Ruskin Bond Quotes & Sayings

On books and friends I spend my money;
For stones and bricks I haven't any. — Ruskin Bond

It is better to be a human without any gifts than a Jinn or a genius with one too many. — Ruskin Bond

money can't buy good health or a serene state of mind - especially the latter. You can fly to the ends of the earth in search of the best climate or the best medical treatment and the chances are that you will have to keep flying! — Ruskin Bond

Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them. — Ruskin Bond

So on we tramped, three small dots on a big mountain, mere specks, beings of no importance. In creating this world, God showed that he was a great mathematician; but in creating man, he got his algebra wrong. Puffed up with self-importance, we are in fact the most dispensable of all his creatures. — Ruskin Bond

Once you have lived with mountains for any length of time you belong to them, and must return again and again. Nearly — Ruskin Bond

But men are cutting down the trees without replacing them. For every tree that's felled, we must plant two. Otherwise, one day there'll be no forests at all, and the world will become one great desert. — Ruskin Bond

Well, we are equals, in our fear as in our loneliness. — Ruskin Bond

We cannot foresee when a bolt from the blue will put an end to the best-laid plans of mice and men. — Ruskin Bond

Hinduism comes closest to being a nature religion. Rivers, rocks, trees, plants, animals, and birds all play their part, both in mythology and everyday worship. This harmony is most evident in remote places like this, and I hope it does not loose its unique character in the ruthless urban advance. — Ruskin Bond

But my animals are real animals, and they behave as animals usually do. It's really the humans who do strange things. Animals are predictable. Humans, never. — Ruskin Bond

What is nostalgia, after all, but an attempt to preserve that which was good in the past? — Ruskin Bond

The adventure is not in arriving, it's in the on-the-way experience. It is not in the expected; it's in the surprise. You — Ruskin Bond

Looking back on those childhood days, I carry in my mind a picture of grandmother in her rocking chair with a contented owlet sprawled across her aproned lap. Once, on entering a room while she was taking her afternoon nap, I saw one of the owlets had crawled up her pillow til its head was snuggled under her ear. Both grandmother and the owlet were snoring. — Ruskin Bond

One sure way to lose the world and everything in it, is to try grasping it. — Ruskin Bond

The past is always with us, for it feeds the present. — Ruskin Bond

I mostly write short stories. They are best written in a continuous creative process. You have a feel of immediacy. — Ruskin Bond

The sea has had Conrad and Stevenson and Masefield, but the mountains continue to defy the written word. We have climbed their highest peaks and crossed their most difficult passes, but still they keep their secrets and their reserve; they remain remote, mysterious, spirit-haunted. — Ruskin Bond

When you write a novel you have to live with the characters for a long time. So I prefer short stories. I never wrote anything more than 250 pages. — Ruskin Bond

Crows are the world's great survivors. They are capable of living at any height and in any climate; as much at home in the back streets of Delhi as on the heights of Tungnath. Another — Ruskin Bond

On the open road we are all brothers. — Ruskin Bond

It is always the same with mountains. Once you have lived with them for any length of time, you belong to them. There is no escape. — Ruskin Bond

Tungnath's lonely eminence gives it a magic of its own. To get there (or beyond), one passes through some of the most delightful temperate forest in the Garhwal Himalaya. Pilgrim, or trekker, or just plain rambler such as myself, one comes away a better person, forest-refreshed, and more aware of what the world was really like before mankind began to strip it bare. Duiri — Ruskin Bond

When I write I just keep a waste paper basket handy in case I am experiencing a block. — Ruskin Bond

Begum Para, did I say? Not the Begum Para? The saucy heroine of the silver screen? And why not? This remarkable lady had dropped in from Pakistan to play the part of my grandmother in Shubhadarshini's serial Ek Tha Rusty, based on stores of my childhood. — Ruskin Bond

Many people - car drivers anyway - think I'm a little eccentric. So be it. I probably am eccentric! But having come to the Himalayan foothills forty years ago in order to enjoy walking among them, I am not about to stop now, just because everyone else has stopped walking. The hills are durable in their attractions, and my legs have proved durable too, so why should we not continue together as before? — Ruskin Bond

I suppose Hinduism comes closest to being a nature religion. Rivers, rocks, trees, plants, animals and birds, all play their part, both in mythology and in everyday worship. This harmony is most evident in these remote places, where gods and mountains co-exist. Tungnath, as yet unspoilt by a materialistic society, exerts its magic on all who come here with open mind and heart. — Ruskin Bond

On the spur of the hill stood the ruins of an old brewery. The roof had long since disappeared and the rain had beaten the stone floors smooth and yellow. Some enterprising Englishman had spent a lifetime here making beer for his thirsty compatriots down in the plains. Now, moss and ferns grew from the walls. — Ruskin Bond

RUSTY watched the dawn blossom into light. At first everything was dark, then gradually objects began to take shape - the desk and chair, the walls of the room - and the darkness lifted like the raising of a veil, and over the tree-tops the sky was streaked with crimson. It was like this for some time, while everything became clearer and more distinguishable; and then, when nature was ready, the sun reached up over the trees and hills, and sent one tentative beam of warm light through the window. Along the wall crept the sun, across to the bed, and up the boy's bare legs, until it was caressing his entire body and whispering to him to get up, get up, it is time to get up ... — Ruskin Bond

Yes, I'd love to have a garden of my own
spacious, and full of everything that is fragrant and flowering. But if I don't succeed, never mind
I've still got the dream. — Ruskin Bond

Money often costs too much.' - Ralph Waldo Emerson — Ruskin Bond

Great Stories for Children — Ruskin Bond

To return to my own trees, I went among them often, acknowledging their presence with a touch of my hand against their trunks. — Ruskin Bond

Hapiness is as exclusive as a butterfly, and you must never pursue it. If you stay very still, it may come and settle on your hand. But only briefly. Savour those moments, for they will not come in your way very often. — Ruskin Bond

When I'm writing there's nobody watching me. Today, it's hard to find a profession where you're not being watched! — Ruskin Bond

Cold weather doesn't care if your coat is old or new. — Ruskin Bond

It was a good river, deep and strong, beginning in the mountains and ending in the sea. Along its banks, for hundreds of miles, lived millions of people, and Sita was only one small girl among them, and no one had ever heard of her, no one knew her - except for the old man, and the boy, and the river. — Ruskin Bond

I believe that mountains do affect one's personality, if one can remain among them long enough; and if Sunil had grown up in the hills instead of in a refugee township, I have no doubt he would have been a completely different person. — Ruskin Bond

For nature does things in good order:
And birds and butterflies recognize
No man-made border — Ruskin Bond

How evanescent those loves and friendships seem at this distance in time ... We move on, make new attachments. We grow old. But sometimes, we hanker for old friendships, the old loves. Sometimes I wish I was young again. Or that I could travel back in time and pick up the threads. Absent so long, I may have stopped loving you, friends; but I will never stop loving the Day I loved you. — Ruskin Bond

It isn't time that's passing by, it is you and I. It — Ruskin Bond

I did not sleep last night, for you had kissed me. You held my hand and put it to your cheek and to your breasts. And I had closed your eyes and kissed them, and taken your face in my hands and touched your lips with mine. And then, my darling, I stumbled into the light like a man intoxicated, and did not say or know what people were saying or doing ... ' Gosh! — Ruskin Bond

Grandfather was about sixty, a lean active man who still rode his bicycle at great speed. — Ruskin Bond

Everyone says she's mad.'
'How do they know?' I asked.
'Because she's different from other people, I suppose.'
'Is that being mad?'
'No. Not really, I suppose madness is not seeing things as others see them. — Ruskin Bond

Listen to the night wind in the trees, Listen to the summer grass singing; Listen to the time that's tripping by, And the dawn dew falling. Listen to the moon as it climbs the sky, Listen to the pebbles humming; Listen to the mist in the trembling leaves, And the silence calling. — Ruskin Bond

The world keeps on changing, but there is always something, somewhere, that remains the same. — Ruskin Bond

It has bloomed again,
This flower that I thought dead.
In one moment of despair
And pain,
I'd trampled it in the ground
Upon this barren plain.
Little did I know
That it would rise again,
This flower that I thought dead.
My soul would need
A surer weapon than despair
To crush a thing so bright, so fair. — Ruskin Bond

All men are my friends. I have only to meet them.' In these hills, where life still moves at a leisurely and civilized pace, one is constantly meeting them. The — Ruskin Bond

That is another of the attractions of Tramping to nowhere in particular - the finding of somewhere in particular, the striking up of friendships, the discovery of new Springs and waterfalls,unusual pants, rare flowers,strange birds. In the hills a new Vista opens up at every bend in the road. That is what makes me a compulsive walker - new vistas,and the charm of unexpected. — Ruskin Bond

The monkey population is definitely on the increase, and I wouldn't be surprised if one day it exceeds the human population. Of course, the way things are going, a time may come when we won't be able to distinguish between monkeys and humans. Monkeys are becoming more human, while humans are becoming more like monkeys. Summer — Ruskin Bond

The sunlight, penetrating the gaps in the tall trees, plays chess on the gravestones, shifting slowly and thoughtfully across the worn old stones. The wind, like a hundred violins, plays perpetually in the topmost branches of the deodars. — Ruskin Bond

Happiness is an elusive state of mind not to be gained by clumsy pursuit.It is given to those who do not sue for it:to be unconcerned about a desired good is probably the only way to possess it. — Ruskin Bond

I am a storyteller from a personal viewpoint. When I run out of people I invent ghosts. I don't believe in ghosts. Never saw one. — Ruskin Bond

To early man, trees were objects of awe and wonder. The mystery of their growth, the movement of their leaves and branches, the way they seemed to die and come again to life in spring, the sudden growth of the plant from the seed - all these appeared to be miracles as indeed they still are, miracles of nature! — Ruskin Bond

I never cease to wonder at the tenacity of water - its ability to make its way through various strata of rock,zigzagging,back-tracking, finding space, cunningly discovering faults and fissures in the mountain, and sometimes traveling underground for great distances before emerging into the open. Of course, there's no stopping water. For no matter how tiny that little tickle, it has to go somewhere. — Ruskin Bond

Ram Bharosa says he will never forget the smile she gave him when she left the shop. She — Ruskin Bond

And that's what I've been doing all my life - plodding along, singing my song, telling my tales in my own unhurried way. I have lived life at my own gentle pace, and if as a result I have failed to get to the top of the mountain (or of anything else), it doesn't matter, the long walk has brought its own sweet rewards; buttercups and butterflies along the way. Ruskin Bond Landour, March 2005 — Ruskin Bond

And the earth itself. It smells different in different places. But its loveliest fragrance is known only when it receives a shower of rain. and then the scent of the wet earth rises as though it would give something beautiful back to the clouds. A blend of all the fragrant things that grow upon it. — Ruskin Bond

She did not know it then, that some of the moving force in our life are meant to touch us briefly and go there way. — Ruskin Bond

Enough for me that you are beautiful: Beauty possessed diminishes. Better a dream of love Than love's dream broken; Better a look exchanged Than love's word spoken. Enough for me that you walk past, A firefly flashing in the dark. — Ruskin Bond

Williamson, writing in 1810, tells us that the passes were so infested with tigers that the roads were almost impassible. 'Day after day, for nearly a fortnight, some of the dak people were carried off at one or other of these passes.' In — Ruskin Bond

It would be a dull world if it was the same everywhere, — Ruskin Bond

We must love someone. We must keep loving, all our days, Someone, anyone, anywhere Outside our selves; For even the sarus crane Will grieve over its lost companion, And the seal its mate. Somewhere in life There must be someone To take your hand And share the torrid day. Without the touch of love There is no life, and we must fade away. — Ruskin Bond

People often ask me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike. It is clarity that I am striving to attain, not simplicity.
Of course, some people want literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat. They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves. — Ruskin Bond

Hitler's signature is ugly, as you would expect. — Ruskin Bond

The other day a young Internet surfer asked me why I preferred using a pencil instead of a computer. The principal reason, I told him, was that I liked chewing on the end of my pencil. A nasty habit, but it helps me concentrate. And I find it extremely difficult to chew on a computer. — Ruskin Bond

Men may sometimes be rather similar, but no two women are ever alike. — Ruskin Bond

Duiri Tal, a small lake, lies cradled on the hill above Okhimath, at a height of 8,000 feet. It was a favourite spot of one of Garhwal's earliest British Commissioners, J.H. Batten, whose administration continued for twenty years (1836-56). He wrote: The day I reached there, it was snowing and young trees were laid prostrate under the weight of snow; the lake was frozen over to a depth of about two inches. There was no human habitation, and the place looked a veritable wilderness. The next morning when the sun appeared, the Chaukhamba and many other peaks extending as far as Kedarnath seemed covered with a new quilt of snow, as if close at hand. The whole scene was so exquisite that one could not tire of gazing at it for hours. I think a person who has a subdued settled despair in his mind would all of a sudden feel a kind of bounding and exalting cheerfulness which will be imparted to his frame by the atmosphere of Duiri Tal. This — Ruskin Bond

* The blackest cloud I've ever seen squatted over Mussoorie, and then it hailed marbles for half an hour. Nothing like a hailstorm to clear the sky . Even as I write, I see a rainbow forming. — Ruskin Bond

That man is strongest who stands alone! — Ruskin Bond

The more you write, the better you will write! So - keep at it! — Ruskin Bond

The India I Love, does not make the headlines, but I find it wherever I go - in field or forest, town or village, mountain or desert - and in the hearts and minds of people who have given me love and affection for the better part of my lifetime. — Ruskin Bond

beneficiaries having — Ruskin Bond

All of us need just one good accomplishment in order to get by. Obviously he can't spend the rest of his life climbing trees, but it's the agility and enterprise involved in the act that will make him a survivor. Enough — Ruskin Bond

Trees make you feel younger. And the older the tree, the younger you feel. Whenever — Ruskin Bond

There is money to be made in the market place, but under the cherry tree there is rest. — Ruskin Bond

A Quiet Mind Lord, give me a quiet mind, That I might listen; A gentle tone of voice, That I might comfort others; A sound and healthy body, That I might share In the joy of walking And leaping and running; And a good sense of direction So I might know just where I'm going! — Ruskin Bond

If you have secrets, you must have a friend to share them with, — Ruskin Bond

It's courage, not luck, that takes us through to the end of the road. — Ruskin Bond

Normally writers do not talk much,because they are saving their conversations for the readers of their book-
those invisible listeners with whom we wish to strike a sympathetic chord. — Ruskin Bond

Some people become an integral part of our lives; others are ships that pass in the night. Short stories, in fact. My — Ruskin Bond

Good omelettes are still hard to come by. They shouldn't be made in a hurried or slapdash manner. Some thought has to go into an omelette. And a little love too. It's like writing a book - done much better with some feeling! — Ruskin Bond

You don't have to lie if you know how to withhold the truth. — Ruskin Bond

teacher droned on and on, lecturing — Ruskin Bond

It is supposed to be in very bad taste to discuss a person behind his back; and to discuss a dead person behind his back is most unfair, for he cannot even retaliate. — Ruskin Bond

Strange, how lovers cannot bear that the world should not know their love — Ruskin Bond

There is a distinction to be made between aloneness and loneliness. — Ruskin Bond

Those who do not read are the unfortunate ones. There's nothing wrong with them, but they are missing out on one of life's compensations and rewards. — Ruskin Bond

I think I have learnt something of the value of stillness. I don't fret so much; I laugh at myself more often; I don't laugh at others. I live life at my own pace. Like a banyan tree. Is this wisdom, or is it just old age? — Ruskin Bond

The Hare in the Moon — Ruskin Bond

kindest people are often those who have come through testing personal tragedies. A — Ruskin Bond

Wretched game, cricket, keeping romantic youths out in the sun when they should be indoors, applying balm to the foreheads of feverish young maidens. — Ruskin Bond

I am still on my zigzag way, pursuing the diagonal between reason and heart. — Ruskin Bond

To be able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things that make man better than the beast — Ruskin Bond

A merry heart does good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. — Ruskin Bond

She walked home through the darkening glade, singing of the stars; and the trees stood still and listened to her, and the mountains were glad. — Ruskin Bond

Some memories are best left untouched. — Ruskin Bond

Red roses for young lovers. French beans for longstanding relationships — Ruskin Bond

The rain swirls over the trees and roofs of the town, and the parched earth soaks it up, exuding a fragrance that comes only once in a year, the fragrance of quenched earth, the most exhilarating of all smells. — Ruskin Bond

When we are young, we can put up with a great deal of discomfort in order to follow a dream. If, after thirty-five years, I'm still doing my own thing, it's because I haven't forgotten the dream. Let no man take your dream away. It will sustain you to the end. — Ruskin Bond