Avis Muir Quotes

This morning's pastry poses challenges. To assemble the tiny mosaic disks of chocolate flake and candied ginger, Avis must execute a number of discrete, ritualistic steps: scraping the chocolate with a fine grater, rolling the dough cylinder in large-grain sanding sugar, and assembling the ingredients atop each hand-cut disk of dough in a pointillist collage. Her husband wavers near the counter, watching. "They're like something Marie Antoinette would wear around her neck. When she still had one."
"I thought she was more interested in cake," Avis says, she tilts her narrow shoulders, veers around him to stack dishes in the sink. ~ Diana Abu-Jaber

And into the woods I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. ~ John Muir

Nobody has been held accountable for the Bytyqi murders. Those in command of the camp and the forces operating there have never been charged. ~ Avis Bohlen

The soft light of morning falls upon ripening forests of oak and elm, walnut and hickory, and all Nature is thoughtful and calm. ~ John Muir

Bread without flesh is a good diet, as on many botanical excursions I have proved. Tea also may easily be ignored. Just bread and water and delightful toil is all I need - not unreasonably much, yet one ought to be trained and tempered to enjoy life in these brave wilds in full independence of any particular kind of nourishment. ~ John Muir

I've had a great time in South America and South Africa. Indeed it now seems that on this pair of wild hot continents I've enjoyed the most fruitful year of my life. ~ John Muir

Man seems to be the only animal whose food soils him, making necessary much washing and shield-like bibs and napkins. Moles living in the earth and eating slimy worms are yet as clean as seals or fishes, whose lives are one perpetual wash. ~ John Muir

In studying the fate of our forest king, we have thus far considered the action of purely natural causes only; but, unfortunately, man is in the woods, and waste and pure destruction are making rapid headway. If the importance of the forests were even vaguely understood, even from an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of government ~ John Muir

Man is always and everywhere a blight on the landscape. ~ John Muir

I should study Nature's laws in all their crossings and unions; I should follow magnetic streams to their source and follow the shores of our magnetic oceans. I should go among the rays of the aurora, and follow them to their beginnings, and study their dealings and communications with other powers and expressions of matter. ~ John Muir

Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky. ~ John Muir

When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world. ~ John Muir

Nothing truly wild is unclean. ~ John Muir

When facing a Life-changing crisis, don't expect your situation to turn around instantaneously. It won't. So, prepare for the long haul. Nourish yourself. Meditate. Pray. Eat your meals on time and please eat healthy stuff. Exercise. Go for long walks. Goof off once in a while. Your being morose, or your worrying stiff, is not going to solve your problems. The situation will resolve only when the time arrives. Until that happens, you have to last, you have to survive. So, take care of yourself. Every moment. Every day. ~ AVIS Viswanathan

Full of God's thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of beginnings abounding in first lessons of life, mountain building, eternal, invincible, unbreakable order; with sermons in stone, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful with humanity. ~ John Muir

None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild. ~ John Muir

No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening - still all is Beauty! ~ John Muir

No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so insuperable an obstacle in a way of a right understanding of the relations which culture sustains as to wilderness, as that which declares that the world was made especially for the uses of men. Every animal, plant, and crystal controverts it in the plainest terms. Yet it is taught from century to century as something ever new and precious, and in the resulting darkness the enormous conceit is allowed to go unchallenged. ~ John Muir

Like everywhere else in the world, the book stores of Britain are struggling with being pushed out of the market by online booksellers. The most popular book store chain in the UK is Waterstones. They are closing locations and cutting back as they lost business, but they aren't losing business as fast and as hard as the book stores in the US. There is one reason for this: sales. If you go into a book store in the UK, you will be greeted by tables covered with bestsellers and crime novels and other popular books, stacked high with signs saying "3 for £10". Take heed, American booksellers: people buy more things when you lower the price sometimes. People love a special offer. ~ Alana Muir

This time it is real - all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death! ~ John Muir

Never while anything is left of me shall this ... camp be forgotten. It has fairly grown into me, not merely as memory pictures, but as part and parcel of mind and body alike. ~ John Muir

When I discovered a new plant, I sat down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance and hear what it had to tell ... I asked the boulders I met, whence they came and whither they were going. ~ John Muir

I like to walk, touch living Mother Earth - bare feet best, and thrill every step. Used to envy happy reptiles that had advantage of so much body in contact with earth, bosom to bosom. [We] live with our heels as well as head and most of our pleasure comes in that way. ~ John Muir

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. ~ John Muir

Only spread a fern-frond over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in. ~ John Muir

We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. ~ John Muir

I'd rather be in the mountains thinking of God, than in church thinking about the mountains. ~ John Muir

One day's exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books. ~ John Muir

You know that I have not lagged behind in the work of exploring our grand wilderness, and in calling everybody to come and enjoy the thousand blessings they have to offer. ~ John Muir

One of the best ways to see tree flowers is to climb one of the tallest trees and to get into close, tingling touch with them, and then look broad. ~ John Muir

I intend to take on the habit myself! Cigarettes! On a space station! What a power play. ~ Tamsyn Muir

Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand. ~ John Muir