Roxies On The River Quotes

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life? ~ Mary Oliver

On the placidly flowing river of time, he wished only to make a few ripples: he shrank from diverting its course. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Abraham Lincoln wasn't much of a dancer. "Miss Todd, I should like to dance with you in the worst way," he told his future wife. Miss Todd later said to a friend, "He certainly did."

"John Quincy Adams was a first-rate swimmer. Once when he was skinny-dipping in the Potomac River, a women reporter snatched his clothes and sat on them until he gave her an interview."

"(Andrew Johnson couldn't read until he was fourteen! He didn't learn to write until after he was married!) ~ Judith St. George

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!-a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?-weep now or nevermore! ~ Edgar Allan Poe

The savage rushing of the river seemed to be inside her head, inside her body. Even when the oarswomen, their guides, were speaking to her, she had the impression she couldn't quite hear them because of the roar. Not of the river that did indeed roar, just behind them, close to the simple shelter they'd made for her, but because of an internal roar as of the sound of a massive accumulation of words, spoken all at once, but collected over a lifetime, now trying to leave her body. As they rose to her lips, and in response to the question: Do you want to go home? she leaned over a patch of yellow grass near her elbow and threw up.
All the words from decades of her life filled her throat. Words she had said or had imagined saying or had swallowed before saying to her father, dead these many years. All the words to her mother. To her husbands. Children. Lovers. The words shouted back at the television set, spreading its virus of mental confusion.
Once begun, the retching went on and on. She would stop, gasping for breath, rest a minute, and be off again. Draining her body of precious fluid... Soon, exhausted, she was done.
No, she had said weakly, I don't want to go home. I'll be all right now. ~ Alice Walker

This was a voice that drew out memories stretched thin by years of recollection, like paper unfolded and refolded too many times. A voice that brought back, like a wave, the memory of another time on this bridge, a night so long ago, everything black and silver and the river rushing away under her feet ... ~ Cassandra Clare

And I feel like the Queen of Water. I feel like water that transforms from a flowing river to a tranquil lake to a powerful waterfall to a freshwater spring to a meandering creek to a salty sea to raindrops gentle on your face to hard, stinging hail to frost on a mountaintop, and back to a river again. ~ Maria Virginia Farinango

You think too much," Lucas said to me on the banks of the White River the next day.
"I think too much?" I asked, my voice raised.
"Yeah. You can't just sit back and relax without analyzing every little thing," he said.
"That's what you do, Lucas!" I said.
"Only sometimes," he said back.
"Just as much as I do, I'd say."
"Whatever. That's not the point. The point is, you - sorry, we need to learn how to just calm down and take everything in before trying to pick it all apart."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because we always end up ruinin' it before it begins. ~ John Corey Whaley

The dragon is withered
His bones are now crumbled;
His armour is shivered,
His splendour is humbled!
Though sword shall be rusted
And throne and crown perish
With strength that men trusted
And wealth that they cherish,
Here grass is still growing,
And leaves are yet swinging,
The white water flowing,
And elves are yet singing
Come! Tra-la-la-lally!
Come back to the Valley!

The stars are far brighter
Than gems without measure,
The moon is far whiter
Than silver in treasure:
The fire is more shining
On hearth in the gloaming
Than gold won by mining,
So why go a-roaming?
O! Tra-la-la-lally
Come back to the Valley!

O! Where are you going,
So late in returning?
The river is flowing,
The stars are all burning!
O! Wither so laden,
So sad and so dreary?
Here elf and elf-maiden
Now welcome the weary
With Tra-la-la-lally
Come back to the Valley,
Tra-la-la-lally
Fa-la-la-lally
Fa-la! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Tess had said that the river was liable to wash the palace and the city and the whole kingdom off the rocks, and then there would finally be peace in the world.
"Peace in the world," Brigan repeated musingly when Fire told him. "I suppose she's right. That would bring peace to the world. But it's not likely to happen, so I suppose we'll have to keep blundering on and making a mess of it."
"Oh," Fire said, "well put. We'll have to pass that on to the governor so he can use it in his speech when they dedicate the new bridge. ~ Kristin Cashore

I turn and walk back to the home shore whose tall yellow bluffs still bare of snow I can see nearly half a mile to the north. I find my way as I came, over dusty sandbars and by old channels, through shrubby stands of willows. The cold, late afternoon sun breaks through its cloud cover and streaks the grey sand mixed with snow.

As it has fallen steadily in the past weeks, the river has left behind many shallow pools, and these are now roofed with ice. When I am close to the main shore I come upon one of them, not far from the wooded bank. The light snow that fell a few days ago has blown away; the ice is polished and is thick enough to stand on. I can see to the bottom without difficulty, as through heavy dark glass.

I bend over, looking at the debris caught there in the clear, black depth of the ice: I see a few small sticks, and many leaves. There are alder leaves, roughly toothed and still half green; the more delicate birch leaves and aspen leaves, the big, smooth poplar leaves, and narrow leaves from the willows. They are massed or scattered, as they fell quietly or as the wind blew them into the freezing water. Some of them are still fresh in color, glowing yellow and orange; others are mottled with grey and brown. A few older leaves lie sunken and black on the silty bottom. Here and there a pebble of quartz is gleaming. But nothing moves there. It is a still, cold world, something like night, with its own fixed planets and stars. ~ John Meade Haines

A night of exhilaration, of boredom and terror, in which the merest of sounds took on other forms - grew large in the expanse of darkness. After several hours the sheep gradually stopped calling to each other from accross the river banks, and a brittle quiet descended. I desperately wanted to walk down to the water's edge. To see the black river in the moonlight. But a mixture of reason and fear kept me locked along the safe paths high above. ~ Richard Skelton

There is a storytelling element in there. The tango form is a little like the blues in that you have a kind of structure. It's not as rigid as twelve bar, but it's very much a storytelling medium -- and there's an element of call-and-response, and a particular arc in the musical form, that suggest a story. It's about being in the moment, with the music; and responding to your partner, and the particular feeling and momentum in her body in any one moment. It's a very concentrated thing; you can't think about anything else while you are doing it. If you try to hold a conversation, it just kind of falls apart. The music was what really drew me into tango. Everyone knows a few of the more popular tango classics, but once you get into it, there's such a rich field. It's astonishing, this kind of miraculous musical form that developed in a very small locality: two cities on either side of the River Plate, in Argentina and Urugauy. It started in the 1880s or '90s, and there are all kinds of mysteries, myths and stories, about how tango started and developed. It was first of all considered really low-life, almost reptilian. Something to be avoided and not talked about. And then it became this word wide phenomena. . .and I could go on talking about tango forever. . . . but its also to do with movement. I try to get that into my pictures: a sense of movement, something flowing through. A while ago, I realised how much I'd been drawing dancing figures in the corners of my sketchbooks fo ~ Alan Lee (artist)

I was the ice on the river. The snow clinging onto the mountainside. ~ Adrienne Young

Your brother?" St. Clair points above my bed to the only picture I've hung up. Seany is grinning at the camera and pointing at one of my mother's research turtles,which is lifting its neck and threatening to take away his finger. Mom is doing a study on the lifetime reproductive habits of snapping turtles and visits her brood in the Chattahoochie River several times a month. My brother loves to go with her, while I prefer the safety of our home. Snapping turtles are mean.
"Yep.That's Sean."
"That's a little Irish for a family with tartan bedspreads."
I smile. "It's kind of a sore spot. My mom loved the name,but Granddad-my father's father-practically died when he heard it.He was rooting for Malcolm or Ewan or Dougal instead."
St. Clair laughs. "How old is he?"
"Seven.He's in the second grade."
"That's a big age difference."
"Well,he was either an accident or a last-ditch effort to save a failing marriage.I've never had the nerve to ask which. ~ Stephanie Perkins

This man threatened the volunteer then returned twenty minutes later to beat him up. At a charity bonfire. In Wilford. It's not the Middle East," she said, "it's Wilford, Nottingham. I don't want to be among these people. They complain about a charity bonfire, and right on their doorstep there are children as young as eleven selling drugs along the river. ~ Richard House

If I die young, bury me in satin.
Lay me down on a bed of roses.
Sink me in the river at dawn.
Send me away with the words of a love song. ~ The Band Perry

My Ailments appear treacherously; I never know when they're coming. And then something happens inside my body, my bones begin to ache. It's an unpleasant ache, sickening – that's the word I'd use. It continues incessantly, it doesn't stop for hours, sometimes days on end. There's no hiding from this pain, there are no pills or injections for it. It must hurt, just as a river must flow and fire must burn. It spitefully reminds me that I consist of physical particles, which are slipping away by the second. Perhaps one could get used to it? Learn to live with it, just as people live in the cities of Auschwitz or Hiroshima, without ever thinking about what happened there in the past. They simply live their lives. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

SONG OF SUNSET ON THE RIVER

A strip of water's spread in the setting sun,
Half the river's emerald, half is red.
I love the third night of the ninth month,
The dew is like pearl; the moon like a bow. ~ Bai Juyi

I hope to define my life, whatever is left, by migrations, south and north with the birds and far from the metallic fever of clocks, the self staring at the clock saying, "I must do this." I can't tell the time on the tongue of the river in the cool morning air, the smell of the ferment of greenery, the dust off the canyon's rock walls, the swallows swooping above the scent of raw water. ~ Jim Harrison

I paint the way some people write their autobiography. The paintings, finished or not, are the pages of my journal, and as such they are valid. The future will choose the pages it prefers. It's not up to me to make the choice. I have the impression that the time is speading on past me more and more rapidly. I'm like a river that rolls on, dragging with it the trees that grow too close to its banks or dead calves one might have thrown into it or any kind of microbes that develop in it. I carry all that along with me and go on. It's the movement of painting that interests me, the dramatic movement from one effort to the next, even if those efforts are perhaps not pushed to their ultimate end. In some of my paintings I can say with certainty that the effort has been brought to its full weight and its conclusion, because there I have been able to stop the flow of time around me. I have less and less time, and yet I have more and more to say, and what I have to say is,increasingly, something about what goes on in the movement of my thought. I've reached the moment, you see, when the movement of my thought interests me more than the thought itself. ~ Francoise Gilot

The hell of it is that my son, my only child, has to turn out to be," he added with a return of his old spirit, black eyes flashing, "the one man in Washington, D.C. who hates my guts!"
"You weren't too fond of him, either, if you recall," she pointed out.
He glared at her. "He's hot-tempered and arrogant and stubborn!"
"Look who he gets it from," she said with a grin.
He unlinked his hands as he considered that. "Those can be desirable traits," he agreed with a faint smile. "Anyway, it's nice to know I won't die childless," he said after a minute. He lifted his eyes to her face. "Leta can't know any of this. When and if the time comes, I'll tell her."
"Who's going to tell him?" she ventured.
"You?" he suggested.
"In your dreams," she said with a sweet smile.
He stuffed his hands back into his pockets. "We'll cross that bridge when the river comes over it. You'll be careful, do you hear me? I've invested a lot of time and energy into hijacking you for my museum. Don't take the slightest risk. If you think you've been discovered, get out and take Leta with you."
"She's afraid to fly," she pointed out. "She won't get in an airplane unless it's an emergency."
"Then I'll come out and stuff her into a car and drive her to the airport and put her on a plane," he said firmly.
She pursed her lips. He was very like Tate. "I guess you would, at that. ~ Diana Palmer

Do you know the moment I laid my eyes on you, I felt the wind knock out of me, like someone just gut-punched me. I ~ River Savage

Worlds on worlds are rolling ever From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river Sparkling, bursting, borne away. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

And I put my hand on her arm to stop her rowing.
Aaron's Noise roars up in red and black.
The current takes us on.
"I'm sorry!" I cry as the river takes us away, my words ragged things torn from me, my chest pulled so tight I can't barely breathe. "I'm sorry, Manchee!"
"Todd?" he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. "Todd?"
"Manchee!" I scream.
Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog.
"MANCHEE!"
"Todd?"
And Aaron wrenches his arms and there's a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever.
And the pain is too much it's too much it's too much and my hands are on my head and I'm rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that's inside of me. ~ Patrick Ness

Time itself flows on with constant motion, just like a river: for no more than a river can the fleeting hour stand still. As wave is driven on by wave, and, itself pursued, pursues the one before, so the moments of time at once flee and follow, and are ever new. ~ Ovid

This I wanted and nothing more. In my old age
like old Goethe to stand before the face of the earth,
and recognize it and reconcile it
with my work built up, a forest citadel
on a river of changeable lights and brief shadows. ~ Czesław Miłosz

With this last adherent, Florence hurried away in the advancing morning, and the strengthening sunshine, to the City. The roar soon grew more loud, the passengers more numerous, the shops more busy, until she was carried onward in a stream of life setting that way, and flowing, indifferently, past marts and mansions, prisons, churches, market-places, wealth, poverty, good, and evil, like the broad river, side by side with it, awakened from its dreams of rushes, willows, and green moss, and rolling on, turbid and troubled, among the works and cares of men, to the deep sea. ~ Charles Dickens

I knew the whistle of each of the river boats on the Tennessee. ~ William Christopher Handy

When a river of tears and a load of grief keep on flowing from a mountain of broken trust, feelings may relentlessly besiege the stronghold of our flesh. Only a timely adjustment with our mental compass can shore up confidence, resilience; and reliance. ("Taken for a ride") ~ Erik Pevernagie

So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty. ~ Jack Kerouac

I hear the wind call my name
The sound that leads me home again
It sparks up the fire - a flame that still burns
To you I'll always return

I know the road is long
But where you are is home
Wherever you stay-I'll find the way
I'll run like the river-I'll follow the sun
I'll fly like an eagle
To where I belong

I can't stand the distance
I can't dream alone
I can't wait to see you-yes I'm on my way home

Now I know it's true
My every road leads to you
And in the hour of darkness,
Your light gets me through

You run like the river-you shine like the sun
Yeah
You fly like an eagle-yeah you are the one
I seen every sunset and with all that I've learned
Oh, it's to you, I will always, always, return ~ Bryan Adams

In a universe, on a continent, in a country, in a state, in a county, on a river, in a small yellow boat,' I said. 'That's what Mary used to say to explain the odds of us meeting. And you have to be born in roughly the same period. Those are the odds. And probably you need to speak the same language.'-- Cobb ~ Joseph Monninger

Canada, the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can't eat money. ~ Native American Saying

I told you before, Jem, that you would not leave me," Will said, his bloody hand on the hilt of the dagger. " And you are still with me. When I breath, I will think of you, for without you I would have been dead years ago. When I wake up and when I sleep, when I lift up my hands to defend myself or when I lie down to die, you will be with me. You say we are born again. I say there is a river that divides the dead and the living. What I do know is that if we are born again, I will meet you in another life, if there is a river, you will wait on the shores for me to come to you, so we can cross together." Will took a deep breath and let go of the knife. He drew his hand back. The cut on his palm was already healing- the result of the half dozen iratzes on his skin. " You hear that, James Carstairs? We are bound, you and I, over the divide of death, down through whatever generations may come. Forever."
He rose to his feet and looked down at the knife. The knife was Jem's, the blood was his. This spot of ground, whether he could ever find it again, whether he lived to try, would be theirs.
He turned around to walk to Balios, towards Wales and Tessa. He did not look back. ~ Cassandra Clare

~A Comparison of Seasons~

Snow's unforgiving power causes some men to wish for spring's flower.

Some might hate snow's bitter chill, but you love it at your own will.

I see snow as something fun, but others might still long for summer's sun.

You and I hate summer's heat, but we still love the warmth of a fire on our feet.

Spring has jays whose virtuous songs are nice, but winter's lonely echoes are earth's frigged vice.

I enjoy spring's life, yet I still love winter's seemingly harsh sorrow; sometimes I can't get out of the house, so I worry about tomorrow.

I love the sight of snow and I treasure the sight of summer's river which swiftly flows.

Also, winter can be cold, but we can look forward to seeing spring's life and joy unfold. ~ Seth D.

As he left to answer the call, she heard him exclaiming in wonderment on the rise. Rocks, Nash. Is that a river mare out there? Do you see her? Have you ever laid eyes on a more gorgeous creature? ~ Kristin Cashore

As your prospective of the world increases, not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it. Things that are too small to see with the naked eye, such as molecules or atoms, we magnify. Things that are too large such as cloud formations, river deltas, cloud formations, constellations, we reduce. At length we bring within the scope of our senses and we stabilize it with fixer. When it has been fixed we call it knowledge. Throughout our childhood and teenage years, we strive to attain to objects and phenomena. We read, we learn, we experience, we make adjustments. Then one day we reach the point where all necessary distances have been set, all the necessary systems have been put in place. That is when time begins to pick up speed ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

You must be a rich man," she said. "Not much of a warrior, though. You keep letting me sneak up on you."
You don't surprise me," he said. "The Plains Indians had women who rode their horses eighteen hours a day. They could shoot seven arrows consecutively, have them all in the air at the same time. They were the best light cavalry in the world."
Just my luck," she said. "An educated Indian."
Yeah," he said. "Reservation University."
They both laughed at the old joke. Every Indian is an alumnus.
Where you from?" she asked.
Wellpinit," he said. "I'm a Spokane."
I should've known. You got those fisherman's hands."
Ain't no salmon left in our river. Just a school bus and a few hundred basketballs."
What the hell you talking about?"
Our basketball team drives into the river and drowns every year," he said. "It's a tradition."
She laughed. "You're just a storyteller, ain't you?"
I'm just telling you things before they happen," he said. "The same things sons and daughters will tell your mothers and fathers."
Do you ever answer a question straight?"
Depends on the question," he said.
Do you want to be my powwow paradise? ~ Sherman Alexie

One might think that those who feast most often on communion with God are least hungry. They turn often from the innocent pleasures of the world to linger more directly in the presence of God through the revelation of his Word. And there they eat the Bread of Heaven and drink the Living Water by meditation and faith. But, paradoxically, it is not so that they are the least hungry saints. The opposite is the case. The strongest, most mature Christians I have ever met are the hungriest for God. It might seem that those who eat most would be least hungry. But that's not the way it works with an inexhaustible fountain, and an infinite feast, and a glorious Lord. When you take your stand on the finished work of God in Christ, and begin to drink at the River of Life and eat the Bread of Heaven, and know that you have found the end of all your longings, ~ John Piper

That's why we live by a river. Occasionally, I forget and pat Lit on the back
'
'I hate that.'
King Midas & Lit ~ Rick Riordan

After my dad started making duck calls, he'd leave town for a few days, driving all over Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas trying to sell them. He left me in charge of the fishing operation. I was only a teenager, but it was my responsibility to check almost eighty hoop nets three times a week. Looking back now, it was pretty dangerous work for a teenager on the river, especially since I'd never done it alone. If you fell out of the boat and into the river, chances were you might drown if something went wrong and you were alone. But I was determined to prove to my father that I could do it, so I left the house one morning and spent all day on the river. I checked every one of our hoop nets and brought a mound of fish back to Kay to take to market. I was so proud of myself for pulling it off without anyone's help!
When Dad came home a couple of days later, Mom told him about the fish I'd caught and how much money we'd made. I could see the smile on his face. But then he went outside to check his boat and noticed that a paddle was missing. Instead of saying, "Good job, son," he yelled at me for losing a paddle! I couldn't believe he was scolding me over a stupid oar! I'd worked from daylight to dusk and earned enough money for my family to buy a dozen paddles! Where was the gratitude?
I was so mad that I jumped in the boat and headed to the nets to see if I could find the missing paddle. After checking about seventy nets, I was resigned to the fact that it w ~ Jase Robertson

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him? ~ Blaise Pascal

Had Howe pressed on the afternoon of the 27th, the British victory could have been total. Or had the wind turned earlier, and the British navy moved into the East River, the war and the chances of an independent United States of America could have been long delayed, or even ended there and then. ~ David McCullough