Appalachian Life Quotes & Sayings

Though the trials of life are never easy, someone to stand with you and help you with your burdens is one of the true essences of living. It is well that two should join together to face life as friends as well as lovers. — Micheal Rivers

As a child I read hoping to learn everything, so I could be like my father. I hoped to combine my father's grasp of information and reasoning with my mother's will and vitality. But the books were leading me away. They would propel me right out of Pittsburgh altogether, so I could fashion a life among books somewhere else. So the Midwest nourishes us ... and presents us with the spectacle of a land and a people completed and certain. And so we run to our bedrooms and read in a fever, and love the big hardwood trees outside the windows, and the terrible Midwest summers, and the terrible Midwest winters, and the forested river valleys, with the blue Appalachian Mountains to the east of us and the broad great plains to the west. And so we leave it sorrowfully, having grown strong and restless by opposing with all our will and mind and muscle its simple, loving, single will for us: that we stay, that we stay and find a place among its familiar possibilities. — Annie Dillard

Have you ever dreamt about doing something totally foolish, something so absurd that perhaps you were afraid to tell anyone except possibly those closest to you? I harbored such a secret for most of my adult life - I secretly wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail [A.T.] from Georgia to Maine. — Dennis R. Blanchard

Personally, I think every guy who calls himself straight should take a hike on the gay Appalachian Trail at least once in his life. — Brad Boney

After more than two thousand miles on the [Appalachian] trail, you can expect to undergo some personality changes. A heightened affinity for nature infiltrates your life. Greater inner peace. Enhanced self-esteem. A quiet confidence that if I could do that, I can do and should do whatever I really want to do. More appreciation for what you have and less desire to acquire what you don't. A childlike zest for living life to the fullest. A refusal to be embarrassed about having fun. A renewed faith in the essential goodness of humankind. And a determination to repay others for the many kindnesses you have received. — Larry Luxenberg

There was, like, this black hole where the world used to be, and we were both falling toward it. What could we hold on to? — Rick Yancey

There are a lot of people who think celebrities shouldn't complain, that the photography is just a price to pay for having this career. I guess that's bizarre. What they don't understand is that this is all stuff that's really new. — Megan Fox

It's always extremities when you are a young black male dealing with law enforcement. — O'Shea Jackson Jr.

One of the things I've done is tell myself I can't let bad things that happen to me on the field, off the field, whatever, affect me. — Matt Kemp

I grew up down in the hills of Virginia. I can be in Kentucky in 20 minutes, Tennessee in 20 minutes or in the state of West Virginia in 20 minutes. And it's down in the Appalachian Mountains, down there. And it's sort of a poorer country. Most of the livelihood is coal mining and logging, working in the woods and things like that. Most people has a hard life down that way. — Ralph Stanley

Sometimes it's just harder to remind yourself about what you're doing and why you're doing it ... Other times, you have a great desire for it, but physically you're not responding the way you want. That presents other challenges. Then sometimes it all comes together. — Andre Agassi

The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing. — Jean Cocteau

I was beginning to appreciate that the central feature of life on the Appalachian Trail is deprivation, that the whole point of the experience is to remove yourself so thoroughly from the conveniences of everyday life that the most ordinary things
processed cheese, a can of pop gorgeously beaded with condensation
fill you with wonder and gratitude. — Bill Bryson

Misquotation is the pride and privilege of the learned. — Hesketh Pearson

I don't necessarily not believe in ghosts, but I've never seen a ghost. A ghost has never jumped out and been like, 'Hey, how's it going?' — Sara Paxton

When you see a silent movie, you understand everything that's going on from the images because the images are so strong. — Monica Bellucci

It occurred to him that thinking like this could explain why, even after all the jobs he'd pulled, he rarely had much money in his pockets. Sometimes it seemed like he stole money from one place just to give it away somewhere else. — Dennis Lehane

[Janco] paused. His eyes held a distant gleam as if seeing into his past. 'My first practice was a shock. I was a cocky smart aleck
'
[Opal] 'Was?'
[J] 'Be quiet. I'm telling a story here. — Maria V. Snyder

If one has not given everything, one has given nothing. — Georges Guynemer

Only the young think they know anything about wisdom. — Nora Roberts

At the time of our hike, the
Appalachian Trail was fifty-nine years old. That is, by American standards, incredibly venerable. The Oregon and Santa Fe trails didn't last as long. Route 66 didn't last as long.
The old coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway, a road that brought transforming wealth and life to hundreds of little towns, so important and familiar that it became known as "America's Main Street," didn't last as long. Nothing in America does. If a product or enterprise doesn't constantly reinvent itself, it is superseded, cast aside, abandoned without sentiment in favor of something bigger, newer, and, alas, nearly always uglier. And then there is the good old AT, still quietly ticking along after six decades, unassuming, splendid, faithful to its founding principles, sweetly unaware that the world has quite moved on. It's a miracle really. — Bill Bryson

There is redemption in sadness. It tells me that for nearly five months in 2003, I lived life with the open, raw, refreshing outlook of the young. The payoff, though difficult to quantify, is much greater than I expected. I have no regrets about having gone -- it was the right thing to do. I think about it every day. Sometimes I can hardly believe it happened. I just quit -- and I was on a monumental trip. I didn't suffer financial ruin, my wife didn't leave me, the world didn't stop spinning. I do think of how regrettable it would have been had I ignored the pull that I felt to hike the trail. A wealth of memories could have been lost before they had even occurred if I had dismissed as a whim my inkling to hike. It is disturbing how tenuous our potential is due to our fervent defense of the comfortable norm. — David Miller

up. I kind of hoped jury duty lasted — Denise Grover Swank

Both parents were very encouraging - especially my father. My father thought the sun rose and set with me. Neither one had a musical background or any musical talent. They liked classical music, but neither could carry a tune. — Gordon Getty