Appalachian Quotes

Or maybe when she realized that he was never going to come and rescue her, she did what all strong women do. She found a way to save herself. ~ Adriana Trigiani

I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references. ~ Carlisle Floyd

A bit reluctantly, trying to leave my bruised ego behind, I was warming to the Appalachian idea.
Bourbon and branch water. Dulcimer music. Wildflowers in jelly jars. Biscuits and country ham. That did have a certain charm. ~ Judith Fertig

My motivation to keep hiking was rooted in the magnificent details of the Appalachian Mountains, and the more I poured myself out - the more energy I gave the trail - the more it gave me in return. ~ Jennifer Pharr Davis

When Merle and I started out we called our music 'traditional plus,' meaning the traditional music of the Appalachian region plus whatever other styles we were in the mood to play. ~ Doc Watson

At the time of our hike, the
Appalachian Trail was fifty-nine years old. That is, by American standards, incredibly venerable. The Oregon and Santa Fe trails didn't last as long. Route 66 didn't last as long.
The old coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway, a road that brought transforming wealth and life to hundreds of little towns, so important and familiar that it became known as "America's Main Street," didn't last as long. Nothing in America does. If a product or enterprise doesn't constantly reinvent itself, it is superseded, cast aside, abandoned without sentiment in favor of something bigger, newer, and, alas, nearly always uglier. And then there is the good old AT, still quietly ticking along after six decades, unassuming, splendid, faithful to its founding principles, sweetly unaware that the world has quite moved on. It's a miracle really. ~ Bill Bryson

In April, he spent ten days off the grid training with Carmichael and Bob Roll, Carmichael's affable thirty-eight-year-old former 7-Eleven teammate, in the college town of Boone, North Carolina, in the Appalachian Mountains. ~ Reed Albergotti

Nothing else in the whole wide world matters as much as avenging your sister. ~ Jason Jack Miller

Sometimes on late summer nights, when the sky is perfect and our parents are in a good enough mood to let us, we meet up to take a midnight walk through the field beyond our houses. It's always peaceful and quiet, a perfect time to stargaze into the velvety black sky dotted with millions of crystals that make up the Milky Way. The warm summer night's breeze ripples the tall grass and makes a small brushing sound that echoes throughout the valley. In the distance, the Appalachian Mountains loom like giant gray ghosts cast in the silvery glow of the midnight Moon. They wrap around our little valley like a scarf, and the hollers that seem close in the daytime seem like a lifetime away in the dark. We become engulfed by the thousands of fireflies that dance around in the steamy mist that radiates off of the ground because of the humidity. Those are the beautiful midsummer nights in Valia Springs that I will never forget. ~ Jacquelyn Eubanks

You kids have fun, and be home by Thanksgiving! our parents would call to us on Halloween night, as we staggered out the front door, weighed down by hundreds of pounds of concealed vandalism supplies, including enough raw eggs to feed Somalia for decades. By morning, thanks to our efforts, the entire neighborhood would be covered with a layer of congealed shaving cream and toilet paper that, around certain unpopular neighbors' homes, was hundreds of feet thick. This is how the Appalachian Mountains were formed. ~ Dave Barry

People will always go to games. And not just Duke versus North Carolina. Even Appalachian State against Chatworth. ~ Sonny Vaccaro

In America, alas, beauty has become something you drive to, and nature an either/or proposition
either you ruthlessly subjugate it, as at Tocks Dam and a million other places, or you deify it, treat it as something holy and remote, a thing apart, as along the Appalachian Trail. Seldom would it occur to anyone on either side that people and nature could coexist to their mutual benefit
that, say, a more graceful bridge across the Delaware River might actually set off the grandeur around it, or that the AT might be more interesting and rewarding if it wasn't all wilderness, if from time to time it purposely took you past grazing cows and till fields. ~ Bill Bryson

I don't know anything about the Appalachian mountains or cowboys and Indians or anything. I just made it up. ~ Paul McCartney

Though the trials of life are never easy, someone to stand with you and help you with your burdens is one of the true essences of living. It is well that two should join together to face life as friends as well as lovers. ~ Micheal Rivers

Deep Southerners assumed Appalachia would rally to the Confederacy because of a shared doctrine of white supremacy. Instead, Borderlanders did as they always had: they took up arms against whatever enemy they felt was the greatest threat, and fought ferociously against them. To the planters' shock, most Appalachian people regarded them as a greater threat to their liberty than the Yankees. ~ Colin Woodard

My daughter Meredith Moon from my second wife has a band that does Appalachian music, with five-strong banjo, clawhammer style. I may have to direct her somewhere. Meredith was my middle name. I would have to direct her because I am always directing something. She's in the musician's union and she is only 21. Your kids surprise you. ~ Gordon Lightfoot

If you turn left at the next logging road, he said, and walk a quarter of a mile, you come to a dock on a lake, with an air horn hanging off it. You honk the air horn, and someone comes and picks you up in a boat, and they take you to this place where there's pizza and showers and cold beer! ~ Lucy Letcher

Well if this be order
give me a wheelbarruh of chaos
and a pop bottle full of shook up rattlesnakes ~ Bob Henry Baber

The tragedy of Central Appalachia is that it is becoming more marginalized in American life just when the country needs more than ever what it has to offer. At a time when the bonds of community and family are visibly failing and people feel more alone than ever, and as they are bombarded from all sides with more demands, and with more "data" that they can possibly digest, Appalachia offers a model for a less frenetic and more measured way of life. People of Appalachian descent elsewhere in the nation-and they number many millions-still feel deep ties to some Appalachian hamlet or hollow as to an ancestral homeland, though they may never have even visited it. As they make their way in the big world of getting and spending they know that something valuable has been lost for all they may have gained. That less frenetic way of life is deeply embedded in Appalachian culture, which has proved incredibly tough and enduring. Yet Appalachia has now been so thoroughly bypassed and forgotten that it cannot give, because the rest of America will not take, what could be it's greatest gift. ~ Harry M. Caudill

I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music. ~ Renee Fleming

There is redemption in sadness. It tells me that for nearly five months in 2003, I lived life with the open, raw, refreshing outlook of the young. The payoff, though difficult to quantify, is much greater than I expected. I have no regrets about having gone -- it was the right thing to do. I think about it every day. Sometimes I can hardly believe it happened. I just quit -- and I was on a monumental trip. I didn't suffer financial ruin, my wife didn't leave me, the world didn't stop spinning. I do think of how regrettable it would have been had I ignored the pull that I felt to hike the trail. A wealth of memories could have been lost before they had even occurred if I had dismissed as a whim my inkling to hike. It is disturbing how tenuous our potential is due to our fervent defense of the comfortable norm. ~ David Miller

There are two things I am afraid of. One is dying young. The other is Johnny Monroe. ~ Susan Gabriel

Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans now get in a car. On average, the total walking of an American these days - that's walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls - adds up to 1.4 miles a week ... That's ridiculous. ~ Bill Bryson

Preston Black couldn't sleep the whole night through, Preston Black couldn't sleep the whole night through. He'd lay in bed 'til the morning came, but the devil'd visit him just the same. Preston Black couldn't sleep the whole night through. ~ Jason Jack Miller

You are not a handgun. More like a pellet gun. Maybe even a slingshot. ~ Jason Jack Miller

J. Edgar Hoover very famously denied the existence of organized crime up until the Appalachian Meeting, I think, in 1957. It was interesting to me that he clearly had to know that there was such a thing as organized crime and organized criminals as far back as the '20s. ~ Terence Winter

Anyway, we did it," Katz said at last, looking up. He noted my quizzical expression.
"Hiked Maine, I mean."
I looked at him. "Stephen, we didn't even see Mount Katahdin."
He dismissed this as a petty quibble. "Another mountain," he said. "How many do you need to see, Bryson?"
I snorted a small laugh. "Well, that's one way of looking at it."
"It's the only way of looking at it," Katz went on and quite earnestly. "As far as I'm concerned, I hiked the Appalachian Trail. I hiked it in snow and I hiked it in heat. I hiked
it in the South and I hiked in the North. I hiked it till my feet bled. I hiked the Appalachian Trail, Bryson."
"We missed out a lot of it, you know."
"Details," Katz sniffed. ~ Bill Bryson

One Easter, when she heard the priest say He is risen, she found herself standing up from the pew and walking out the cathedral door. She left the order, dyed her hair pink, and hiked the Appalachian Trail. It was somewhere on the Presidential Range that Jesus appeared to her in a vision, and told her there were many souls to feed. ~ Jodi Picoult

Those old Appalachian singers use a falsetto sometimes. They can change their voices to sound high or low or really scratchy. When you're singing, usually you're trying to express some kind of pain or joy. I think that voice allows me to do a lot more of that. ~ Justin Vernon

So I decided to do it [hike the Appalachian Trail]. More rashly, I announced my intention - told friends and neighbors, confidently informed my publisher, made it common knowledge among those who knew me. Then I bought some books ... It required only a little light reading in adventure books and almost no imagination to envision circumstances in which I would find myself caught in a tightening circle of hunger-emboldened wolves, staggering and shredding clothes under an onslaught of pincered fire ants, or dumbly transfixed by the sight of enlivened undergrowth advancing towards me, like a torpedo through water, before being bowled backwards by a sofa-sized boar with cold beady eyes, a piercing squeal, and slaverous, chopping appetite for pink, plump, city-softened flesh. ~ Bill Bryson

The best thing a father can do for his son is love his mother. ~ Adriana Trigiani

I've been doing long-distance backpacking since 2002 when I hiked the Appalachian Trail. You start to calm down and relax and get into the slower rhythm of nature. ~ John Mackey

I grew up at the base of a mountain in Virginia, so my comfort zone is that Appalachian area, where all the dudes wear Carhartt and all the women can put on a beautiful sweater with a snowman applique and nobody raises an eyebrow. ~ Hilarie Burton

I think, being from east Tennessee, you're kinda born with a little lonesome in your soul, in your blood. You know you've got that Appalachian soul. ~ Ashley Monroe

I finally began loving every last bit of the experience; the good, the bad, and the ugly. The indifference, acceptance, disdain, and hate for all the obstacles and challenges I encountered out there had all but vanished. Now, all that was left was this crazy maniacal love for all of it… the mud, the rocks, the cold, and the terrible weather. I was done trying to ignore or curse them, and instead embraced all of it. I finally realized that it was an attitude such as this that set thru-hikers apart from every other person that couldn't or wouldn't complete this adventure. Aristotle said, "Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility, but through greatness of mind." That quote pretty much sums up the state of mind that you have to adopt in order to overcome the challenges of the Appalachian Trail. ~ Kyle Rohrig

They travel through the heartland, past cold factories and drifty towns, to the old, old mountains slumbering east of Tennessee. ~ Sarah Sullivan

The snowfall totals so far have been stunning, with 22 inches of snow on Mount Leconte, Tennessee, which is in the Great Smoky Mountains, and widespread amounts of half-a-foot or more in the southern and central Appalachian Mountains. ~ Anonymous

My first trip was the Appalachian Trail, and I was able to finish it despite having no skills and no experience when I started. In comparison, I can think of only a few individuals in the world who have the potential do complete the Alaska-Yukon Expedition. ~ Andrew Skurka

The state of New York had just one important advantage - an opening to the west through the Appalachian Mountains, the chain that runs in rough parallel to the Atlantic Ocean. It is hard to believe that those soft and rolling mountains, often little more than big hills, could ever have constituted a formidable barrier to movement, but in fact they afforded almost no usable passes along the whole of their twenty-five-hundred-mile length and were such an obstruction to trade and communications that many people believed that the pioneers living beyond the mountains would eventually, of practical necessity, form a separate nation. ~ Bill Bryson

May your glass always be full, may there always be a roof over your head, and may you dirty sinners be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you're dead. ~ Jason Jack Miller

Shenandoah National Park is lovely. It is possibly the most wonderful national park I have ever been in, and, considering the impossible and conflicting demands put on it, it is extremely well run. Almost at once it became my favorite part of the Appalachian Trail. ~ Bill Bryson

Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle. ~ Robert Morgan

Are you crazy?"
"Good grief. I can't be stuck here with that crazy guy." - from CHILLS On the Appalachian Trail ~ Bobbi Jean

While writing 'Cold Mountain,' I held maps of two geographies, two worlds, in my mind as I wrote. One was an early map of North Carolina. Overlaying it, though, was an imagined map of the landscape Jack travels in the southern Appalachian folktales. He's much the same Jack who climbs the beanstalk, vulnerable and clever and opportunistic. ~ Charles Frazier

Yeah, but a hellbender never dies. You ever see a dead one? ~ Jason Jack Miller

I'm sure you have drawers overflowing with panties the ladies throw at the stage. We saw you guys play down at Mon Brewing a few times. Way to keep the Nineties alive. ~ Jason Jack Miller

I reach for the napkin, and as I do I catch sight of my hands. They are knobby and crooked, thin-skinned, and - like my ruined face - covered with liver spots.
My face. I push the porridge aside and open my vanity mirror. I should know better by now, but somehow I still expect to see myself. Instead, I find an Appalachian apple doll, withered and spotty, with dewlaps and bags and long floppy ears. A few strands of white hair spring absurdly from its spotted skull.
I try to brush the hairs flat with my hand and freeze at the sight of my old hand on my old head. I lean close and open my eyes very wide, trying to see beyond the sagging flesh.
It's no good. Even when I look straight into the milky blue eyes, I can't find myself anymore. When did I stop being me? ~ Sara Gruen

She introduced people to the A.T., and at the same time she made the thru-hike achievable. It didn't take fancy equipment, guidebooks, training, or youthfulness. It took putting one foot in front of the other - five million times. ~ Ben Montgomery

After more than two thousand miles on the [Appalachian] trail, you can expect to undergo some personality changes. A heightened affinity for nature infiltrates your life. Greater inner peace. Enhanced self-esteem. A quiet confidence that if I could do that, I can do and should do whatever I really want to do. More appreciation for what you have and less desire to acquire what you don't. A childlike zest for living life to the fullest. A refusal to be embarrassed about having fun. A renewed faith in the essential goodness of humankind. And a determination to repay others for the many kindnesses you have received. ~ Larry Luxenberg

We're all Hitler inside. We're all Christ inside. I'm not keen on the idea, but it's true, isn't it? We've all got a little bit of the devil in us. ~ Jason Jack Miller

In the Deep South, God is a cotton king,
Trussed up in plantation whites and powdered over smooth
with a little bit of talcum from Momma's compact.
He's the Georgia dust that gets on everything, in everything,
Caking the soles of bare feet
sifting through cracks in church pews,
and catching in your lover's eyelashes.

In the Deep South, the Devil is a beautiful boy
who swears and cheats at billiards on Sunday.
He is the one who reaches up your skirt,
pulls out the prayers your were saving for someday
and lights them on fire with his tongue.
He will sing hymns while feasting on your forfeit heart,
call you blessed while peeling away dignity like stockings,
then drag you out in front of the church to be stoned.

In the Deep South, the Holy Spirit is an old woman
with hands brown and gnarled as the nuts she boils
and a voice soft and dark as the Appalachian sky.
She is the swamp kingdom matriarch children are sent to
when sins need to be wished away like warts,
the presence of whom straightens the spines of wayward souls
and coaxes a "Yes Ma'am" from the devil's own.

In the Deep South, Jesus is a mixed-race child
with drops of destiny mingled into his blood
and the names of the saints tattooed along his spine.
He has his mother's bearing, one that wears suffering nobly,
and baleful eyes that speak of the sins of his forefathers.
S.T. Gibson

Personally, I think every guy who calls himself straight should take a hike on the gay Appalachian Trail at least once in his life. ~ Brad Boney

These new prospective projects include the Appalachian Connector and the Diamond East projects, both are major new projects that connect the burgeoning supplies from the Marcellus and Utica directly to growing demand on Transco that is anxious to see the supplies coming their way as those markets strive to grow as well. ~ Alan Armstrong

We can and should have an abundance of trails for walking, cycling, and horseback riding, in and close to our cities. In the backcountry we need to copy the great Appalachian Trail in all parts of America. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Where are we going? We're going to try and fulfill Dr. Martin Luther King's dream, and if we Mexican Americans march to Washington, it is to tell this country that poverty is not a Negro problem. Poverty is a Mexican-American problem; poverty is an American-Indian problem; poverty is a Puerto Rican problem; poverty is an Appalachian problem. ~ Rodolfo Gonzalez Lebrero