Adventure Quotes

“None of your knowledge, your reading, your connections will be of any use here: two legs suffice, and big eyes to see with. Walk alone, across mountains or through forests. You are nobody to the hills or the thick boughs heavy with greenery. You are no longer a role, or a status, not even an individual, but a body, a body that feels sharp stones on the paths, the caress of long grass and the freshness of the wind. When you walk, the world has neither present nor future: nothing but the cycle of mornings and evenings. Always the same thing to do all day: walk. But the walker who marvels while walking (the blue of the rocks in a July evening light, the silvery green of olive leaves at noon, the violet morning hills) has no past, no plans, no experience. He has within him the eternal child. While walking I am but a simple gaze.”
― Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

“They say no land remains to be discovered, no continent is left unexplored. But the whole world is out there, waiting, just waiting for me. I want to do things-- I want to walk the rain-soaked streets of London, and drink mint tea in Casablanca. I want to wander the wastelands of the Gobi desert and see a yak. I think my life's ambition is to see a yak. I want to bargain for trinkets in an Arab market in some distant, dusty land. There's so much. But, most of all, I want to do things that will mean something.”
― Lisa Ann Sandell, A Map of the Known World

“I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.”
― William Shakespeare, Richard III

“You may be a royal, and a monarch, but you know the High Council supplants your authority when it comes to the rings.”
― Tricia Copeland, To be a Fae Guardian

“Set out from any point. They are all alike. They all lead to a point of departure.”
― Antonio Porchia

“Everyone thought she was so confident and together, but that was really a mask she wore to protect herself. The old adage “Don’t judge a book by its cover” applied to her.”
― Hope Worthington, Shifting Moon: Shifting Moon Saga, Book 1

“You realize, of course, the Omegans nearly lost this Earth. They
had everything yet let it disintegrate through their rampant carelessness.
Two hundred years past they possessed the rudimentary beginnings
of the NET to bring them together. They called it the Internet.
Yet they treated it like a toy, tribalized themselves, and thus nearly lost
the planet.
“Nationalist wars, self serving ideologies, competing religions . . .
more significant, though not to the Omegans, was climate change
itself, which mattered more than any petty dogma, but they ignored
it until too late. It has ultimately determined our lives, managed now
by the CORPORATE, using the only possible tools to survive. There
were billions of Humans then. There is now but a fraction of that:
some 300 million we know in the MEGS and, of course, the uncounted
MASSes.”
― Brian Van Norman, Against the Machine: Evolution

“Manager Mangione,” Ping said, “algorithmic regulation was to
have been a system of governance where more exact data, collected
from MEG citizens’ minds via neuralinks, would be used to organize
Human life more efficiently as a CORPORATE collective. Except no
one to this point in Human existence has been able to identify the
mind. The CORPORATE can only receive data from the NET on
behaviours which indicate feelings or intentions. I & I cannot . . .”
― Brian Van Norman, Against the Machine: Evolution

“Remy glanced up and found herself staring into Logan’s eyes. She was lost to his stare and forgot that anyone else was around. Again, that feeling of protectiveness washed over her, and this time, something else. There was also a sense of familiarity when she looked into his eyes.”
― Hope Worthington, Shifting Moon: Shifting Moon Saga, Book 1

“I decided that adventure was the best way to learn about writing.”
― Lloyd Alexander

“Pasty old men on the porch played Texas hold ’em using Old West playing cards without numbers. They sipped joe and flashed toothless smiles as Anika and Sam marched toward the Alamo entrance. Though their smiles appeared genuine, even endearing, these weren’t the innocent grandpas from central casting. ”
― Chad Boudreaux, Homecoming Queen: A Small-Town Political Thriller

“Look," Grace said. "How strange! In spite of the rain, you can still see the stars. How bright they are tonight." She pointed, but Lorcan didn't look. His eyes remained fixed intently on her.
"I can't think of a finer sight in the whole world than the one I'm looking at right now," he said.
In spite of being drenched, Grace flushed at his words.
Lorcan's eyes sparkled at her, brighter than ever before.
It was as if the rare blue gems of his iriseshad been washed by the rain amd buffed by the moonlight to a new intensity. "Grace, there's been something I've wanted to do for a very long time now, but things have kept getting in the way." He reached forward, bringing a hand to the side of her face. Then he gently but firmly drew her wet face toward his. He gazed at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Then he brought his soft lips down to hers and kissed her.”
― Justin Somper, Black Heart

“She did it, though she hated opera. She hated everything about it. The overblown sense of drama. The violence and lewdness. No one had ever died of heartbreak in Reverie. Betrayal never led to murder. Those things didn’t happen anymore. They had the Realms now. They could experience anything without taking risks. Now, life was Better than Real.”
― Veronica Rossi, Under the Never Sky

“Be careful who you choose as your friends because their bad habits can become your bad habits. Choose wisely...we all have a choice in life.”
― Mimi Jenkins, I Am My Mother's Daughter

“When they reached their ship, Ed gazed out at the bay. It was black. The sky was black, but the bay was even blacker. It was a slick, oily blackness that glowed and reflected the moonlight like a black jewel. Ed saw the tiny specks of light around the edges of the bay where he knew ships must be docked, and at different points within the bay where vessels would be anchored. The lights were pale and sickly yellow when compared with the bright blue-white sparkle of the stars overhead, but the stars glinted hard as diamonds, cold as ice. Pg. 26.”
― Clark Zlotchew, Once upon a Decade: Tales of the Fifties

“Sorry to hear that, baby." he kissed the palm of her hand. Wow, her mom and husband both killed in tragic accidents, he thought.”
― Sharon Carter, Love Auction: Too Risky to Love Again

“[A]dventures befall the unadventurous as readily, if not as frequently, as the bold. Adventures are a logical and reliable result - and have been since at least the time of Odysseus - of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventures happen in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home. As soon as you have crossed your doorstep or the county line, into that place where the structures, laws, and conventions of your upbringing no longer apply, where the support and approval (but also the disapproval and repression) of your family and neighbors are not to be had: then you have entered into adventure, a place of sorrow, marvels, and regret.”
― Michael Chabon, Gentlemen of the Road

“His fall from grace is imminent and the vultures are circling. Waiting to pick his bones clean.”
― Lotchie Burton, Dante's Revenge

“who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded and loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,”
― Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

“Here she was on the other side of the grating—here she was at last, on the outside—looking in!”
― Mary Norton, The Borrowers

“Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name.”
― Samuel Butler, Erewhon

“She was a wild ocean. And he had always seen people giving up while trying to swim in her and swim back to the shore before they could drown. He always hesitated about that adventure. He was scared of failing to swim, and drowning to death. But he was never able to stop thinking about how the adventure could end up. He finally made his mind up and started swimming. And eventually, he gave up against the waves and the storms she created and he began to drown. But the moment he stopped fighting to survive, she slowly embraced him inside her arms. And he began to realise that everything was very different than what he had always imagined. He could feel every breath he took there, better than any place he had ever lived. She was splendid and he never felt like swimming away from her arms ever.”
― Akshay Vasu, The Abandoned Paradise: Unraveling the beauty of untouched thoughts and dreams

“From a safe distance, the man sat watching, thinking what a bunch of fools! Is this how Americans live? Walking around blindly, bumbling into each other and falling down all the time? But he hadn’t noticed what the Professor had noticed or he wouldn’t have been thinking in such arrogant terms. Before the Professor righted himself, he had caught sight of a partially concealed, but plainly present M1942 Sosso Pistol, an Italian made handgun.”
― Cece Whittaker, Glorious Christmas

“Slowness means cleaving perfectly to time, so closely that the seconds fall one by one, drop by drop like the steady dripping of a tap on stone. This stretching of time deepens space. It is one of the secrets of walking: a slow approach to landscapes that gradually renders them familiar. Like the regular encounters that deepen friendship.”
― Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

“Every challenge we’ve faced…every turn life has thrown at us…I’m reminded of the lessons I learned in those stories. Lessons of fate and destiny and how the impossible is worth fighting for, no matter how long it takes. But the biggest thing I learned,” he paused and swallowed, “and also, the most relevant…is that in all of the universe, there is only one moon. And you, Alaina Elizabeth Thomas, are my moon. You are my destiny. You are, my Arabian Nights. I am so thankful that in all the stories of the world, you chose to be mine.”
― D.M. Simmons, Ravel

“I gently urged Clyde toward a big elm tree standing twenty yards from the front of the cabin and reined him to a stop partially behind the wide trunk. Pulled my rifle out of its boot and rested it across the big gelding’s withers. “You Wilbur Redhand?”
He kept whittling without looking up. “Who’s askin?”
“I’m Deputy Marshal Jubal Smoak. Looking for an outlaw named Crow Redhand. If you’re Wilbur, I was told you’re his kin.”
He nodded and kept whittling. Presently, he said, “Crow ain’t here. He come, but he left. Needed doctoring. Someone shot him in the foot.”
“Reckon that’d been me,” I said. “Had a shootout down near Fairland. I shot him in the foot. He shot me in the back.”
He squinted at me. “Surprised you’re alive. Crow usually aims to kill. Never knew him to miss.”
― Phil Truman, Dire Wolf of the Quapaw: a Jubal Smoak Mystery

“Callum holds me tightly as we submerge under the water. Thin lines of air bubbles escape from his nose and mouth. He struggles to get back to the surface but to no avail—his heavy uniform and black boots weren’t meant for swimming.”
― S.G. Blaise, Proud Pada

“The goal here is to avoid the lake. I can assure you; no swimming or other preparation is needed. We would not recommend swimming anyway. The lake is full of giant eels that attack anything that moves.”
― S.G. Blaise, Proud Pada

“The tropical sun flickered between the swaying fronds of palm trees overhead. Ray and Ilsa rubbed their necks and blinked as they came out of their stupor. Their hair stood on end in frazzled locks, like quills upon the fretful porcupine. Their clothes were scorched, but they were alive. Or were they? Speechless, they gazed at their surroundings. Above them was an azure sky with fluffy clouds shaped like Spanish galleons sailing across a celestial sea. Birds chattered and sang in the foliage, which was fragrant and brilliant with blue, and pink and yellow flowers. Had they died? Was this heaven? Or, perish the thought, since obviously they were in the tropics, the other place?”
― James Allen Moseley, The Duke of D.C.: The American Dream

“Cursing his luck, he wished he’d stayed at work just a little longer. His heart was pounding. Murder. He’d just witnessed a murder. ”
― Christian Warren Freed, The Lazarus Men