Desert Solitaire Quotes

The cactus of the high desert is a small grubby, obscure and humble vegetable associated with cattle dung and overgrazing, interesting only when you tangle with it the wrong way. Yet from this nest of thorns, this snare of hooks and fiery spines, is born once each year a splendid flower. It is unpluckable and except to an insect almost unapproachable, yet soft, lovely, sweet, desirable, exemplifying better than the rose among thorns the unity of opposites ~ Edward Abbey

The marvel is that we did not all die of cold. As a matter of fact, only one of my party actually froze to death before he could be got back, but I am not able to tell how many have ended up in hospital. We were marooned in a frozen desert. There was not a sign of life on the horizon and a thousand signs of death. ~ Wilfred Owen

I do not know what right I have to so much happiness, but rather hold it in reserve till the time of my desert. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The sky was the yellow color of old cheese and the clouds flew across it, as if they had seen something horrifying in the desert wastes where they had so lately been. ~ Stephen King

Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air. ~ Charles Churchill

Life in God should be a daring adventure of love - a continuous journey of putting aside our securities to enter more profoundly into the uncharted depths of God. Too often, however, we settle for mediocrity. We follow the rules and practices of prayer but we are unwilling or, for various reasons, unable to give ourselves totally to God. To settle on the plain of mediocrity is really to settle for something less than God that leaves the heart restless and unfulfilled. A story from the desert fathers reminds us that giving oneself wholly to God can make a difference: Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, "Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?" Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, "If you will, you can become all flame."15 ~ Ilia Delio

Although the vast country which we have been describing was inhabited by many indigenous tribes, it may justly be said at the time of its discovery by Europeans to have formed one great desert. The Indians occupied without possessing it. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

That hemisphere of the moon which faces us is better known than the earth itself; its vast desert plains have been surveyed to within a few acres; its mountains and craters have been measured to within a few yards; while on the earth's surface there are 30,000,000 square kilometres (sixty times the extent of France), upon which the foot of man has never trod, which the eye of man has never seen. ~ Camille Flammarion

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave One scent to hyson and to wall-flower, One sound to pine-groves and to water-falls, One aspect to the desert and the lake. It was her stern necessity : all things Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and flower, Song, picture, form, space, thought, and character Deceive us, seeming to be many things, And are but one. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

MAN AND WOMAN

Man is a like a desert without the rain of a woman. Nothing can be born and grown without her nourishment. She is a life-giving river that gives and loves without holding anything back. And without her water, man would walk around aimlessly, feeling incomplete and hollow like an empty well. The longer he roams, the deeper the hole within his soul expands, growing bigger and bigger like a barren tree whose branches resemble the cracks on hard, dry soil. And he shall continue to feel incomplete and malnourished, until he encounters a godly woman. To show him life and quench his thirst. ~ Suzy Kassem

If the price I have to pay to see Jewish children playing without an armed escort are freeways across the desert and a take-a-way on every street corner throughout the Middle East, then I'm all for it. ~ Ray Stone

Psalm 63 A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah. 1 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. ~ Beth Moore

I read more widely. I made friends more widely. I wore more red. I stayed home on Sundays. I did things that were never in the realm of possible things to do before. That was a real desert experience for me. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

Some men turn away from all this cheap emotion with a kind of heroic despair ... But this too can be an error. For if our emotions really die in the desert, our humanity dies with them. ~ Thomas Merton

If you can survive in the desert, you survive anywhere. I know more than anything life in desert. You can tell by looking at the dirt how long ago it rained, how hard it rained, how much water came through. You can by looking at a plant, a tree, from an animal's look. I can read the desert like I read my hand. ~ Waris Dirie

Through it all, this wild life on and off the road , through Jordanian deserts , Spanish islands, German prisons, Caribbean tax scams, halls of fame,wine, women, and all the drugs under the sun - one constant companion has never abandoned me . My first true love : singing Its been the savior of many poor boy, and God I know I'm one ~ Eric Burdon

When there's no sign of hope in the desert, so much hope still lives inside despair. Heart, don't kill that hope ... ~ Rumi

If you spend enough time in the desert, you will hear it speak. ~ Nnedi Okorafor

At around 8 pm we heard the sound of sirens. As the sound drew nearer and nearer, we caught sight of a fire truck. As it reached the hotel, the truck pulled into the parking lot with emergency lights shining and horns blasting. It came to a stop in front of our congregation. We didn't see a fire or any other emergency in the immediate vicinity, so this was quite unexpected. Perhaps our smell had been reported as some kind of toxic leak or spill? Firemen began to pour out of the truck carrying different trays covered in foil. I could hardly believe my eyes. The local Franklin Fire Department had brought us all a spaghetti and meatball dinner! They also brought salad and pudding for desert. This was an example of trail magic at its finest. ~ Kyle Rohrig

Believe me, I will never desert life until this last hope is torn from my bosom, that in some way my labours may form a link of gold with which we ought all to strive to drag Happiness from where she sits enthroned above the clouds, now far beyond our reach, to inhabit the earth with us. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

A poet is a poet, whether he rides in a Ford or on a donkey; a sage is a sage, whether he plays golf in New Jersey or bathes in the Ganges, or prays in the desert; and a fool is a fool, whether he be a maharaja or a president of a post-war republic. ~ Ameen Rihani

In Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times, who built him a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a tackle; in him we have a remarkable instance of a dauntless stander-of-mast-heads; ~ Herman Melville

The planet's famous red colour is from iron oxide coating everything. So it's not just a desert. It's a desert so old it's literally rusting. ~ Andy Weir

So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear. ~ Graham Greene

There is only the one like me, the companion man or woman, who can wake me from my torpor, set off the poetry, hurl me against the limits of the old desert for me to triumph over it. No other. Neither sky nor privileged earth, now things which set you to trembling.
Torch, I only waltz with that one. ~ Rene Char

It was as if hope had appeared out of nowhere to settle beside her and it wasn't going anywhere, it wasn't going to desert her now. ~ Alice Hoffman

Right now I am preparing for another art exhibit in November in Palm Desert. ~ Dwayne Hickman

In 1955 flying was much more dangerous than it is now, but there was a party atmosphere aboard long flights and everyone enjoyed the ever-flowing drinks and food. Smoking was the norm and it didn't take long before the cabin was full of smoke. The stewardesses were friendly and I can remember some that were very friendly.

I don't remember much about my time in Lisbon because, before I knew it, we were in the air again heading south across the ocean to the vastness of the North African desert. The light yellow sand under us in Morocco and the Spanish Sahara was endless. The fine sand went from the barren coastal surf and endless miles of beautiful beaches, inland as far as the eye could see.

After a time I saw what I believed, at the time, to be a radio relay station located out on a desolate sand spit near Villa Bens. It was only later that I found out that it was Castelo de Tarfaya, a small fortification on the North African coast. Tarfaya was occupied by the British in 1882, when they established a trading post called Casa del Mar. This forgotten part of the world is now in the southern part of Morocco. ~ Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater Two...."

Some people at the party, she adds, are freaks, then mentions a drug I've never heard of, and tells me a story that involves ski masks, zombies, a van, chains, a secret community, and asks me about a Hispanic girl who disappeared in some desert. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

C. Samuel Storms has so aptly written, Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to bestow it in the presence of human merit ... Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to withdraw it in the presence of human demerit ... [Grace] is treating a person without the slightest reference to desert whatsoever, but solely according to the infinite goodness and sovereign purpose of God.4 ~ Jerry Bridges

Christians with the most spiritual depth are generally those who have been taken through the most intense and deeply anguishing fires of the soul. If you have been praying to know more of Christ, do not be surprised if He leads you through the desert or through a furnace of pain. ~ Lettie B. Cowman

One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.
And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. The heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer's ancient green lawns.
Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground.
Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.
The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land.... ~ Ray Bradbury

Our sin is our resistance to going along with God's initiative in making suffering reparative. We are deeply drawn towards God, but we also sense how following him will dislocate and transform beyond recognition the forms which have made life tolerable for us. We often react with fear, dismay, hostility. We are at war with ourselves, and responding differently to this inner conflict, we end up at war with each other. So it is undoubtedly true that the result of sin is much suffering. But this is by no means distributed according to desert. Many who are relatively innocent are swept up in this suffering, and some of the worse offenders get off lightly. The proper response to all this is not retrospective book-keeping, but making ourselves capable of responding to God's initiative.

But now if that's what sin is, then one can sympathize with a lot of the modern critique of a religion which focuses on the evil tendencies of human nature, and the need for renunciation and sacrifice. This is not because humans are in fact angelic, or there is no point to sacrifice. It's just that focusing on how bad human beings can be, even if it's to refute the often over-rosy views of secular humanists with their reliance on human malleability and therapy, can only strengthen misanthropy, which certainly won't bring you closer to God; and propounding sacrifice and renunciation for themselves takes you away from the main points, which is following God's initiative. That this can invol ~ Charles Taylor

School Library Journal
Gr 3–6 - This interactive manual is fun to read and even more fun to put into practice. From hopscotch to dodge ball, jacks to solitaire, and string games to memory games, all types of activities are included. Games to play with a ball, with cards, in a car on the go, alone, or in a group are all here to be enjoyed. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. There are also historical and factual asides for many of the entries. Some include variations on the main game or alternate names for the activity that have been used through the years. The illustrations depict children demonstrating a particular aspect of a game or just enjoying themselves playing. This is a great resource for parents and teachers, as well as for children. - Cynde Suite, Bartow County Library System, Adairsville, GA ~ J.J. Ferrer

What was a zero anyway? A zero signified nothing, all it did was tell you nothing about nothing. Still, wasn't zero also something meaningful, a number in and of itself? In jianpu notation, zero indicated a caesura, a pause or rest of indeterminate length. Did time that went uncounted, unrecorded, still qualify as time? If zero was both everything and nothing, did an empty life have exactly the same weight as a full life? Was zero like the desert, both finite and infinite? ~ Madeleine Thien

The assassination of Allende quickly covered over the memory of the Russian invasion of Bohemia, the bloody massacre in Bangladesh caused Allende to be forgotten, the din of war in the Sinai Desert drowned out the groans of Bangladesh, the massacres in Cambodia caused the Sinai to be forgotten, and so on, and on and on, until everyone has completely forgotten everything. ~ Milan Kundera

So they drove again, Vivien sitting up and looking now, but as navigator only, letting the desert scratch its own thorny poetry on the enormous moon. ~ Douglas Woolf

You should not see the desert simply as some faraway place of little rain. There are many forms of thirst. ~ William Langewiesche

Early, I indentured myself to the five horizontal lines where black notes were written on a sheet of music. It is a place of world of signs and notations that speaks to me with perfect clarity. It is a place of time signatures, fermatas, ledger lines, grace notes, and demisemiquavers that are the common tongue and heritage of musicians all over the world ... It is something I cannot imagine being without. For without music, life is a journey through a desert that has not ever heard the rumor of God. In music's sweet harmony, I had all the proof I needed of a God who held the earth together between the staffs, where the heavens lay. Here, he marked all the lines and spaces with notes so perfect that they praised all of his creation with their beauty. ~ Pat Conroy