman) all i need to know: tell me everything just as it was from the beginning.

  Margaret Atwood

  Ocean, Grandmother, Garden

  Margaret Atwood (1987). “Selected Poems: 1965-1975”, p.39, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Although people rarely died playing Quidditch, referees had been known to vanish and turn up months later in the Sahara Desert.

  J. K. Rowling

  People, Sahara, Months

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• No matter how serious the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, God will never desert us, He never has, and He never will.

  George Q. Cannon

  Trials, Affliction, Matter

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• To a person who expects every desert to be barren sand dunes, the Sonoran must come as a surprise. Not only are there no dunes, there's no sand. At least not the sort of sand you find at the beach. The ground does have a sandy color to it, or gray, but your feet won't sink in. It's hard, as if it's been tamped. And pebbly. And glinting with -- what else -- mica.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Beach, Color, Feet

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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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• A man seeks his own destiny and no other, said the judge. Wil or nill. Any man who could discover his own fate and elect therefore some opposite course could only come at last to that selfsame reckoning at the same appointed time, for each man's destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well. The desert upon which so many have been broken is vast and calls for largeness of heart but it is also ultimately empty. It is hard, it is barren. Its very nature is stone.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Heart, Fate, Destiny

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• Deserts possess a particular magic, since they have exhausted their own futures, and are thus free of time. Anything erected there, a city, a pyramid, a motel, stands outside time. It's no coincidence that religious leaders emerge from the desert. Modern shopping malls have much the same function. A future Rimbaud, Van Gogh or Adolf Hitler will emerge from their timeless wastes.

  J. G. Ballard

  Religious, Cities, Shopping

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• No miles of level desert, no jagged mountain heights, no sea of endless blue Neither words nor tears, nor silent fears will keep me from coming back to you.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Blue, Sea, Tears

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• America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.

  Dinesh D'Souza

  Country, 4th Of July, Unique

  Dinesh D'Souza (2012). “What's So Great About America”, p.140, Regnery Publishing

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• The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts; but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Fall, Doubt, Wicked

  The Newcomes ch. 20 (1853 - 1855)

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• Babe," Ranger said. "You're looking a little strung out. Is there anything I should know?" I'm on a sugar withdrawal. I've given up desert and it's all I can think about." That had been true five minutes ago. Now that Ranger was standng in front of me I was thinking a cupcake wasn't what I actually needed. Maybe I can help you get your mind off doughnuts," Ranger said. My mouth dropped open, and I think some drool might have dribbled out.

  Janet Evanovich

  Thinking, Cupcakes, Mind

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• I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dream, Oasis, Justice

  "Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech is the greatest oration of all time" by Sean O'Grady, www.independent.co.uk. April 3, 2018.

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• There had been certain romantic interludes in the past that had included galloping across the desert at night; but he had never abducted any woman whose enthusiastic support for such a plan had not been secured well in advance.

  Robin McKinley

  Past, Night, Support

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• Bod said, 'I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want,' he said, and then he paused and he thought. 'I want everything.

  Neil Gaiman

  Life, Football, Islands

  Neil Gaiman (2009). “The Graveyard Book”, p.188, A&C Black

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• its like you said? i lead my people-" forth!" zifnab carried on enthusiastically! " out of eygpt! out of bondage! across the desert! pillar of fire-" desert?" lenthan looked anxious again. "fire? i thought we were going to the stars!" sorry. wrong script" zifnab said

  Margaret Weis

  Stars, Sorry, Fire

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• My early book learning came to me as naturally as the seasons in … the little town in which I grew up. … Quite early I began to find a special charm in an unpeopled world … of lava rock and sagebrush desert. … I was often more purely happy at such times than I think I have ever been since.

  Richard McKenna

  Book, Thinking, Rocks

  Richard McKenna (1972). “New eyes for old: nonfiction writings”, John F Blair Pub

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• Just as the pioneers made the desert blossom as a rose, so too our lives and families will blossom if we follow their example and embrace their traditions. Yes, pioneer faith is needed as much in the world today as in any period of time. Once again, we need to know that heritage. We need to teach it, we need to be proud of it, and we need to preserve it.

  L. Tom Perry

  Rose, Example, Pioneers

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• It is all very well, when the pen flows, but then there are the dark days when imagination deserts one, and it is an effort to put anything down on paper. That little you have achieved stares at you at the end of the day, and you know the next morning you will have to scrape it down and start again.

  Elizabeth Aston

  Morning, Dark, Imagination

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• Once in a lifetime, perhaps, one escapes the actual confines of the flesh. Once in a lifetime, if one is lucky, one so merges with sunlight and air and running water that whole eons, the eons that mountains and deserts know, might pass in a single afternoon without discomfort.

  Loren Eiseley

  Running, Journey, Air

  Loren Eiseley (2011). “The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature”, p.16, Vintage

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• Without optimism & self-belief among teachers, classrooms become wastelands of boredom & routine and schools deserts of lost opportunity.

  Andy Hargreaves

  Leadership, Teacher, Learning

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• For me, a desert island is no tragedy, neither is a deserted planet.

  Peter Wessel Zapffe

  Islands, Tragedy, Planets

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