“I will weep and wail for the mountains and take up a lament concerning the desert pastures. They are desolate and untraveled, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. The birds of the air have fled and the animals are gone.” AnimalGoneHeardAirMountainCreaturesBirdDesertCattleLamentDesolatePastures Author:Jeremiah
“Under the desert sun, in the dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean, the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises to your nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.” NeedsHumansMeanDoePhilosophyLyingNightBreakSunCuttingAirRocksCleanMythFleshTheologyBitterClarityDustDesertFlamesFlatsSaltSublimeSoarMistPillarsFablesQualificationsDogmaticOdor Author:Edward Abbey
“Your anger was a climate I inhabited like a desert in a dry frigid weather of high thin air and ivory sun, sand dunes the wind lifted into stinging clouds that blinded and choked me where the only ice was in the blood.” SunAirBloodWindClimateCloudsWeatherIceDesertDrySandBlindedIvoryFrigidThin AirSand Dunes Author:Marge Piercy
“Impious! forbear thus the first general hail. To disappoint, Increase and multiply, To shed thy blossoms thro' the desert air, And sow thy perish'd offspring in the winds.” FirstsAirWindIncreaseDesertShedDisappointOffspringHail Author:John Armstrong
“ISIS is a formidable foe, but the counter forces to it have only just begun and if these forces, the Iraqi army, the Kurdish Peshmerga, American air power, the Syrian Free Army, work in a coordinated fashion, it will start losing ground. Also, please keep in mind that ISIS does not actually hold as much ground as the many maps flashed on television keep showing. Large parts of those territories that ISIS supposedly controls are vacant desert.” IfsMindDoeForceAirFashionTelevisionPleaseLosingArmyDesertMapsTerritoryFoeIsisFormidableVacantAir PowerKurdish Author:Fareed Zakaria
“I read not so long ago about the construction of a large telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert, where rainfall can average a millimetre a year and the air is fifty times as dry as the air in Death Valley. Needless to say, skies over the Atacama are pristine. The pilgrim astronomer ventures to the earth's ravaged reaches in order to peer more keenly at other worlds, and I suppose the novelist is up to something similar.” WorldYearsLongEarthOrderAirSkyAverageDesertNovelistsDryFiftyValleysConstructionLong AgoPeersVentureOther WorldsPilgrimTelescopesAstronomersChilePristineRainfall Author:Brad Leithauser
“The palpable sense of mystery in the desert air breeds fables, chiefly of lost treasure. ... It is a question whether it is not better to be bitten by the little horned snake of the desert that goes sidewise and strikes without coiling, than by the tradition of a lost mine.” LittlesLostAirMysteryMinesTraditionStrikesTreasureDesertSnakesFables Book:Stories from the Country of Lost Borders Source: Stories from the Country of Lost Borders
“Man, especially in our time, has without hesitation devastated wooded plains and valleys, polluted waters, disfigured the earth's habitat, made the air unbreathable, disturbed the hydro-geological and atmospheric systems, turned luxuriant areas into deserts and undertaken forms of unrestrained industrialization, degrading that 'flower bed'-which is the earth, our dwelling place.” MenMadeEarthFormWaterAirFlowerBedAreasEnvironmentalDesertOur TimeValleysPollutionDwellingDisturbedHesitationDevastatedDegradingHabitatIndustrializationDwelling Place Author:Pope John Paul II
“In time they sank and decayed, and nothing is left of them except an occasional impression in stones, in stones now found in deserts and on high mountain peaks. Birdless forests block the sun in uninhabited lands. Insects swirl in the air. And then, in a majestic, bloodthirsty, and mighty heave, the spinal columns of the vertebrates rise as monstrous lizards and fabulous creatures; dragons flinging their fearful bellows up to a steaming sky... Slowly they become birds, birds as light as undreamt dreams. The searing roars become birdsong, whimpering flutes on warm nights.” DreamLightNightFoundLeftSunAirSkyLandMountainCreaturesBirdStonesWarmImpressionForestsBlockDesertDragonsFearfulFabulousInsectsOccasionalColumnsMonstrousMajesticFlutesLizardsSwirlsBirdsongMountain PeaksVertebrates Author:Erik Fosnes Hansen
“In order to grow in grace, we must be much alone. It is not in society that the soul grows most vigorously. In one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress than in days of company with others. It is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and the air its purest.” SoulOrderFallGrowsHoursPrayerCompanyGraceProgressAirQuietDesertDew Book:Art of Manfishing & Words to Winners of Souls Source: Art of Manfishing & Words to Winners of Souls
“In Afghanistan you are not rebuilding, you are building. There is very limited infrastructure and extreme terrain, with deserts in the south and mountains so high in some areas that helicopters don't even fly well at a certain altitude because the air becomes so thin. The country has a serious problem of illiteracy, especially after so many years of war and Taliban rule.” YearsWellsWarCountryProblemCertainAirBuildingSeriousMountainAreasSouthExtremesDesertAfghanistanInfrastructureTalibanRebuildingHelicoptersTerrainIlliteracy Author:David Petraeus