Canoeing Quotes

We Let the Boat Drift

I set out for the pond, crossing the ravine
where seedling pines start up like sparks
between the disused rails of the Boston and Maine.

The grass in the field would make a second crop
if early autumn rains hadn't washed
the goodness out. After the night's hard frost
it makes a brittle rustling as I walk.

The water is utterly still. Here and there
a black twig sticks up. It's five years today,
and even now I can't accept what cancer did
to him -- not death so much as the annihilation
of the whole man, sense by sense, thought
by thought, hope by hope.

Once we talked about the life to come.
I took the Bible from the nightstand
and offered John 14: "I go to prepare
a place for you.""Fine. Good," he said.
"But what about Matthew? 'You, therefore,
must be perfect, as your heavenly Father
is perfect.'" And he wept.

My neighbor honks and waves driving by.
She counsels troubled students; keeps bees;
her goats follow her to the mailbox.

Last Sunday afternoon we went canoeing on the pond. Something terrible at school had shaken her. We talked quietly far from shore. The paddles
rested across our laps; glittering drops
fell randomly from their tips. The light
around us seemed alive. A loon-itinerant-
let us get quite close before it dove, coming up
after a long time, and ~ Jane Kenyon

Millions of Americans each year use our national forests to go hiking, fishing, hunting, camping, swimming, horseback riding, and canoeing. ~ Ric Keller

I have this dream of what I ultimately want my life to be like, and it involves a lot of quaint activities like cooking and canoeing and camping and hiking. ~ Hannah Kearney

I do it for the girls."

"What girls?"

He smirked. "They think it's sexy."

"It's not."

"No?"

"I assure you."

"Not sexy?"

"You look khila, like a half-wit."

"That hurts," he said.

"What girls anyway?"

"You're jealous."

"I'm indifferently curious."

"You can't be both." He took another drag and squinted through the smoke. "I'll bet they're talking about us now."

In Laila's head, Mammy's voice rang out. Like a mynah bird in your hands. Slacken your grip and away it flies. Guilt bore its teeth into her. Then Laila shut off Mammy's voice. Instead, she savored the way Tariq had said us. How thrilling, how conspiratorial, it sounded coming from him. And how reassuring to hear him say it like that - casually, naturally. Us. It acknowledged their connection, crystallized it.

"And what are they saying?"

"That we're canoeing down the River of Sin," he said.

"Eating a slice of Impiety Cake."

"Riding the Rickshaw of Wickedness?" Laila chimed in.

"Making Sacrilege Qurma."

They both laughed. Then Tariq remarked that her hair was getting longer. "It's nice," he said.

Laila hoped she wasn't blushing. "You changed the subject."

"From what?"

"The empty-headed girls who think you're sexy."

"You know."

"Know what?"

"That I only ~ Khaled Hosseini

I like to run a lot. I play tennis, and I like doing outdoorsy stuff - fishing, canoeing. ~ Garrett Neff

Obey, obey, obey
-obey what?
My body catching this wind is obeying
the pulse of the breathtaking Divine.
You, canoeing those rapids, are breaking
into the spray of larger, unseen Waves. ~ Mohja Kahf

When I was taking my canoeing lessons I was given this oar to practice with, and I decided to have everyone sign it. All the cast and crew signed it and now I'm going to frame it. ~ Jared Gilman

Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go canoeing. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Jack London is a very generous description of my small hiking, bicycling, and canoeing habit. I myself feel like a weak urbanite a lot of the time, because lots of my friends are incredible outdoorsmen and women. ~ Nick Offerman

What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other travel. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred miles on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature. ~ Pierre Trudeau

Take everything as it comes; the wave passes, deal with the next one. ~ Tom Thomson

Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing. I suppose some will wish to debate whether it is important to keep these primitive arts alive. I shall not debate it. Either you know it in your bones, or you are very, very old. ~ Aldo Leopold

My sport is biking. I'm not much of a gym person, but I like being outside - hiking, canoeing, camping. ~ Diane Kruger

My hobbies are mountain biking, horseback riding and packing, canoeing and kayaking, hiking, camping, cooking, and skiing. ~ Douglas Preston

To this day, I fondly recall the challenges of building a fire, pitching a tent, climbing a New England mountain, canoeing on a lake. Camp songs still resonate inside me. Competition exists at Keewaydin, of course, but nobody fails summer camp, a nice respite from winters of fortune and misfortune at school. ~ Michael Eisner

Each outing in a canoe is a journey of self-discovery. What person paddling across reflections in morning waters does not see the inner self? The serenity of canoeing strips us of all but the essentials and encourages us to consider our place in the universe. Mind clutter drains away, like water dripping from a paddle blade, and makes space for clarity of thought. ~ Jim Poling Sr.

A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Our canoe raced toward the rock. ~ R.J. Harlick

What size you wear?"
"Size?" Thomas thought for a second. "I … don't know." "Eleven."
"Geez, shank, you got big feet." Minho stood up holding a pair of sleek silver ones. "But looks like I've got some – man, we could go canoeing in these things. ~ James Dashner

Writing is like canoeing. When everything is flowing it's great but when it's not, you're dragging your butt the whole way down the river. ~ Jamie Krakover

Paddling a canoe is a source of enrichment and inner renewal. ~ Pierre Trudeau

I learned to canoe at summer camp and thought I'd pursue Olympic whitewater canoeing. In my senior year of high school, I instead decided to attend M.I.T. I like to say I've had only two jobs in my life: whitewater canoeing instructor and wilderness guide in college, and C.E.O. of iRobot. ~ Colin Angle

Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe. ~ Henry David Thoreau

If I decide I want to go canoeing, I've got a canoe. If I want to take my dog with me, nobody tells me I can't do it. If I want to go skinny dipping and wash my body, I can take my clothes off. ~ Burt Shavitz

Canoeing was hard and scary, and the wind could blow you across the lake if you did it wrong. After a year of not doing it right, I could talk to people and get them to sit up straight, take different kinds of chances, to breathe differently, to engage in the moment in the boat. And I changed them, and I changed me in the process. ~ Seth Godin

Ah, Jenks? It's not a lake, it's a friggin' freshwater ocean. Did you see the size of the tanker going under the bridge when we came into town? The wake from it could tip us. I'm not canoeing it unless your name is Pocahontas. ~ Kim Harrison