Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Thanks ...
This entry completes a full year of daily wanderlust posts ... and now I think it's time to take a break, at least for a while. Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Quote: John Steinbeck ...
"The next passage in my journey is a love affair. I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, with with Montana it is love, and it's difficult to analyze love when you're in it. . . . It seems to me that Montana is a great splash of grandeur. The scale is huge but not overpowering. The land is rich with grass and color, and the mountains are the kind I would create if mountains were ever put on my agenda. Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans. . . . But I see that as usual, love is inarticulate. Montana has a spell on me. It is grandeur and warmth. If Montana had a seacoast, or I could live away from the sea, I would instantly move there and petition for admission. Of all the states it is my favorite and my love."
-- from Travels with Charley: In Search of America, 1962
-- from Travels with Charley: In Search of America, 1962
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Quote: Charles Tennyson Turner ...
"When the whistle blew and the call stretched thin across the night, one had to believe that any journey could be sweet to the soul."
-- attributed
-- attributed
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Quote: Jack Kerouac ...
"I didn't know who I was -- I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost."
-- from On the Road, 1957
-- from On the Road, 1957
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Quote: Jean-Jacques Rousseau ...
"Walking has something that animates and enlivens my ideas: I almost cannot think when I stay in place; my body must be in motion to set my mind in motion."
-- from The Confessions of J. J. Rosseau, Book 4, 1782
-- from The Confessions of J. J. Rosseau, Book 4, 1782
Monday, June 21, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Quote: John Warren Harper ...
He never took a vacation, and at sixty they read his will.
His day for "retiring from business"
Death wrote in a codicil;
And pinn'd on the door of his office
Was a note which grimly read,
"Out of town -- on a long vacation
Indefinite" it said.
-- from "He Never Took a Vacation," in An Old Fly Book and Other Stuff, 1912
His day for "retiring from business"
Death wrote in a codicil;
And pinn'd on the door of his office
Was a note which grimly read,
"Out of town -- on a long vacation
Indefinite" it said.
-- from "He Never Took a Vacation," in An Old Fly Book and Other Stuff, 1912
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Quote: Sheikh Sa'di ...
The advantages of travel are many, such as recreation of the mind entailing profit; seeing of wonderful, and hearing of strange things; recreation in cities, associating with friends, acquisition of dignity, rank, property, the power of discriminating among acquaintances, and gaining experience of the world, as the travelers in the Tariqat have said: "As long as thou walkest about the shop of the house, thou wilt never become a man, O raw fellow! Go and travel in the world, before that day when thou goest from the world."
-- from Tales from the Gulistân or Rose-Garden of the Sheikh Sa'di of Shirâz, 1258
-- from Tales from the Gulistân or Rose-Garden of the Sheikh Sa'di of Shirâz, 1258
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Quote: William Shakespeare ...
"A traveler! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's. Then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands."
-- from As You Like It, c. 1599
-- from As You Like It, c. 1599
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Quote: Ralph Waldo Emerson ...
"Everything good is on the highway."
-- from "Experience," in Essays, Second Series, 1844
-- from "Experience," in Essays, Second Series, 1844
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Quote: G. K. Chesterton ...
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered."
-- from "On Running After One's Hat," in All Things Considered, 1908
-- from "On Running After One's Hat," in All Things Considered, 1908
Friday, June 11, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Quote: Samuel Taylor Coleridge ...
Keep moving! Steam, or Gas, or Stage,
Hold, cabin, steerage, hencoop's cage --
Tour, Journey, Voyage, Lounge, Ride, Walk,
Skim, Sketch, Excursion, Travel-Talk --
For move you must! 'Tis now the rage,
The law and fashion of the Age.
-- from "The Delinquent Travellers," 1824
Hold, cabin, steerage, hencoop's cage --
Tour, Journey, Voyage, Lounge, Ride, Walk,
Skim, Sketch, Excursion, Travel-Talk --
For move you must! 'Tis now the rage,
The law and fashion of the Age.
-- from "The Delinquent Travellers," 1824
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Quote: Ambrose Bierce ...
ROAD, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
-- from The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
-- from The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
Monday, June 7, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Quote: Henry David Thoreau ...
"It is not worthwhile to go around the world to count the cats in Zanzibar."
-- from Walden, 1854
-- from Walden, 1854
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Quote: Elizabeth Drew ...
“Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation.”
-- from The Literature of Gossip, 1964
-- from The Literature of Gossip, 1964
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Quote: Ian Frazier ...
"For the traveler in the interior of North America the car is a companion with its own definite itinerary. If you're timid about your car you will drive sensibly on paved roads and stay every night in a motel. We all know that it's possible to drive from here to California and stay at more or less the same motel the entire way, in a landscape where certain elements never change. This might have been an interesting experience thirty years ago when it was still new. It might be an interesting experience if you were V. S. Naipaul just arrived here from England. But basically it's a challenge to one's powers of describing the humdrum. On the Great Plains -- and I'm sure in the rest of America as well -- you have to get off the paved road if you want to see where you are. I often found that the experiences I had were interesting in direct proportion to the risks I had taken with my car. If you're not getting stuck occasionally, sliding off the road, knocking your outside mirrors off, bumping your oil pan, you're not doing the job."
-- from "Carving Your Name on the Rock," in They Went: The Art and Craft of Travel Writing, 1991
-- from "Carving Your Name on the Rock," in They Went: The Art and Craft of Travel Writing, 1991
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Quote: Juan Ramón Jiménez ...
One would think
that the earth was the road
Of the body,
that the sea was the road
Of the soul.
-- from "Dream Nocturne," in Roots and Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975, 1976
that the earth was the road
Of the body,
that the sea was the road
Of the soul.
-- from "Dream Nocturne," in Roots and Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975, 1976
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Quote: Stephen Douglas ...
"Men who travel should leave their prejudices at home."
-- from Douglass' Monthly, April 1859
-- from Douglass' Monthly, April 1859
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Quote: Thomas Campbell ...
"'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue."
-- from "Pleasures of Hope," 1799
And robes the mountain in its azure hue."
-- from "Pleasures of Hope," 1799
Monday, May 24, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Quote: Ogden Nash ...
Oh, some like trips in luxury ships,
And some in gasoline wagons,
And others swear by the upper air
And the wings of flying dragons.
Let each make haste to indulge his taste,
Be it beer, champagne, or cider;
My private joy, both man and boy,
Is being a railroad rider.
-- from "Riding on a Railroad Train," 1935
And some in gasoline wagons,
And others swear by the upper air
And the wings of flying dragons.
Let each make haste to indulge his taste,
Be it beer, champagne, or cider;
My private joy, both man and boy,
Is being a railroad rider.
-- from "Riding on a Railroad Train," 1935
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Quote: Carl Sandburg ...
I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers: "Omaha."
-- "Limited," from Chicago Poems, 1914
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers: "Omaha."
-- "Limited," from Chicago Poems, 1914
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Quote: Kenneth Grahame ...
The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here today -- in the next week tomorrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped -- always somebody else's horizons! O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!
-- from The Wind in the Willows, 1908
-- from The Wind in the Willows, 1908
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Quote: Eudora Welty ...
"The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.”
-- from The Wide Net and Other Stories, 1943
-- from The Wide Net and Other Stories, 1943
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Quote: P.J. O'Roarke ...
"LIke most people who don't own Bermuda shorts, I'm board by ordinary travel."
-- from Holidays in Hell, 1988
-- from Holidays in Hell, 1988
Friday, May 14, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Quote: Martin Amis ...
"The letter with the foreign postmark that tells of good weather, pleasant food and comfortable accommodation isn't nearly as much fun to read, or to write, as the letter that tells of rotting chalets, dysentary and drizzle."
-- from London Fields, 1989
-- from London Fields, 1989
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Quote: Alfred Viscount Northcliffe ...
"I wish the novelists who write about the islands we are passing would say a little more about the heat and perspiration, and a little less about the waving palms and the dusky queens."
-- from a description of the South China Sea, in My Journey Round the World, 1923
-- from a description of the South China Sea, in My Journey Round the World, 1923
Monday, May 10, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Quote: Jack Kerouac ...
" ... so I had sneaked into San Francisco as I say, coming 3000 miles from my home in Long Island (Northport) in a pleasant roomette on the California Zephyr train watching America roll by outside my private picture window, really happy for the first time in three years, staying in the roomette all three days and three nights with my instant coffee and sandwiches -- Up the Hudson Valley and over across New York State to Chicago and then the Plains, the mountains, the desert, the final mountains of California, all so easy and dream like compared to my old harsh hitch hikings before I made enough to take transcontinental trains ..."
-- from Big Sur, 1962
-- from Big Sur, 1962
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Quote: Earl Mac Rauch ...
"'Cause, remember, no matter where you go . . . there you are."
-- from The Adventures of Burkaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension, 1984
-- from The Adventures of Burkaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension, 1984
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Quote: Paul Theroux ...
"There is not much to say about most airplane journeys. Anything remarkable must be disastrous, so you define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you are grateful."
-- from The Old Patagonian Express, 1979
-- from The Old Patagonian Express, 1979
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Quote: Joachim du Bellay ...
"Happy he who like Ulysses has made a glorious journey."
-- from "Sonnet 31," Lei Regrets, 1555
-- from "Sonnet 31," Lei Regrets, 1555
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Quote: William Least Heat-Moon ...
"A traveler who leaves the journey open to the road finds unforeseen things come to shape it."
-- from Blue Highways, 1982
-- from Blue Highways, 1982
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Quote: Tom Robbins ...
"From Whitman to Steinbeck to Kerouac, and beyond to the restless broods of the seventies, the American road has represented choice, escape, opportunity, a way to somewhere else. However illusionary, the road was freedom ..."
-- from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, 1976
-- from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, 1976
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Quote: Lawrence Durrell ...
"Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them are willed or determined by the will -- whatever we may think. They flower spontaneously out of the demands of our natures -- and the best of them lead us not only outwards in space, but inwards as well. Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection."
-- from Bitter Lemons, 1957
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Quote: John Steinbeck ...
"Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don't improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum."
-- from Travels with Charley: In Search of America, 1962
-- from Travels with Charley: In Search of America, 1962
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Quote: Samuel Johnson ...
"He that travels in theory has no inconveniences; he has shade and sunshine at his disposal, and wherever he alights finds tables of plenty and looks of gaiety. These ideas are indulged till the day of departure arrives, the chaise is called, and the progress of happiness begins.
"A few miles teach him the fallacies of imagination. The road is dusty, the air is sultry, the horses are sluggish, and the postilion brutal. He longs for the time of dinner that he may eat and rest. The inn is crouded, his orders are neglected, and nothing remains but that he devour in haste what the cook has spoiled, and drive on in quest of better entertainment. He finds at night a more commodious house, but the best is always worse than he expected."
from "Expectations of Pleasure Frustrated," in The Idler, 1759
"A few miles teach him the fallacies of imagination. The road is dusty, the air is sultry, the horses are sluggish, and the postilion brutal. He longs for the time of dinner that he may eat and rest. The inn is crouded, his orders are neglected, and nothing remains but that he devour in haste what the cook has spoiled, and drive on in quest of better entertainment. He finds at night a more commodious house, but the best is always worse than he expected."
from "Expectations of Pleasure Frustrated," in The Idler, 1759
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Quote: Thurston Clarke ...
"What child has not traveled by spinning a globe? I owned an illuminated one. I switched it on and darkened the room and it became the glowing, revolving planet that introduced travelogues and newsreels. Then I closed my eyes, stabbed at it with a finger, and imagined going wherever I landed. My journey began this way on a snowy February evening in New York when I grabbed a globe off a friend's bookshelf and spun it into a whirling bouquet of continents and oceans. Then I held it in front of a frosted window and watched places I might never see race past. "
-- from Equator: A Journey, 1988
-- from Equator: A Journey, 1988
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Quote: John Julius Norwich ...
"There's no doubt about it: the easier it becomes to travel, the harder it is to be a traveller."
-- from A Taste for Travel:An Anthology, 1985
-- from A Taste for Travel:An Anthology, 1985
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Quote: William Shakespeare ...
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired,
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body's works expired.
-- from "Sonnet XXVII," c. 1594
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body's works expired.
-- from "Sonnet XXVII," c. 1594
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Quote: Graham Greene ...
"Everything is going to be different; life is never going to be the same again after your passport has been stamped."
-- from Another Mexico, 1939
-- from Another Mexico, 1939
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Quote: Robert M. Pirsig ...
"Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive."
-- from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974
-- from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Quote: Frances Mayes ...
"Seeing new places always brings up the possibility of other new places."
-- from Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home In Italy, 1996
-- from Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home In Italy, 1996
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Quote: Herman Melville ...
"I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts."
from Moby-Dick, 1851
from Moby-Dick, 1851
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Quote: James M. Cain ...
"There's nothing so dark as a railroad track in the middle of the night."
-- from Double Indemnity, 1943
-- from Double Indemnity, 1943
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Quote: Craig Nelson ...
"Whenever I tell my family where I'm off to next, in fact, my mom always has one question: "Why on earth would you want to go there?"
-- from Let's Get Lost, 1999
-- from Let's Get Lost, 1999
Friday, April 2, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Quote: William Shakespeare ...
"Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at home, I was in a better place: but travellers must be content."
-- from As You Like It, c. 1599
-- from As You Like It, c. 1599
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Quote: William Henry Crosse ..
"The ideal traveler is a temperate man, with a sound constitution, a digestion like an ostrich, a good temper, and no race prejudices."
-- from Medical Hints, 1906
-- from Medical Hints, 1906
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Quote: John Walden ...
"The ability to see the bright side when times get tough may be an asset more valuable than physical conditioning."
-- from Jungle Travel and Survival, 2001
-- from Jungle Travel and Survival, 2001
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Quote: W. Somerset Maugham ...
"The wise traveller travels only in imagination. . . . Those are the best journeys, the journeys that you take at your own fireside, for then you lose none of your illusions."
-- from "Honolulu," in The Trembling of a Leaf, 1921
-- from "Honolulu," in The Trembling of a Leaf, 1921
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Quote: Larry McMurtry ...
"And why do the worst journeys make the best books?"
-- from Roads: Driving America's Great Highways, 2000
-- from Roads: Driving America's Great Highways, 2000
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
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