Rosita Forbes Quotes & Sayings

The perfect journey is never finished, the goal is always just across the next river, round the shoulder of the next mountain. There is always one more track to follow, one more mirage to explore. — Rosita Forbes

It is a curious fact that camels walk more quickly and straighter to the sound of singing. — Rosita Forbes

There were twelve dishes of lamb cooked in different rich sauces, with a monster bowl of strange oddments, which I imagine also belonged to the private life of a sheep, floating in rich gravy. — Rosita Forbes

The desert breeds reserve. It is so big that one's own plans and projects seem too little to be talked about. Also, there is so much time to say anything that one continually puts it off and ends by never saying it at all. — Rosita Forbes

The desert has a subtle and a cruel charm. She destroys while she enthralls. — Rosita Forbes

The camels had strayed far in search of scarce grass. When collected, they displayed a fiendish ingenuity in throwing their loads and tangling themselves up in every possible strap. — Rosita Forbes

The laws all true wanderers obey are these: 'Thou shalt not eat nor drink more than thy share,' 'Thou shalt not lie about the places thou hast visited or the distances thou hast traversed. — Rosita Forbes

The red sands of Marrakesh, sprawling at the foot of the Atlas like a wounded Leviathan ... — Rosita Forbes

We rode through a three-thousand-year-old country, saw the ruined capital of the Queen of Sheba and the underground red-rock city of Lalibela, fraternized with a tribe of leaden-skinned troglogytes living among the mountains, scrapped with brigands, outwitted crocodiles, and eventually emerged battered and in rags with a book of adventures and 1,000 feet of film. — Rosita Forbes

It is true there is a scent in the desert, though there may be no flower or tree or blade of grass within miles. It is the essence of the untrodden, untarnished earth herself! — Rosita Forbes

In real life, the big things and the little things are inextricably mixed up together, so in Libya at one moment, one worried because one's native boots were full of holes, and at the next, perhaps, one wondered how long one would be alive to wear them. — Rosita Forbes

That is the charm of the map. It represents the other side of the horizon where everything is possible. — Rosita Forbes

That is the charm of a map. It represents the other side of the horizon where everything is possible. It has the magic of anticipation without the toil and sweat of realization. The greatest romance ever written pales before the possibilities of adventure that lie in the faint blue trails from sea to sea. The perfect journey is never finished, the goal is always just across the next river, round the shoulder of the next mountain. There is always one more track to follow, one more mirage to explore. Achievement is the price which the wanderer pays for the right to venture. — Rosita Forbes

The curly red lines across the African deserts had the fascination of a magnet, and I hoped fervently that the pioneers who were writing their names over the blank spaces, would leave just one small desert for me. — Rosita Forbes