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Rivers Quotes

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Rivers Quotes

“That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”

PeopleThinkingYearsCountryNightSoundWalksSunQuietLateRainRiversEmptyPassingPassingsHillsAutumnTwilightClosetsCoalMidnightFogMistNoonDuskCellarsAtticsPantry
Book:THE OCTOBER COUNTRY
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“She watched the prairies the rivers, the towns slipping past at an untouchable distance below - and she noted that the sense of detachment one feels when looking at the earth from a plane was the same sense she felt when looking at people: only her distance from people seemed longer. - Dagny Taggart”

PeopleFeelsEarthPastFeltRiversTownsDistancePlanesDetachmentSlippingPrairieUntouchablesTaggart
Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever.”

PeopleThinkingLoveTryingTwoEndsHardTogetherMovingStrongWaterForeverToo MuchOur LivesLetting GoRiversShameCurrentsHolding OnLet Me GoTogether ForeverNever Let Me Go
Author:Kazuo Ishiguro
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“And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It's about sunlight. It's about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do. It's about love and memory. It's about sorrow. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen.”

PeopleKnowsWayWritingWarEndsStoriesCoursesMemoriesSpecialSorrowMountainRiversCrossesSpreadDawnMarchSunlightWar Stories
Book:The Things They Carried
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“Maybe a hundred years ago our people should have run away from this place, I said... And then run from the next place and the next place and the place after that? You run once, what makes you think you won't have to run all the rest of your life?... We love moment to moment... Everything changes. One minute we are part of the river, and the next we are joined with the sea.”

PeopleThinkingShouldYearsSaidMomentsRunningNextSeaMinutesHundredYears AgoRiversShould HaveRunning AwayRest Of Your LifeMake You ThinkOne Minute
Author:Alice Hoffman
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“So many indigenous people have said to me that the fundamental difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that even the most open-minded westerners generally view listening to the natural world as a metaphor, as opposed to the way the world really is. Trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us.”

PeopleWorldWaySaidNaturalDifferencesViewsTreeRocksListeningRiversFundamentalsWesternMetaphorIndigenousNatural WorldOpen MindedIndigenous PeopleWesterners
Book:What We Leave Behind
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“How much do you love me?' and "Who's in charge?" ....these two questions of LOVE and CONTROL undo us ALL, trip us up and cause war, grief, and suffering. People follow different paths, straight or crooked, according to their temperament, depending on which they consider best, or most appropriate -- and all reach You, just as rivers enter the ocean.”

PeopleTwoDifferentWarSufferingCausesGriefPathOceanRiversAppropriateTemperamentCrookedDifferent PathsDo You Love Me
Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
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“Fog everywhere. Fog up the river where it flows among green airs and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.... Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.”

PeopleIfsChanceCitiesAirSkyFlowRiversGreenRoundsCloudsBridgesDirtyPollutionFogMeadowsBalloonsMistyShippingPeeping
Author:Charles Dickens
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“He'd discovered that his memories of that summer were like bad movie montages - young lovers tossing a Frisbee in the park, sharing a melting ice-cream cone, bicycling along the river, laughing, talking, kissing, a sappy score drowning out the dialogue because the screenwriter had no idea what these two people might say to each other.”

PeopleTwoIdeasMightYoungMemoriesTalkingLaughingLoversKissingSummerRiversDialogueIceNo IdeaParksScoreCreamIce CreamDrowningMeltingScreenwritersConesBad MoviesFrisbeeIce Cream ConesMelting Ice
Author:Richard Russo
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“Be nobody's darling; Be an outcast. Take the contradictions Of your life And wrap around You like a shawl, To parry stones To keep you warm. Watch the people succumb To madness With ample cheer; Let them look askance at you And you askance reply. Be an outcast; Be pleased to walk alone (Uncool) Or line the crowded River beds With other impetuous Fools. Make a merry gathering On the bank Where thousands perished For brave hurt words They said. Be nobody's darling; Be an outcast. Qualified to live Among your dead.”

PeopleLooksSaidHurtLinesWalksWatchesFoolBedRiversStonesMadnessBraveWarmContradictionCheerThey SaidGatheringQualifiedWrapsDarlingCrowdedMerryOutcastUncoolImpetuous
Book:Alice Walker: Collected Poems: Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems 1965-1990
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“The only thing I don't divulge is the truth about Mother killing little Carolina. I don't know why. Perhaps I sense he's not ready to know that just yet. Maybe he never will. People can live with only so much honesty. And sometimes, people can suprise you. I talk to my brother as I never have before, trusting in him, letting the river listen to my confessions on its path toward the sea. ~pg 693”

PeopleKnowsLittlesSometimesMotherPathSeaHonestyReadyBrotherRiversKillingMy BrotherConfessionNot ReadyCarolinaDivulge
Book:The Sweet Far Thing
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“Question four: What book would you give to every child? Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads. That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside.”

PeopleIfsGivingHumansChildrenSaidBookProblemWould BeFacesBeliefForceAnswersFourTreeStrangeWindBirdRiversStonesFleshFace To FaceStainsHummingbirdsDragonfliesWind In The WillowsTadpolesChipmunks
Author:Derrick Jensen
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“Though many non-Native Americans have learned very little about us, over time we have had to learn everything about them. We watch their films, read their literature, worship in their churches, and attend their schools. Every third-grade student in the United States is presented with the concept of Europeans discovering America as a "New World" with fertile soil, abundant gifts of nature, and glorious mountains and rivers. Only the most enlightened teachers will explain that this world certainly wasn't new to the millions of indigenous people who already lived here when Columbus arrived.”

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Book:Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women
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“Mom said, "His spirit is there," and that made me really angry. I told her, "Dad didn't have a spirit! He had cells!" "His memory is there." "His memory is here," I said, pointing at my head. "Dad had a spirit," she said, like she was rewinding a bit in our conversation. I told her, "He had cells, and now they're on rooftops, and in the river, and in the lungs of millions of people around New York, who breathe him every time they speak!”

PeopleMadeSaidSpiritSpeakBitsMemoriesMillionsNew YorkMomDadConversationRiversAngryBreatheCellsPointingLungsRooftops
Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
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“There are some delightful places in this world which have a sensual charm for the eyes. One loves them with a physical love. We people who are attracted by the countryside cherish fond memories of certain springs, certain woods, certain ponds, certain hills, which have become familiar sights and can touch our hearts like happy events. Sometimes indeed the memory goes back towards a forest glade, or a spot on a river bank or an orchard in blossom, glimpsed only once on a happy day, but preserved in our heart.”

PeopleWorldHeartSometimesEyeCertainMemoriesEventsThis WorldSpringRiversSightWoodsForestsFamiliarSpotsSensualHillsCharmCherishDelightfulOne LoveCountrysidePondsOrchardHappy DayFond Memories
Author:Guy de Maupassant
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“I don't know [why we're here]. People sometimes say to me, 'Why don't you admit that the humming bird, the butterfly, the Bird of Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?' And I always say, well, when you say that, you've also got to think of a little boy sitting on a river bank, like here, in West Africa, that's got a little worm, a living organism, in his eye and boring through the eyeball and is slowly turning him blind. The Creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm. Now I personally find that difficult to accommodate.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsBelieveWellsLittlesMadeSometimesEyeDifficultBoysWonderfulAtheismCreationBirdSittingRiversBlindWestAtheistCreatorBoringProofParadiseHis EyesButterflyOrganismsWormsWonderful ThingsLittle BoysAccommodateHummingEyeballsLiving OrganismsWest AfricaCreator God
Author:David Attenborough
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“Shamefully, all of us have wanted revenge on someone at some point for something. I've lived since before man and buffalo roamed this small planet. I have survived the beginning, bloom, and death of countless enemies, civilizations, and people. And the one truth I have learned most during all of these centuries is the old Japanese proverb. If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.”

PeopleIfsMenLongEnoughBodyWantedEnemyCenturyPlanetsCivilizationRiversRevengeI Have LearnedSurvivedFloatsBuffaloJapanese Proverbs
Author:Sherrilyn Kenyon
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“Hitoshi: I'll never be able to be here again. As the minutes slide by, I move on. The flow of time is something I cannot stop. I haven't a choice. I go. One caravan has stopped, another starts up. There are people I've yet to meet, others I'll never see again. People who are gone before you know it, people who are just passing through. Even as we exchange hellos, they seem to grow transparent. I must keep living with the flowing river before my eyes. I earnestly pray that a trace of my girl-child self will always be with you. For waving good-bye, I thank you.”

PeopleKnowsChildrenSelfSeemsEyeAbleMovingChoicesGirlGrowsGoneMinutesHavensPrayingFlowRiversPassingPassingsTransparentSlidesByeGood ByeMy GirlPassing ThroughSelf WillCaravansFlowing RiverGirl Child
Book:Three plays
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“No, the last thing she cared about was whether people were staring at the boy and girl kissing by the river, as London, it's cities and towers and churches and bridges and streets, circled all about them like the memory of a dream. And if the Thames that ran beside them, sure and silver in the afternoon light, recalled a night long ago when the moon shone as brightly as a shilling on this same boy and girl, or if the stones of Blackfriars knew the tread of their feet and thought to themselves: At last, the wheel comes to a full circle, they kept their silence.”

PeopleIfsLongDreamLightLastsNightGirlChurchMemoriesCitiesSilenceBoysFeetStreetsMoonKissingRiversStonesLondonCirclesBridgesStaringRanWheelsSilverAfternoonLong AgoTowersBoy And GirlJem CarstairsFull CircleThames
Author:Cassandra Clare
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“Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead?”

PeopleWantEnoughDeathDiesHopeBoysHellFlowerRiversBunchSundayStomachDeath And DyingCrapCemeteryEulogyDumpDying DeathCatchersHoldenSomeone DyingHolden CaulfieldPeople DyingDying LoveBeautiful DeathSomeone Who Is DyingDeath Coming
Book:THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
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“In the time that I have been acquainted with this region I have become increasingly aware of it as a testament of water, the origin and guide of its contours and gradients and of all the lives - the plants and small creatures, and the culture - that evolved here. That was always here to be seen, of course, and the recognition has forced itself, in one form or other, upon people in every part of the world who have been directly involved with the growing of living things. The gardener who ignores it is soon left with no garden.”

PeopleWorldHas BeensFormCultureCoursesLeftWaterGrowingInvolvedCreaturesRainGardenRiversPlantGuidesRecognitionRegionsTestamentLiving ThingsGardenerSmall Creatures
Author:W. S. Merwin
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“All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be content when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.”

PeopleMenShouldWellsMadeMightRunningEarthMotherNatureBornJusticeLibertyRightsBrotherPleaseEqualDiversityRiversShould HaveSocial JusticeEnvironmentalIndianNativeDeniedNative AmericanEqual RightsAmerican IndianNative AmericaNative American IndianGreat Native AmericanNative American EarthBorn Free
Author:Chief Joseph
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“I call the light and high aspects of my being spirit and the dark and heavy aspects soul. Soul is at home in the deep, shaded valleys. Heavy torpid flowers saturated with black grow there. The rivers flow like warm syrup. They empty into huge oceans of soul. Spirit is a land of high white peaks and glittering jewel-like lakes and flowers. Life is sparse and sounds travel great distances. There is soul music, soul food, and soul love... People need to climb the mountain not simple because it is there But because the soulful divinity needs to be mated with the spirit.”

PeopleNeedsSoulHomeLightLife IsSpiritGrowsSoundBlackDarkSimpleWhiteLandFlowerHugeMountainOceanAspectFlowRiversEmptyDistanceHeavyWarmDivinityClimbsLakesValleysJewelsSoulfulSaturatedMusic SoulSyrupFood For The SoulFlower Life
Author:Dalai Lama
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“If there is anything I have learned about men and women, it is that there is a deeper spirit of altruism than is ever evident. Just as the rivers we see are minor compared to the underground streams, so, too, the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what people carry in their hearts unreleased or scarcely released.”

PeopleIfsMenHeartSpiritCompassionMen And WomenRiversDeeperStreamsVisibleMinorsI Have LearnedAltruismIdealismEvident
Author:Albert Schweitzer
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“My child,you are broken. Unless you know that you are broken yourself,it will be severely laborious to love the broken people around you. You will be harsh and exacting towards them. But because you want others to like you, you will always attempt to hide your weaknesses from others. Let me strip away your masks,so that you may know who you really are.And when this truth sets you free,then shall you be free to genuinely love. Before this occurs,your love will be offered by the flask,not by the torrents of a river.”

PeopleKnowsWantHeartMayChildrenLove IsLike YouBrokenWeaknessRiversLet MeMy ChildrenMaskBroken HeartHarshFlasks
Author:Bo Sanchez
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“Willis Rodney Whitney ... once compared scientific research to a bridge being constructed by a builder who was fascinated by the construction problems involved. Basic research, he suggested, is such a bridge built wherever it strikes the builder's fancy-wherever the construction problems seem to him to be most challenging. Applied research, on the other hand, is a bridge built where people are waiting to get across the river. The challenge to the builder's ingenuity and skill, Whitney pointed out, can be as great in one case as the other.”

PeopleProblemHandsSeemsScienceWaitingChallengesCasesInvolvedSkillsResearchBuiltRiversStrikesBridgesFancyFascinatedConstructionIngenuityBuilderScientific ResearchWhitneyBasic Research
Author:Chauncey Guy Suits
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“It's easy to become hopeless. So people must have hope: the human brain, the resilience of nature, the energy of young people and the sort of inspiration that you see from so many hundreds of people who tackle tasks that are impossible and never give up and succeed.”

PeopleGivingHumansInspirationSuccessYoungEnergyEasyBrainImpossibleYouthSucceedGiving UpRiversTasksEnvironmentalResilienceHopelessNever Giving UpHuman BrainHaving HopeThe Wild Nature
Author:Jane Goodall
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“There is growing awareness of the beauty of country ... a sincere desire to keep some of it for all time. People are beginning to value highly the fact that a river runs unimpeded for a distance... They are beginning to obtain deep satisfaction from the fact that a herd of elk may be observed in back country, on ancestral ranges, where the Indians once hunted them. They are beginning to seek the healing relaxation that is possible in wild country. In short, they want it.”

PeopleWantMayCountryFactsRunningDesireValuesHealingGrowingAwarenessRiversDistanceSatisfactionAll TimeRangeWildernessSincereRelaxationHerdsHuntedElk
Author:Olaus Murie
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“It helps to resign as the controller of your fate. All that energy we expend to keep things running right is not what's keeping things running right. We're bugs struggling in the river, brightly visible to the trout below. With that fact in mind, people like me make up all these rules to give us the illusion that we are in charge. I need to say to myself, they're not needed, hon. Just take in the buggy pleasures. Be kind to the others, grab the fleck of riverweed, notice how beautifully your bug legs scull.”

PeopleInspirationalNeedsGivingMindKindFactsHelpingRunningEnergyPleasureStruggleFateNeededIllusionRiversLegsLike MeVisibleBe KindBugsTroutControllers
Author:Anne Lamott
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“You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that we have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself. This is vital not only for the preservation of animal life generally, but for the future existence of man himself - a point that seems to escape many people.”

PeopleIfsMenMeanSeemsAnimalExistenceEnvironmentSeaShotsRiversSpeciesForestsPreservesLakesConservationPreservationHabitatAnimal LifeRivers And LakesGrasslands
Author:Gerald Durrell
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“People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its current nor try to resist it. Rather, they adjust their every movement to the watercourse, use it with purpose and skill, and enjoy the adventure.”

PeopleTryingUsePurposeEnjoyFocusMovementAdventureSkillsRiversCurrentsAbandonHave FaithFlexibilityRushingSwimmer
Book:Deeper Than Words: Living the Apostles' Creed
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“Some people say that you should go to all the parties, to the nightclubs, the Viper Room, and make contacts, and I look at them and say, 'You don't want to have contacts with those people.' Look at what happened to River Phoenix [who died in 1993 of a drug overdose outside the Viper Room]. If you get caught up in that, it ruins you. Hollywood is garbage.”

PeopleIfsWantShouldLooksRoomsPartyHappenedRiversHollywoodCaughtContactRuinsCaught UpGarbagePhoenixNightclubsVipers
Author:Paul Walker
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