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W Quotes

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All W Quotes

“Walking back from the convention site I chatted with a normal Bostonian for several blocks -- who must have identified me through our covert system of signals. He was mostly bemused by the Democrats' primetime speakers and told me he used to be an independent, but for the last 20 years found himself voting mostly Republican. Then he corrected himself and said he votes for the American.”

“Walking causes a repetitive, spontaneous poetry to rise naturally to the lips, words as simple as the sound of footsteps on the road. There also seems to be an echo of walking in the practice of two choruses singing a psalm in alternate verses, each on a single note, a practice that makes it possible to chant and listen by turns. Its main effect is one of repetition and alternation that St Ambrose compared to the sound of the sea: when a gentle surf is breaking quietly on the shore the regularity of the sound doesn’t break the silence, but structures it and renders it audible. Psalmody in the same way, in the to-and-fro of alternating responses, produces (Ambrose said) a happy tranquillity in the soul. The echoing chants, the ebb and flow of waves recall the alternating movement of walking legs: not to shatter but to make the world’s presence palpable and keep time with it. And just as Claudel said that sound renders silence accessible and useful, it ought to be said that walking renders presence accessible and useful.”

“Walking companions, like heroes, are difficult to pluck out of the crowd of acquaintances. Good dispositions, ready wit, friendly conversation serve well enough by the fireside but they prove insufficient in the field. For there you need transcendentalists-nothing less; you need poets, sages, humorists and natural philosophers.”

“Walking down a street I see, in those who pass by me, not the facial expressions that they really have but the expressions that they would have if they knew what I'm like and the kind of life I lead, if my face and my gestures betrayed the shy and ridiculous abnormality of my soul. In eyes that don't even look at me I suspect there are smirks (which I consider only natural) directed at the awkward exception I embody in a world of people who know how to act and to enjoy life; and the passing physiognomies, informed by an awareness that I myself have interposed and superimposed, seem to snicker out loud at my life's timid gesticulations.”

“Walking down the shore, he approached the child. She turned and looked at him as though surprised he was still there. Taking a step forward, the sole of his shoes getting wet, Stuart crouched to be on her level. Helen couldn’t hear what he said, but he gestured once toward her, and the girl looked up at Helen as he talked. He tried to rest a hand on her shoulder, but Lyric cringed away with her whole body, even taking a step away. Stuart retracted his hand, and from the porch, Helen could see the hurt in his eyes. With that, he tilted his head toward the sea, and the girl didn’t hesitate to run back to the shallow waves. When he turned, his gaze caught with Helen’s, but both looked away quickly. Too quickly. Helen felt heat creep up her neck as he walked around the side of the house and away.”

“Walking down the street in any town or city in the world and having people look at you and start talking to you, convinced that they know you as well or better than they do members of their own family, that's just an odd phenomenon. But I mean, I wouldn't say it was a bad thing. It's an interesting thing.”

“Walking downtown in a cool October drizzle, Justin and I were offered an umbrella by a middle-aged stranger in an olive bowler hat. “It’s extra,” he said, bowing down slightly. “I brought it because I knew someone would need it.” A palpable force seemed to be unifying the people of the city, the sudden camaraderie of solidarity. Arriving in the Financial District, we saw a tent city in Manhattan’s heart. A thousand people were gathered on the grass of Zuccotti Park, wielding cardboard signs with powerful reminders: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free” and “We are the 99%.” Chatting with the campers, individuals who strongly reminded us of thru-hikers from the trail, we learned that this patchwork rally was a coordinated response to our country’s growing wealth gap.”

“Walking I am unbound, and find that precious unity of life and imagination, that silent outgoing self, which is so easy to loose, but which a high moments seems to start up again from the deepest rhythms of my own body. How often have I had this longing for an infinite walk - of going unimpeded, until the movement of my body as I walk fell into the flight of streets under my feet - until I in my body and the world in its skin of earth were blended into a single act of knowing.”

“Walking in the mountain with bare foot, Teasing the flowers with heavy soot, Touching the grasses, climbing the horses, swinging the girls It is joyful, jolly like the flying. Swimming in the rivers, tearing the clothes and burning the shoes Angel of the nature; counting the grasses, touching the flower, teasing the birds”