Tempest Quotes

Uselessness
Let mine not be the saddest fate of all,
To live beyond my greater self; to see
My faculties decaying, as the tree
Stands stark and helpless while its green leaves fall
Let me hear rather the imperious call,
Which all men dread, in my glad morning time,
And follow death ere I have reached my prime,
Or drunk the strengthening cordial of life's gall.
The lightning's stroke or the fierce tempest blast
Which fells the green tree to the earth to-day
Is kinder than the calm that lets it last,
Unhappy witness of its own decay.
May no man ever look on me and say,
'She lives, but all her usefulness is past. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

This world is all vanity. It is a tempest hurling us from one sorrow to another. ~ Jocelyn Murray

Blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Come, thou tortoise! ~ William Shakespeare

I believe we must do things in our lives for the right reasons, because we enjoy doing them, with no expectation of getting something back in return. Otherwise, we are constantly being disappointed." She moved her turquoise bracelet back and forth on her wrist. "So I had two sons, John and Richard, because I wanted to, not because I thought they would rescue me in old age. I got out of all social organizations and clubs in my fifties so I could spend time with my grandchildren, not because they would give something back to Jack and me later on, but because that was what I wanted to do
and I have loved doing it. Believe me, these have been selfish decisions. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Day and night, their fail and crippled ships defy the tempest. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Like one
Who having into truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie. ~ William Shakespeare

What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes
Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts ... ~ William Shakespeare

Myths have a way of bringing what is unconscious to the surface and putting a face on what we cannot see. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Angry and choleric men are as ungrateful and unsociable as thunder and lightning, being in themselves all storm and tempest; but quiet and easy natures are like fair weather, welcome to all. ~ Edward Hyde, 1st Earl Of Clarendon

Without manners, violence enters the room. Without the decency of imagination, narcissism leads. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I appreciate all of the unexpected places, internal and external, that my writing has taken me. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

We die so others can be born
We age so others can be young
The point of life is live,
Love if you can
Then pass it on. ~ Kate Tempest

Women piece together their lives from the scraps left over for them. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven Was blowing on my body, felt within A correspondent breeze, that gently moved With quickening virtue, but is now become A tempest, a redundant energy, Vexing its own creation. ~ William Wordsworth

Your leader has found his lifemate, Dayan," Julian said happily, "and is clueless, totally clueless, about how to deal with her. Finding your lifemate leaves you feeling as if someone punched you in the gut and stole your sanity. Your Darius is used to having his way in all things, simply commanding whatever he deems correct. But now I suspect he is in for the shock he so richly deserves." "He will simply force his will upon Tempest," Dayan said confidently, "then everything will return to normal." "Forcing your will on your lifemate is in the same category as cutting your own throat. Not a wise idea. Still, watching will make for much fun," Julian said smugly. ~ Christine Feehan

With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,
We sailed for the Hesperides,
The land where golden apples grow;
But that, ah! that was long ago.
How far, since then, the ocean streams
Have swept us from that land of dreams,
That land of fiction and of truth,
The lost Atlantis of our youth!
Whither, ah, whither? Are not these
The tempest-haunted Orcades,
Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar,
And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?
Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!
Here in thy harbors for a while
We lower our sails; a while we rest
From the unending, endless quest. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You think I'll weep?
No, I'll not weep. Storm and tempest.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or e're I'll weep. - O Fool, I shall go mad. ~ William Shakespeare

If we are at all sensitive to the life around us, to one another's pains and joys,
to the beauty and fragility of the Earth, it is all about being broken open, allowing ourselves to
step out from out hardened veneers and expose our core, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in our emotional response to the world. And how can we not respond? This is what I mean by being 'broken open.' To engage. To love. Any one of these actions of the heart will lead to a personal transformation that bears collective gifts. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

To acknowledge that which we cannot see, to give definition to that which we don't know, to create divine order out of chaos, is the religious dance. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly. ~ Edward Young

We are a tribe of fractured individuals who can now only celebrate remnants of wildness. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I think that the only thing that can bring us into a place of fullness is being out in the land with other. Then we remember where the source of our power lies. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I think it could be argued that I am not heard, in the broadest sense. That is not my concern. My concern, a question really, is, do I have the courage to speak? If I speak I believe someone will respond. It then becomes my responsibility to listen to that person. And in listening, together we create a space where people can be heard. It's the conversation that I care most deeply about; this is the space I want to honor, respect, and protect. This is my faith in the open space of democracy. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

If a man knew what a woman never forgets, he would love her differently. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Our rivers are shrinking. Our lands are blowing away. And our lawmakers from our president to our legislators, both federal and state, are in denial of the one hard fact: We must change our lives, our politics, our beliefs, our actions, if we are going to survive. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Lorcan nodded, "It'ss a beautiful night," he said. "The stars have all come out for you, Darcy." He turned to go, then had a fresh thought. "Oh and Tempest, a word to the wise ... "
Grace was busily gathering up the edges of Darcy's train. "Yes?" she said, glancing up at Lorcan. "What is it Furey?"
Lorcan grinned."Just so you know, I've put down good money on you catching the wedding bouquet. I trust you wouldn't let me down!"
as he winked at her, Grace thought his eyes never looked so blue. They were eyes you could never tire from looking at- as deep and constant and infinite as the ocean itself. ~ Justin Somper

What I fear and desire most in this world is passion. I fear it because it promises to be spontaneous, out of my control, unnamed, beyond my reasonable self. I desire it because passion has color, like the landscape before me. It is not pale. It is not neutral. It reveals the backside of the heart. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I am slowly, painfully discovering that my refuge is not found in my mother, my grandmother, of even the birds of Bear River. My refuge exists in my capacity to love. If I can learn to love death then I can begin to find refuge in change. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

We have a friend and protector, from whom, if we do not ourselves depart from Him, nor power nor spirit can separate us. In His strength let us proceed on our journey, through the storms, and troubles, and dangers of the world. However they may rage and swell, though the mountains shake at the tempests, our rock will not be moved: we have one friend who will never forsake us; one refuge, where we may rest in peace and stand in our lot at the end of the days. That same is He who liveth, and was dead; who is alive forevermore; and hath the keys of hell and of death. ~ Reginald Heber

This week
in live current
events: your eyes.

All power can be
dangerous:
Direct

or alternating,
you, socket to me.
Plugged in and the grid

is humming,
this electricity,
molecule-deep desire:

particular friction, a charge
strong enough to stop
a heart

or start it
again; volt, re-volt--
I shudder, I stutter, I start

to life. I've got my ion
you, copper-top,
so watch how you

conduct yourself.
Here's today's
newsflash: a battery of rolling

blackouts in California, sudden,
like lightning kisses:
sudden, whitehot

darkness and you're
here, fumbling for
that small switch

with an urgent surge
strong enough to kill
lesser machines.

Static makes hair raise,
makes things cling,
makes things rise like

a gathering storm
charging outside
our darkened house

and here I am:
tempest, pouring out
mouthfulls

of tsunami on the ground,
I've got that rain-soaked kite,
that drenched key.

You know what it's for,
circuit-breaker, you know
how to kiss until it's hertz. ~ Daphne Gottlieb

I am of this place. Family is a place, and my family s located here, those who are living and those who have passed. I am am settled in the scent of sage, Mount Moran's reflection at Oxbow Bend is more than a mirror of memories; it is the joy found in river otters, a reminder that there are places in the world we can return for peace unchanged. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

All his plans were suddenly overthrown, and the existence, so elaborately pictured, was no more than a dream which would never be realized. He was free once more. Free! He need give up none of his projects, and life still was in his hands for him to do what he liked with. He felt no exhiliration, but only dismay. His heart sank. The future stretched out before him in desolate emptiness. It was as though he had sailed for many years over a great waste of waters, with peril and privation, and at last had come upon a fair haven, but as he was about to enter, some contrary wind had arisen and drove him out again into the open sea; and because he had let his mind dwell on these meads and pleasant woods of the land, the vast deserts of the ocean filled him with anguish. He could not confront again the loneliness and the tempest. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

During the boisterous years of my youth nothing used to damp my wild spirits so much as to think that I was born at a time when the world had manifestly decided not to erect any more temples of fame except in honour of business people and State officials. The tempest of historical achievements
seemed to have permanently subsided, so much so that the future appeared to be irrevocably delivered over to what was called peaceful competition between the nations. This simply meant a system of mutual exploitation by fraudulent means, the principle of resorting to the use of force in self-defence being formally excluded. Individual countries increasingly assumed the appearance of commercial undertakings, grabbing territory and clients and concessions from each other under any and every kind of pretext. And it was all staged to an accompaniment of loud but innocuous shouting. This trend of affairs seemed destined to develop steadily and permanently. Having the support of public approbation, it seemed bound eventually to transform the world into a mammoth department store. In the vestibule of this emporium there would be rows of monumental busts which would confer immortality on those profiteers who had proved themselves the shrewdest at their trade and those administrative officials who had shown themselves the most innocuous. The salesmen could be represented by the English and the administrative functionaries by the Germans; whereas the Jews would be sacrificed to the unprofita ~ Adolf Hitler

Nothing on the horizon; nothing in heaven.

He implores the expanse, the waves, the seaweed, the reef; they are deaf. He beseeches the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only the infinite.

Around him darkness, fog, solitude, the stormy and non- sentient tumult, the undefined curling of those wild waters. In him horror and fatigue. Beneath him the depths. Not a point of support. He thinks of the gloomy adventures of the corpse in the limitless shadow. The bottomless cold paralyzes him. His hands contract convulsively; they close, and grasp nothingness. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, gusts, useless stars! What is to be done? The desperate man gives up; he is weary, he chooses the alternative of death; he resists not; he lets himself go; he abandons his grip; and then he tosses forevermore in the lugubrious dreary depths of engulfment.

Oh, implacable march of human societies! Oh, losses of men and of souls on the way! Ocean into which falls all that the law lets slip! Disastrous absence of help! Oh, moral death!

The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness.

The soul, going down stream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall resuscitate it? ~ Victor Hugo

He stretches his legs out underneath the table and checks Facebook on his phone. It tells him things he doesn't need to know about people he hasn't seen in years. He absorbs their aggressively worded opinions and quasi-political hate-speak. He sees a photograph of his ex-girlfriend with her new boyfriend smiling at a picnic and he realises, with a strange cascade of emptiness, that she is pregnant and wearing an engagement ring. The comments are jubilant. He reads every word before he forces himself to put his phone down. A loneliness descends. He feels its familiar talons grabbing him violently out of his chair and hanging him, swinging, up by the ceiling. Pete ~ Kate Tempest

Hope is the virgin of the ideal world, who opens beaten to as in the midst of every tempest. ~ Arsene Houssaye

Wealth is a weak anchor, and glory cannot support a man; this is the law of God, that virtue only is firm, and cannot be shaken by a tempest. ~ Pythagoras

I think an erotics of place may be one of the reasons why environmentalists are seen as subversive. There is a backlash now: ... [ellipsis in source] take all the regulations away; weaken existing legislation; the endangered species act is too severe, too restrictive; let there be carte blanche for real-estate developers. Because if we really have to confront wildness, solitude, and serenity, both the fierceness and compassionate nature of the land, then we ultimately have to confront it in ourselves, and it's easier to be numb, to be distracted, to be disengaged. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Abundance is a dance with reciprocity - what we can give, what we can share, and what we receive in the process. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Millions of characters, each with their own epic narratives singing it's hard to be an angel until you've been a demon. ~ Kate Tempest

Both the teardrop and the tempest are made of water, making it the most yielding and most destructive force on Earth. ~ Fiona Paul

Affections injured by tyranny, or rigor of compulsion, like tempest-threatened trees, unfirmly rooted, never spring to timely growth ~ John Ford

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-earth right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?
Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins

Huge clouds were already careering in the skies, and distant flashes announced a tempest. About ten o'clock, the storm burst forth; and Milady found some consolation in seeing Nature partake of the commotion within her. The thunder bellowed in the air like the angry passions in her soul; and it seemed to her as if the passing gusts disturbed her brow, as they did the trees of which they bent down the branches and sept off the leaves. She howled like the tempest, but her voice was unheard Amidst the vast voice of Nature, which also appeared to be herself groaning in despair. ~ Alexandre Dumas

The commotions that have taken place in America, as far as they are yet known to me, offer nothing threatening. They are a proof that the people have liberty enough, and I could not wish them less than they have. If the happiness of the mass of the people can be secured at the expense of a little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase. 'Malo libertatem periculosam quam quietem servitutem.' Let common sense and common honesty have fair play, and they will soon set things to rights. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The man was impossible. To her every retort,he had a counter. "A beak you may want to avoid for I will use it."
His dimples turned into craters. "Aye, my lady,that you most certainly are not afraid of using. I think I actually see the small scars along your wrists and hands from where you missed your intended target and clipped yourself."
Edythe opened her mouth,ready to send out another assualt, when the sparkle in his hazel eyes captured her attention. Tyr was not making fun of her. Rather,he was truly enjoying their conversation, and if she was being honest, so was she. Inclining her head in agreement, she curled her lips mischievously and said, "Inflictions all finches must learn to endure."
"Indeed they must," Tyr replied with a bow. "You,Lady Finch,are a genuine surprise. These past few days,your elder sister has been gracious, kind, and all things a lady should be when welcoming a guest, but it seems that only my friend Ranulf can turn her into a fiery tempest. And each time she does, it pulls him farther in.I see now why he is susceptible to such treatment."
Edythe briefly closed her eyes and gave a quick shake to her head. "You enjoy being insulted?"
"You have not insulted me, you couldn't. You don't know me well enough.Nor I you. We just merely sparred and I am finding that I like wit in a woman, a most uncommon trait where I have been. If I were not so decided in my ways,you,dear Finch, would be in trouble."
"Well,then I thank the Lord ~ Michele Sinclair

The job has its grandeurs, yes. There is the exultation of arriving safely after a storm, the joy of gliding down out of the darkness of night or tempest toward a sun-drenched Alicante or Santiago; there is the swelling sense of returning to repossess one's place in life, in the miraculous garden of earth, where are trees and women and, down by the harbor, friendly little bars. When he has throttled his engine and is banking into the airport, leaving the somber cloud masses behind, what pilot does not break into song? ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Style is like voice, it grows organically from the truth of one's own life experience. Not in terms of chapters, per se, but in terms of stories. It is the story itself that creates an inherent structure. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I see thou art implacable, more deaf
To pray'rs than winds and seas. Yet winds to seas
Are reconcil'd at length, and sea to shore:
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages
Eternal tempest never to be calm'd. ~ John Milton

At the heart of Mormonism is a high regard for community. That is its strength. I have great respect for that. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Agitation gives birth to creation. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

These valleys, these rivers- creased, folded, and pushed. What wisdom mountains house. My God- they are Gods. My God has feet of Earth. We are flickering moths in migration. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Very often, when tides start turning, great gears start shifting, and gusting winds start blowing at the onset of a really wonderful dream's alignment with your present life, there is commotion, unpredictability, even turmoil.
So, hey, let's always assume that's the case whenever you experience commotion, unpredictability, even turmoil. K?
Let not your senses deceive, for even as the tempest may howl, just beyond it lies a serenity that could not otherwise find you. The storm before the calm, if you will. ~ Mike Dooley

Eh? How 'bout that?" Bill nudged her. "Did I promise to show you love or did I promise to show you love?"
"Sure,they seem like they're in love." Luce shrugged. "But-"
"But what?Do you have any idea how painful that is? Look at that guy. He makes getting inked look like being caressed by a soft breeze."
Luce squirmed on the branch. "Is that the lesson here? Pain equals love?"
"You tell me," Bill said. "It may surprise you to hear this,but the ladies aren't exactly banging down Bill's door."
"I mean,if I tattooed Daniel's same on my body would that mean I loved him more than I already do?"
"It's a symbol,Luce." Bill let out a raspy sigh. "You're being too literal. Think about it this way: Daniel is the first good-looking boy LuLu has ever seen. Until he washed ashore a few months ago, this girl's whole world was her father and a few fat natives."
"She's Miranda," Luce said, remembering the love story from The Tempest, which she'd read in her tenth-grade Shakespeare seminar.
"How very civilized of you!" Bill pursed his lips with approval. "They are liek Ferdinand and Miranda: The handsome foreigner shipwrecks on her shores-"
"So,of course it was love at first sight for LuLu," Luce murmured. This was what she was afraid of: the same thoughtless,automatic love that had bothered her in Helston.
"Right," Bill said. "She didn't have a choice but to fall for him.But what's interesting here is Daniel. You see, he didn't have to teach he ~ Lauren Kate

Flying into a storm, even its outer edges, did not seem like a good idea to me. And this was no ordinary tempest. Everyone on the bridge knew what it was: the Devil's Fist, a near-eternal typhoon that migrated about the North Indian basin year-round. She was infamous, and earned her name by striking airships out of the sky. ~ Kenneth Oppel

I think direct political action, civil disobedience, in particular, is something to be taken very seriously. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

This is what we can promise the future: a legacy of care. That we will be good stewards and not take too much or give back too little, that we will recognize wild nature for what it is, in all its magnificent and complex history - an unfathomable wealth that should be consciously saved, not ruthlessly spent. Privilege is what we inherit by our status as Homo sapiens living on this planet. This is the privilege of imagination. What we choose to do with our privilege as a species is up to each of us.
Humility is born in wildness. We are not protecting grizzlies from extinction; they are protecting us from the extinction of experience as we engage with a world beyond ourselves. The very presence of a grizzly returns us to an ecology of awe. We tremble at what appears to be a dream yet stands before us on two legs and roars. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I trace my genealogy back to the land. Human and wild, I can see myself whole, not isolated but integrated in time and place. Our genetic makeup is not so different from the collared lizard, the canyon wren now calling, or the great horned owl who watches from the cottonwood near the creek. Mountain lion is as mysterious a creature as any soul I know. Is not the tissue of family always a movement between harmony and distance? ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I've played Hamlet and Coriolanus, Orlando in 'As You like It' and Ariel in 'Tempest,' among others. ~ Christian Camargo

Nothing any man can do will improve that genius; but the genius needs his mind, and he can broaden that mind, fertilize it with knowledge of all kinds, improve its powers of expression; supply the genius, in short, with an orchestra instead of a tin whistle. All our little great men, our one-poem poets, our one-picture painters, have merely failed to perfect themselves as instruments. The Genius who wrote The Ancient Mariner is no less sublime than he who wrote The Tempest; but Coleridge had some incapacity to catch and express the thoughts of his genius - was ever such wooden stuff as his conscious work? - while Shakespeare had the knack of acquiring the knowledge necessary to the expression of every conceivable harmony, and his technique was sufficiently fluent to transcribe with ease. ~ Aleister Crowley

The Chinese general Sun Tzu said that all war was based on deception. Oscar Wilde said the same thing of romance. ~ Marco Tempest

Bursts as a wave that from the clouds impends, And swell'd with tempests on the ship descends; White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud Howl o'er the masts, and sing through every shroud: Pale, trembling, tir'd, the sailors freeze with fears; And instant death on every wave appears. ~ Homer

Radar Data #12

It was in the absence of light
as when near new moon and
no moonlight; as when a part

of a picture is in shadow (as
opposed to a light); as when
in the condition of being

hidden from view, obscure,
or unknown - in concealment,
or else without knowledge

as regards to some particular;
and of the weather, season,
air, sky, sea, etc., characterized

by tempest; in times, events,
circumstances etc. subject to
tempers; inflamed, indicative,

predictive, or symbolical of
strife (harbinger of coming
trouble) - a period of darkness

occurring between one day &
the next during which a place
receives no light from the sun,

and what if it is all behind us?
I no longer fear the rain will
never end, but doubt our ability

to return to what lies passed.
On the radar, a photopresent
scraggle of interference, as if

the data is trying to pretend
something's out there where
everything is lost. ~ Lytton Smith

The mother memories that are closest to my heart are the small gentle ones that I have carried over from the days of my childhood. They are not profound, but they have stayed with me through life, and when I am very old, they will still be near ... Memories of mother drying my tears, reading aloud, cutting cookies and singing as she did, listening to prayers I said as I knelt with my forehead pressed against her knee, tucking me in bed and turning down the light. They have carried me through the years and given my life such a firm foundation that it does not rock beneath flood or tempest. ~ Margaret Sanger

All the fears and doubts surrounding her grief and regrets were swept up into the tempest of the music, poising here in the centre of the moment, a clear vessel of joy. ~ Alison Croggon

It is not the tempest, nor the earthquake, nor the fire, but the still small voice of the Spirit that carries on the glorious work of saving souls. ~ Robert M

I wonder, What is it to be human? Especially now that we are so urban. How do we remember our connection with place? What is the umbilical cord that roots us to that primal, instinctive, erotic place? Every time I walk to the edge of this continent and feel the sand beneath my feet, feel the seafoam move up my body, I think, "Ah, yes, evolution." It's there, we just forget. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

About three years ago, I started an exercise in openness and inclusiveness to create new digital tools for magic - tools that could eventually be shared with other artists to start them off further on in the process and to get them into the poetry faster. ~ Marco Tempest

Reading has not only changed my life but saved it. the right picked at the right time - especially the one that scares us, threatens to undermine all we have been told, the one that contains forbidden thoughts - these are the books that become Eve's apples. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Our sense of community and compassionate intelligence must be extended to all life forms, plants, animals, rocks, rivers, and human beings. This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

These are difficult time, transformative times- times of extreme actions especially within our national parks. Extreme drought. Extreme fires. Extreme development with extreme policy shifts needed in the name of global warming. The world is changing dramatically, both ecologically as well as politically. But I believe our greatest transformation as a species will be spiritual. The word "we" must include all species. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

We willingly enter fictional worlds where we cheer our heroes and cry for friends we never had. ~ Marco Tempest

If the happiness of the mass of mankind can be secured at the expense of a little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase. ~ Thomas Jefferson

My grandmother simply shook her head and said, You know what you saw. The bird doesn't need to be counted, and neither do you. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Whence, it may be asked, had come that plaything of the tempest? From what part of the world did it rise? It surely could not have started during the storm. ~ Jules Verne

We are animal. We are Earth. We are water. We are a community of human beings living on this planet together. And we forget that. We become disconnected, we lose our center point of gravity, that stillness that allows us to listen to life on a deeper level and to meet each other in a fully authentic and present way. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated to closeness and the bettering of my mind. ~ William Shakespeare

I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

There is an art to writing, and it is not always disclosure. The act itself can be beautiful, revelatory, and private. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I believe the personal is the collective. One of the ironies of writing memoir is in using the "I" it becomes an alchemical "we." This is the sorcery of literature. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Each of us has one. Each voice is distinct and has something to say. Each voice deserves to be heard. But it requires the act of listening. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I still have great faith in democracy. I have great belief in the power of community. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I think I must be worried all the time - maybe that is the other side of joy, you know, holding that line of the full range of emotions. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Then to the elements be free... ~ William Shakespeare

This is the Hour of Land, when our mistakes and shortcomings must be placed in the perspective of time. The Hour of Land is where we remember what we have forgotten: We are not the only species who lives and dreams on the planet. There is something enduring that circulates in the heart of nature that deserves our respect and attention. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

We are wearing coats of trust. When one tells a story this is what happens. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

The sun was shining, but Christ had hidden Himself, and all the world was black to you; or it was night, and since the bright and morning star was gone, no other star could yield you so much as a ray of light. What a howling wilderness is this world without our Lord! If once He hideth Himself from us, withered are the flowers of our garden; our pleasant fruits decay; the birds suspend their songs, and a tempest overturns our hopes. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

At the Pentagon, for instance, in the NMCC's secure Emergency Actions room, military officials could find anyone in the Constitution's line of succession by checking the screen of a dedicated Zenith Z-150 Central Locator System computer. The CLS computers are protected by a special NSA protocol known as TEMPEST that shields them from electromagnetic snooping. II ~ Garrett M. Graff

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain. ~ William Shakespeare

I have a theory - if the music is good and you have good musicians, the name doesn't matter that much. There are a lot of examples of that. The name is just a calling card. ~ Joey Tempest

As children, we had access to all the open space imaginable. We would set up camps in rural Utah where the Tempest Company was at work laying pipe. We spent time around the West in Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, and Colorado. Wild beautiful places. Now, many of these natural places have disappeared under the press of development. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

She wipes her forehead with her wrist
She's just back from a double shift
Esther's a carer
doing nights

Behind her
on the kitchen wall
is a black and white picture
of swallows in flight

Her eyes are sore
her muscles ache
she cracks a beer
and swigs it

She holds it
to her thirsty lips
and necks it
till it's finished.

It's 4:18 a.m. again.
Her brain is full
of all she's done that day
She knows
that she won't sleep a wink
before the sun
is on it's way.

She's worried about the world tonight.

She's worried all the time.
She don't know how
she's supposed
to put it

from her mind . . .

- Europe is Lost ~ Kae Tempest

I was extremely close with my mother and my grandmothers, we shared our lives - fully, honestly - and it was heightened as each succumbed to cancer. Little was hidden between us. No time. And what was hidden, turned inward. I made a vow to speak. Speak or die. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions. Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinions? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up
ever
trusting our fellow citizens to join with us in our determined pursuit of a living democracy? ~ Terry Tempest Williams

The time had come to protest with the heart, that to deny one's genealogy with the earth was to commit treason against one's soul. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

A trip to the hospital is always a descent into the macabre. I have never trusted a place with shiny floors. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

How many yous have you been?
How many,
Lined up inside,
Each killing the last? ~ Kate Tempest

But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubtful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes
a gulf, subject to tempest, and fear, and uncertainty, rendering distance palpable, and return precarious. ~ Washington Irving

The marquess lifted his palm to her, a man held in wind-tousled grace, waiting; still as the eye of a tempest was still, inexorable force only momentarily at bay. The heels of his shoes rested at the very, very edge of the rooftop. If the wind changed, if he lost his balance-
Beyond him were only trees and sky, the dark-misted storm sweeping emerald hills up to heaven.
"You are mad," Rue said again, but she found herself moving toward him. His fingers closed over hers; he raised her hand to his mouth and held it there, warming her skin with his.
"I prefer the word dashing.'
She huffed a breath, almost a laugh.
"Oh, and one more thing." Above their locked fingers he granted her a new smile, this one slow and blazingly sensual. "Little brown-haired girl ... I did notice you."
He Turned to smoke.
-Rue & Kit ~ Shana Abe