Creosote Quotes

That's what you people never understand," said Rincewind, wearily. "You think magic is just something you can pick up and use like a, a -"
"Parsnip?" said Nijel.
"Wine Bottle?" said the Seriph.
"Something like that," said Rincewind cautiously, but rallied somewhat and went on, "But the truth is, is -"
"Not like that?"
"More like a wine bottle?" said the Seriph hopefully.
"Magic uses people," said Rincewind hurriedly. "It affects you as much as you affect it, sort of thing. You can't mess around with magical things without it affecting you. I just thought I'd better warn you."
"Like a wine bottle," said Creosote, "that -"
"- drinks you back," said Rincewind. ~ Terry Pratchett

Coyotes move within a landscape of attentiveness. I have seen their eyes in the creosote bushes and among mesquite trees. They have watched me. And all the times that I saw no eyes, that I kept walking and never knew, there were still coyotes. When I have seen them trot away, when I have stepped from the floorboard of my truck, leaned on the door, and watched them as they watched me over their shoulders, I have been aware for that moment of how much more there is. Of how I have only seen only an instant of a broad and rich life. ~ Craig Childs

Values, both those that we approve and those that we don't, have roots as deep as creosote rings, and live as long and grow as slowly ~ Wallace Stegner

As a pupil of wild things, I have come to understand that life must continue despite the cruelty of the climate. Lack of sunlight does not defeat the albino Indian pipe; scarcity of water does not destroy the creosote. Survival depends on evolution and evolution on a determined will to adapt. Over ~ Krista Schlyer

Creosote made Mandy think of the thrill of rushing through a garden sprinkler as a kid, of playing washer toss in the backyard, of spending nights in the neighbors' huge in-ground swimming pool when she was twelve, throwing glow sticks in the turquoise water during Canada Day block parties. She thought of Jud for a moment, how he'd loved doing all those things when he was a kid, but how, as he got older, it was all about popularity, sports, a life of illusion… and without warning, a totally different kind of memory filled her mind – the dull feeling of her head hitting the concrete walls near the wood shop at her old high school, the sounds of kids laughing, the sharp smell of sawdust, the buzzing of electric sanders nearby, the sound of Jud laughing while he beat her up… without realizing it, she'd started crying noiselessly. ~ Rebecca McNutt

I tried to describe impossible things like the scent of creosote - bitter, slightly resinous, but still pleasant - the high, keening sound of the cicadas in July, the feathery barrenness of the trees, the very size of the sky, extending white-blue from horizon to horizon, barely interrupted by the low mountains covered with purple volcanic rock. The hardest thing to explain was why it was so beautiful to me - to justify a beauty that didn't depend on the sparse, spiny vegetation that often looked half dead, a beauty that had more to do with the exposed shape of the land, with the shallow bowls of valleys between the craggy hills, and the way they held on to the sun. I found myself using my hands as I tried to describe it to him. ~ Stephenie Meyer

To know Seattle one must know its waterfront. It is a good waterfront, not as busy as New York's, not as self-consciously colorful as San Francisco's, not as exotic as New Orleans, but a good, honest, working waterfront with big gray warehouses and trim fishing boats and docks that smell of creosote, and sea gulls and tugs and seafood restaurants and beer joints and fish stores--a waterfront where you can hear foreign languages and buy shrunken heads and genuine stuffed mermaids, where you can watch the seamen follow the streetwalkers and the shore patrol follow the sailors, where you can stand at an open-air bar and drink clam nectar, or sit on a deadhead and watch the water, or go to an aquarium and look at an octopus. ~ Murray Morgan

In the back seat the three now silent, soot-smeared children absorbed it all - the choking creosote stench, the roar of wind and flame, the wild rocking of a car being driven that hard, the heat, the emotion so raw and exposed it was like butchered flesh; the tormented, hopeless feeling of two people who lived together in a love not yet love, nor yet not; an unshared life shared; a conspiracy of affections, illnesses, tragedies, jokes and labour; a marriage - the strange, terrible neverendingness of human beings. A family. ~ Richard Flanagan

The name explains the structure: carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen bond into a ring-shaped structure called a cresol (also found in creosote), and phosphorus hangs on to the ring like an exhausted swimmer gripping a life preserver. ~ Deborah Blum

I alight at Esplanade in a smell of roasting coffee and creosote and walk up Royal Street. The lower Quarter is the best part. The ironwork on the balconies sags like rotten lace. Little French cottages hide behind high walls. Through deep sweating carriageways one catches glimpses of courtyards gone to jungle. ~ Walker Percy