Bumpy Roads Quotes

I've had my ups and downs. My fair share of bumpy roads and heavy winds. That's what made me what I am today. ~ Jean-Claude Van Damme

Look at pictures of me growing up. It wasn't always the way it is now. It was a bumpy road for me. ~ Chris Evans

I understood. Being from a place where a few facts are enough to define you, where a few habits can fill a life, causes a unique kind of shame. We'd had small lives, populated by a longing from something more substantial than dirt roads and small dreams. So we'd come here, where life needed no elaboration and others would tell us who to be. ~ Kevin Powers

In the early West, law and politics were parallel roads to usefulness as well as distinction. ~ John George Nicolay

Man likes to make roads and to create, that is a fact beyond dispute. But why has he such a passionate love for destruction and chaos also? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I was born in 1940 in Minnesota and grew up in the country ... dirt roads, swamps, lakes, woods. ~ Terry Gilliam

one kept me informed on Dad's progress. Or lack of progress. Or how serious it all was - is. You certainly didn't, darling." Yet, was this true? Vaguely I seemed to know that my father was not doing well for some time. Driving on our country roads you see the carcasses of animals - raccoons, deer - lying at the roadside, killed ~ Joyce Carol Oates

For many years Henry Kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy roads, or rainy roads, or summertime roads, when the while raspberries shot their new growth in brambles along the last section of town before he turned off to where the wider road led to the pharmacy. Retired now, he still wakes early and remembers how mornings used to be his favorite, as though the world were his secret, tires rumbling softly beneath him and the light emerging through the early fog, the brief sight of the bay off to his right, then the pines, tall and slender, and almost always he road with the window partly open because he loved the smell of the pines and the heavy salt air, and in the winter he loved the smell of the cold. ~ Elizabeth Strout

Let's withdraw from Afghanistan and have the army invade America - that's the only way we'll get new schools and roads. ~ Andy Borowitz

Women who were so skinny that their hip bones stuck out just pissed me off. If I wanted a bumpy ride I'd take my bike out to the train tracks. ~ Bethany Lopez

Every journey taken always includes the path not taken, the detour through hell, the crossroads of indecision and the long way home. ~ Shannon L. Alder

It is at the cross-roads that skepticism is born, not in a hermitage. ~ Walter Lippmann

I want you to travel roads that aren't there,
build bridges where none exist,
sing songs that haven't been written.

I want you to love yourself fiercely,
love others courageously,
love life unapologetically.

I want you to shatter expectations,
break out of cages,
and dance in crowded streets while it rains. ~ Marcus Granderson

Set backs are bumps in the road, they are not the end of the roads. ~ Bob Greene

Remember the first time you ever came? Tell the truth. You were dreading it."
His brown eyes laughed warmly. "What wasn't to dread? A godforsaken island in the middle of the Atlantic-"
"It's only eleven miles out."
"Same difference. If it didn't have a hospital, it wasn't on my radar screen."
"You thought there'd be dirt roads and nothing to do."
He gave a wry chuckle. Between lobstering, clamming, and sailing, then movie nights at the church and mornings at the cafe, not to mention dinners at home, in town, or at the homes of friends, Nicole had kept him busy.
"You loved it," she dared.
"I did," he admitted. "It was perfect. A world away. ~ Barbara Delinsky

It seemed to me that winter was the time for love, not spring. In winter the habitable world was so much contracted; out of that little shut-in space we lived in, fantastic hopes might bloom. But spring revealed the ordinary geography of the place; the long, brown roads, the old cracked sidewalks underfoot, all the tree branches broken off in winter storms, that had to be cleared out of the yards. Spring revealed distances, exactly as they were. ~ Alice Munro

These roads do not serve transportation alone, they also bind our Fatherland. ~ Fritz Todt

There is no more sagacious animal than the Icelandic horse. He is stopped by neither snow, nor storm, nor impassable roads, nor rocks, glaciers, or anything. He is courageous, sober, and surefooted. He never makes a false step, never shies. If there is a river or fjord to cross (and we shall meet with many) you will see him plunge in at once, just as if he were amphibious, and gain the opposite bank. ~ Jules Verne

People will drive by their high school ten years down the road, just so they can pretend that thinking "not much has changed" is actually true. When really, everything has changed. The air smells the same, but the roads have cracked more. The roads have cracked so much they now look like the skin on a crocodile's back. And all the fields, green in the summers, golden in the autumns, have all been paved over with new reasons to never come back. ~ Dave Matthes

Seems like I've been here before, can't remember when I get this funny feeling, we'll be together again; No straight lines make up my life, all my roads have bends; No clearcut beginnings; so far, no dead ends. ~ Tom Chapin

How we fund transportation in this country is broken. You all pay a gasoline tax, right? Well, cars go farther, we get electric cars, and so on. And then we do more with the money than just build roads. We do bike lanes and mass transit. ~ Kevin McCarthy

People rise from unbelievably bleak and desperate ashes to be the one flower in a graveyard to blossom. The sun is always there. But the flower has to be ready to blossom. "That's crazy" is a roadmap. Start with that phrase and circle it. Then draw all the roads that lead out from that spot. They don't all have to end up at the place you expect. Have fun with it. Find different roads and see where they lead. ~ James Altucher

Byproduct of the circulation of commodities, human circulation considered as a form of consumption, tourism comes down fundamentally to the freedom to go and see what has become banal. The economic planning of the frequenting of different places is already in itself the guarantee of their equivalence. The same modernization that has withdrawn the element of time from journeying, has also withdrawn the reality of space. ~ Tom McDonough

Millions are unemployed and our roads are falling apart. If we can spend $6 trillion sending people to war, we can spend $1 trillion to put Americans to work fixing our nation's crumbling infrastructure. Let's rebuild America and create jobs. ~ Bernie Sanders

Some of you from outside the South may be wondering why we're emphasizing this irrefutable historical fact that everyone should know so strongly already. Well, it's because there has been an unfortunate tendency down here to deflect as much attention as possible away from the atrocities that the South was responsible for before, during, and after the war, and to focus on the glory, the courage, and all that kind of shit instead. We name roads, schools, and parks after Confederate leaders. We erect statues in their honor. We revere them and honor them, all while ignoring the gigantic racist elephant in the room. 4 Look, it ain't nothin' wrong with glory and courage, and it's completely legitimate to acknowledge the military greatness of some of the Confederacy's leaders, but what's not okay is to do so without also acknowledging their complicity in and tacit acceptance of one of the single most reprehensible and inhumane practices in human history. 5 It's disingenuous. It's cheap. It's cowardly. We gotta cut that shit out.

So, yes, we fought a war for slavery, and because sometimes the universe gets some shit right (waterfalls, potatoes, Scarlett Johansson), we lost. Which is another thing we apparently need to remind some of our fellow Southerners of. Not only did we fight a war for slavery, but we got our asses whupped. Until we can all agree to accept this and act accordingly, we're never going to be able to move on. It's nothing to be proud of, y'all - it reall ~ Trae Crowder

I want my own bed, in my own apartment. Home sweet home. No place like home. Take me home, country roads. Home is where the heart is. But my heart is here. So I must be home. ~ Audrey Niffenegger

Are you feeling helpless when you think about the dark roads of the future? Then read the biographies of the great men! Learn their life stories; they will lead you to the light! Buddha will lead you to the light; Gandhi will lead you to the light! Men of wider horizons will broaden our own horizons! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

And the roads called us to take the walk. ~ Avijeet Das

Just as books are read one word at a time, roads are taken one step at a time. ~ Xinran

Williamson, writing in 1810, tells us that the passes were so infested with tigers that the roads were almost impassible. 'Day after day, for nearly a fortnight, some of the dak people were carried off at one or other of these passes.' In ~ Ruskin Bond

She saw the stubborn set of my face. "I've never felt blessed," I said. "There must be free will to choose. Do you know the poem about the two roads, and the one not taken?"
Yes. That has always amused me, because who created the two roads in the first place?"
It was a question I had never considered. ~ Tan Twan Eng

As the bus took us north on a connection of dark farm roads and smaller highways, I started to wonder where all the cars were. How could the streets be so empty? How could people sleep when there was so much at stake, so much happening, when there were so many reasons to be awake and alive?
And I wondered how it was that I could feel both empty, like these streets, and yet so full at the same time. And those weren't the only contrasting poles inside me. I felt sad and happy. Scared and exhilarated. I felt young and old. ~ Dana Reinhardt

At the time, I was driving a 1970 Ford truck that I'd bought for a thousand bucks. In my world, if a vehicle runs and has air in its tires, then it's worth a thousand dollars! The price never changes. I abused that truck for several years, only to sell it for a thousand bucks for an upgrade. It had a rebuilt hot rod engine and was fast! When we cut firewood in the rain, my truck would slide all over dirt roads and occasionally bounce off trees, so both of the truck's sides were badly dented. After a while, I couldn't open either door. It was real-life Dukes of Hazzard!
I remember the first time Missy approached the door and tried to open it. I told her the door wouldn't open, and she started to go around to the other side. I informed her that the other door didn't open, either. As she looked at me with a blank stare, I said, "Rule number one: if you want to go with me, you've got to crawl through the window. ~ Jase Robertson

I don't want to be perfect. I want to be vulnerable and messy and free and wild. I want to experience all the crooked edges in the world, and make mistakes, and grow from them. I want twisty roads and dark corners and big, wide bends.
And I know my parents won't ever agree, but I wish they could at least see my version of the world as a possibility. ~ Akemi Dawn Bowman

My mother showed her gratitude for her life in exile by alluding to India's modernity: the expansive railway network; the Bollywood movies she came to love for their tumultuous stories which ultimately conceded to the cardinal guidelines she held in her own life- love, family and duty. Still, it was Tibet's antiquity that anchored her in exile. It was phayul she longed for when her skin was scorched by the summer heat of India's plains. When she drank milk she compared it to the milk of her childhood for such sweetness and creaminess was not easily forgotten, and when she felt nauseous riding the buses that weaved their way around curvaceous mountain roads she spoke of the horses she had loved to ride. ~ Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

When his mind turned to look back at the memories of a life gone off the track, everything appeared murky, like looking through a stagnant pond, covered completely with green algae, black beneath with the overabundance of bacteria and rot that made it incapable of supporting any other life besides. Through the murk he saw love, love that wasn't cultivated, love that was left to wither and die on the vine in his vain attempt to find happiness. Happiness that he didn't even know he might have had in his hands, had he done his part.
He saw missed opportunities, roads not taken, chances that asked too much of him. And his life, like a beautiful room that slowly emptied of all furnishings until it came down to only himself and the worn soiled carpet beneath him, the walls darkening to make the hell he thought would be his happiness - the hell that was his life. ~ Jason Huffman-Black

All my early memories are of forms and shapes and textures. Moving through and over the West Riding landscape with my father in his car, the hills were sculptures; the roads defined the form. Above all, there was the sensation of moving physically over the contours of fullnessess and concavities, through hollows and over peaks - feeling, touching, seeing, through mind and hand and eye. This sensation has never left me. I, the sculptor, am the landscape. I am the form and the hollow, the thrust and the contour. ~ Barbara Hepworth

We had a lazy voyage, stopping at Fiji and other islands, and finally arrived at Honolulu. It was far more sophisticated than we had imagined with masses of hotels and roads and motor-cars. We arrived in the early morning, got into our rooms at the hotel, and straight away, seeing out of the window the people surfing on the beach, we rushed down, hired our surf-boards, and plunged into the sea. ~ Agatha Christie

No trees in sight, just concrete
Still I see
Two roads twist and turn in front of me
No signs, but screams
Which way's reality?
So you choose; yeah, you choose
Maybe you lose
The sidewalk paved in hitches
Broken hearts not fixed by stitches
But morning's coming soon
No right in sight, just questions
And you find
There is no map to Mecca
It's just life
No right answer; perfect marks
It's no big deal; it's just your heart
Falling stars and lightning sparks
This will only sting a bit
We are all just
Magnets for fate
Stumbling, skipping, running at our pace
Making choices, losing voices
Making wishes for forgiveness
But morning's coming soon

And no matter where you sit, how fast you sip
The coffee tastes the same on magnet lips

"Magnets for Fate"
-Electric Freakshow ~ Cat Patrick

Jack! Pray tell Miss MacFarlane that the roads are impassable."
"The roads are impassable," he replied immediately.
"And that she should stay at least another day."
"You should stay at least another day," he repeated, a twinkle in his eyes.
Fiona nodded. "And that she is more then welcome here."
"I am certain she knows that."
"And how we'd love to have her for another week, at least,and-"
Jack laughed and took his wife's hand. "Fiona, my love, I believe Miss MacFarlane is very aware that we both wish her to stay."
Sophia had to smile. "I am very flattered, but we really must go. There've been so many unexpected storms that the roads could easily get worse."
Jack snorted a laugh while Fiona glanced up the stairs. "Haven't there been," she said grimly before returning to gaze at Sophia. "I am so disappointed you are leaving."
There was genuine warmth in Fiona's voice. "I am, too,but I must get back to my father, who has been ill. I was only to be gone one day, and he'll worry if I don't return immediately."
"I suppose you can't-"
"She's not going anywhere."
Sophia closed her eyes at the deep voice from the top of the stairs. Her enitre body had tightened at the sound, traitor that it was.
Dougal came down the stairs to stand before Sophia, his expressioin guarded and tense. "Fiona,Jack, would you mind giving me a few moments' private speech with Miss MacFarlane?"
"Will you attempt to persuade her to stay ~ Karen Hawkins

Industry, commerce and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of people. ~ Thomas Jefferson

If you can imagine the area and the land in Cambodia, I mean there are hardly any roads in big parts of the country. The roads they have, in the rainy season, become just mud. So, if you're somebody that has just one leg, or blind with no arms and you have children and you're trying to work, and earn some money, and take care of your home, it's hard enough to be a parent and do all of that normally. ~ Angelina Jolie

Everything happens at the time it needs to happen. I do not push destiny. Boxers take different paths in their career and those roads don't always come together. ~ Miguel Cotto