Forest Path Quotes & Sayings

You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one — Mikhail Tal

In the Ngong Forest I have also seen, on a narrow path through thick growth, in the middle of a very hot day, the Giant Forest Hog, a rare person to meet. — Isak Dinesen

Don't you see? You created this forest! It is your imagination that has given these trees the water to grow. It is your hopes that blazed a path through it. It is your dreams that give it the magic. All of this was created from within you! — Michael Delaware

Knowing the path through the forest doesn't make the trip any less daunting. Knowing the steps to your dreams doesn't make the climb any less of a challenge. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The producer beating a new path for himself through the wilderness is going to do the thing 'differently,' of course. But after a while, he looks about him. The territory is unfamiliar, the forest ahead forbidding. Just how 'different' dare he be? He looks at his resources, and then at the established successes of the past. He suddenly realizes he must play safe, be sure. The unknown is a gamble; the known isn't-at least comparatively. The safest plan, obviously, is to follow the trailblazers. So he produces an imitation of one of the current successes. Usually it is a mediocre imitation. — Irving Thalberg

The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life - another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod - there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It's the explanation for the Fermi Paradox. — Liu Cixin

The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest - who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came. — Knut Hamsun

I love how the landscape gives the impression of vast space and intimacy at the same time: the thin brown line of a path wandering up an immense green mountainside, a plush hanging valley tucked between two steep hillsides, a village of three houses surrounded by dark forest, paddy fields flowing around an outcrop of rock, a white temple gleaming on a shadowy ridge. The human habitations nestle into the landscape; nothing is cut or cleared beyond what is requires. Nothing is bigger than necessary. Every sign of human settlement repeat the mantra of contentment: This is just enough. — Jamie Zeppa

He did not say goodbye, but she felt him leave. In the shadows of her closed eyes, she saw the forest path and saw him there. When she opened her eyes, he was gone. He had simply ceased to be. — Karen Foxlee

At the midpoint on the journey of life, I found myself in a dark forest, for the clear path was lost ... — Dante Alighieri

Often, beyond the next turning, footfalls of a herd galloping across stone were heard, or further in the distance, with reassuring grunts, a wild boar could be seen, trotting with steady stride along the edge of the road with her sow and a whole procession of young in tow. And then one's heart beat faster upon advancing a little into the subtle light: one might have said that the path had suddenly become wild, thick with grass, its dark paving-slabs engulfed by nettles, blackthorn and sloe, so that it mingled up time past rather than crossing country-side, and perhaps it was going to issue forth, in the chiaroscuro of thicket smelling of moistened down and fresh grass, into one of those glades where animals spoke to men. — Julien Gracq

The first arrow struck Semian in the leg, just above the knee. Semian howled, staggered and fell back into the water. The second arrow struck one of the other riders in the back. The third arrow hit the wounded dragon in the neck, which only made it hiss and snap. Kemir didn't stop to fire a fourth; instead he jogged a little deeper into the forest and then turned and followed the path of the river. The knights wouldn't follow him into the trees, he was quite sure of that, and the dragons would never find him in the dark. Not killing Rider Semian, he discovered, was immensely satisfying. Killing him was something he could do only once. He smiled to himself. — Stephen Deas

I am sorry. I lost something there. Like a path I was walking that dead-ended, and now I am alone and lost in the forest, and I am here and I do not know where here is any more. — Neil Gaiman

I believe God uses a layoff as sort of a blow torch, turning up the heat in our lives, so we can not only "see the forest for the trees", but to help burn off wrong mindsets, unconfessed sin, and help us get back on the right path with Him. Layoffs are not fun, but they can and will produce much good in your life, if you respond to God and seek what it is, He is asking you to do, or not do, give, walk away from, walk towards, etc. As one of my favorite preachers, Dr. Charles Stanley, always says, "God is up to something good in your life! — Mary Aucoin Kaarto

It is as if we were to start hacking a path through the Amazon forest. By the time we have proceeded a hundred yards, the undergrowth takes over again. — Edward Luce

When they reached her she stood on the path holding a pair of moths. Her eyes were wide with excitement , her cheeks pink, her red lips parted, and on the hand she held out to them clung a pair of delicate blue-green moths, with white bodies, and touches of lavender and straw colour. All about her lay flower-brocaded grasses, behind a deep green background of the forest, while the sun slowly sifted gold from heaven to burnish her hair. Mrs. Comstock heard a sharp breath behind her.
Oh, what a picture!" Exulted Ammon over sher shoulder. "She is absolutely and altogether lovely! Id give a small fortune for that faithfully set on canvas! — Gene Stratton-Porter

I would ask myself what o'clock it could be; I could hear the whistling of trains, which, now nearer and now farther off, punctuating the distance like the note of a bird in a forest, shewed me in perspective the deserted countryside through which a traveller would be hurrying towards the nearest station: the path that he followed being fixed for ever in his memory by the general excitement due to being in a strange place, to doing unusual things, to the last words of conversation, to farewells exchanged beneath an unfamiliar lamp which echoed still in his ears amid the silence of the night; and to the delightful prospect of being once again at home. — Marcel Proust

You will find the way, daughter of the forest. Through grief and pain, through many trials, through betrayal and loss, your feet will walk a straight path. — Juliet Marillier

When I had journeyed half of our life's way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray. — Dante Alighieri

The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism. — George Jean Nathan

As he left Yata's home that morning, he knew that a part of his life was complete and that whatever path he chose, he would experience the ache of unfulfilled dreams. For a moment he allowed himself to feel regret at the thought of never building a cottage by the river with Trevanion. Or living the life of a simple farmer connected to the earth. Or traveling his kingdom, satisfying the nomad he had become. To be Finnikin of the Rock and the Monts and the River and the Flatlands and the Forest. To be none of those at all.
Yet he also knew that to lose her to another man would be a slow torture every day for the rest of his life. — Melina Marchetta

I felt I was in the loneliest place in the world, and I was apprehensive. Nothing could be heard except the occasional crash of an unknown creature in the forest, and, once in awhile, a deep thrumming similar to the lowest barely audible sound of a string bass. I was standing alone in 1972 in a semi-ruined lighthouse that my wife, fifteen-year-old daughter, and I had just purchased. The lighthouse was located atop a 200-foot cliff on an island a dozen miles from the Lake Superior shoreline. I was separated from the nearest human being by an unknown but surely great distance, and had hiked several hours through the forest to reach the place, following the path of an old road that once led to the lighthouse but was now no longer passable with a vehicle. The low rumble I occasionally heard, straddling the lowest limit of my auditory range, was caused by an occasional large wave entering a cavern below the lighthouse and resonating in the stony echo chamber. — Loren Graham

Chapter 3, The Dark Forest ... The sound of flowing water echoed in the distance and then the path converged upon a creek full of fast, rippling, white water cascading over brown and red colored rocks. Moss dangled across the pathway and swung back and forth as the trespassers moved under the green vegetation. Bright yellow fingers of sunlight attempted to filter through the dense tundra to touch the moist earth until finally, the appendages of light disappeared completely. "Come children, this way," called Mrs. Beetle leading her group over a moldy, moss-laden, wood bridge. — M.K. McDaniel

Have you not heard his silent steps? He comes, comes, ever comes.

Every moment and every age, every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes.

Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind, but all their notes have always proclaimed, 'He comes, comes, ever comes.'

In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path he comes, comes, ever comes.

In the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering chariot of clouds he comes, comes, ever comes.

In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart, and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine. — Rabindranath Tagore

Now I was standing in a forest grove with a witch, a half-demon, a vampire, and a shaman, planning to put an end to a nefarious plot to usurp our powers and alter the path of humankind. Talk about your conspiracy theories. — Kelley Armstrong

Something about the structure of my brain, its associative, porous, open-endedness, was defenseless against the ever-enlarging Web. Every video, news story, photo, email, stock chart, sexy picture, and five-day weather forecast was an enticement to step into the forest, and once I was two or three bread crumbs down the path, the witches had me, I was in their oven. — Walter Kirn

You enter the forest
at the darkest point,
where there is no path.
Where there is a way or path,
it is someone else's path.
You are not on your own path.
If you follow someone else's way,
you are not going to realize
your potential. — Joseph Campbell

Also may your way be plain, that you not stray from the true path /A And while you complete your journey together to the Pine Forest /A May the days be of greater length and the nights pass quickly /A May you always have clothes to wear, and your pace never falter /A After sunset, may you always find a place to camp for the night /A And may you have protection from all predators of the twilight /A And may Shamash preserve you on your way to the Pine Forest /A[16] Whether it be a month or ten months, a year or even ten years." /A — Timothy J. Stephany

I dream dark dreams.
I dream of a figure moving through the forest, of children flying from his path, of young women crying at his coming. I dream of snow and ice, of bare branches and moon-cast shadows. I dream of dancers floating in the air, stepping lightly even in death, and my own pain is but a faint echo of their suffering as I run. My blood is black on the snow, and the edges of the world are silvered with moonlight. I run into the darkness, and he is waiting.
I dream in black and white, and I dream of him.
I dream of Caleb, who does not exist, and I am afraid. — John Connolly

Some imagine game development as a path that we follow toward our
destination. I disagree with this image. I think it's more like a dark forest
full of stinging monsters, waiting to inject you with anesthetic poison.
Each time you bump into one, it stings you and the poison makes you
feel warm and content. But under the surface, the stings are stealing your
vigor, dissolving you from the inside. It's only later, as your strength runs
low and the moon clouds over, that you might realize that the pleasant
feeling you've enjoyed all this time wasn't progress. It was death. — Tynan Sylvester

Her foot rammed into a mossy log, knocking her off balance. Even in the fading light she could see that there was nothing up ahead but more forest. She looked at the ground. The path had disappeared.
"There's no road left," she said, panic in her voice. She whipped her head around to face Driggs. "So Dead End really is a dead end?"
He smirked at her. "What, you thought it was just a cute name?"
"Driggs," she said, trying to keep her tone steady, "show me the way to that cabin, or I swear to God I'll feed you to the first bear that inevitably shows up to eat us. — Gina Damico

Help. We can be freed from a damaging insistence on forward thrust, from a commitment to running wildly down a convenient path that might actually be taking us deeper into the dark forest. Praying "Help" means that we ask that Something give us the courage to stop in our tracks, right where we are, and turn our fixation away from the Gordian knot of our problems. We stop the toxic peering and instead turn our eyes to something else: to our feet on the sidewalk, to the middle distance, to the hills, whence our help comes - someplace else, anything else. Maybe this is a shift of only eight degrees, but it can be a miracle. It may be one of those miracles where your heart sinks, because you think it means you have lost. But in surrender you have won. And if it were me, after a moment, I would say, Thanks. — Anne Lamott

What is the name of your dream? A lovely wooden cottage in the middle of a forest? Or walking in an endless autumn path? What is the name of your dream? Don't give a name, always give a list! Fill yourself with dreams because dream is the path to reality! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Bathed in light, submerged in sound and rapt in feeling, the sentient body, at once both perceiver and producer, traces the paths of the world's becoming in the very course of contributing to its ongoing renewal. Here, surely, lies the essence of what it means to dwell. It is, literally to be embarked upon a movement along a way of life. The perceiver-producer is thus a wayfarer, and the mode of production is itself a trail blazed or a path followed. Along such paths, lives are lived, skills developed, observations made and understandings grown. But if this is so, then we can no longer suppose that dwelling is emplaced in quite the way Heidegger imagined, in an opening akin to a clearing in the forest. To be, I would now say, is not to be in place but to be along paths. The path, and not the place, is the primary condition of being, or rather of becoming. — Tim Ingold

The city (regardless which one it is) does provide a certain degree of sophistication and intellectualism. It offers the challenge of professional matters. It throws new and interesting people in one's path. There is a dynamic and an energy in cities which is diametric to the life-forces of the forest.
Still the cabin is the wellspring, the source, the hub of my existence. It gives me tranquility, a closeness of nature and wildlife, good health and fitness, a sense of security, the opportunity for resourcefulness, reflection and creative thinking ... — Anne LaBastille

My Friend:
Art thou abroad on this stormy night
on thy journey of love, my friend?
The sky groans like one in despair.
I have no sleep tonight.
Ever and again I open my door and look out on
the darkness, my friend!
I can see nothing before me.
I wonder where lies thy path!
By what dim shore of the ink-black river,
by what far edge of the frowning forest,
through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading
thy course to come to me, my friend? — Rabindranath Tagore

I wandered beneath the sun-dappled shade from the trees, surrounded by the warm fragrances of the forest, thinking that I was in the middle of my life. Not life as an age, not halfway along life's path, but in the middle of my existence. My heart trembled. — Karl Ove Knausgard

Nellie looked into the forest and decided she was totally a city girl. It looked grim and foreboding. Her red hoodie seemed like an omen. "But Granny told me to never, ever stray off the path. — Sarwat Chadda

The best teachers have showed me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly
we only think it does. The motion of drawing back a bow and sending an arrow straight into a target takes only a split second, but it is a skill many years in the making. So it is with a life, anyone's life. I may list things that might be described as my accomplishments in these few pages, but they are only shadows of the larger truth, fragments separated from the whole cycle of becoming. And if I can tell an old-time story now about a man who is walking about, waudjoset ndatlokugan, a forest lodge man, alesakamigwi udlagwedewugan, it is because I spent many years walking about myself, listening to voices that came not just from the people but from animals and trees and stones. — Joseph Bruchac

Again, was it not this same presentiment of death that made it seem so strange to me now that I should never again walk along this path in the Philippine forest? In our own country, even in the most distant or inaccessible part, this feeling of strangeness never comes to us, because subconsciously we know that there is always a possibility of our returning there in the future. Does not our entire life-feeling depend upon this inherent assumption that we can repeat indefinitely what we are doing at the moment? — Shohei Ooka

You are always in danger in the forest, where no people are. Step between the portals of the great pines where the shaggy branches tangle about you, trapping the unwary traveller in nets as if the vegetation itself were in a plot with the wolves who live there, as though the wicked trees go fishing on behalf of their friends--step between the gateposts of the forest with the greatest trepidation and infinite precautions, for if you stray from the path for one instant, the wolves will eat you. They are grey as famine, they are as unkind as plague. — Angela Carter

Passion isn't a path through the woods. Passion is the woods. It's the deepest, wildest part of the forest; the grove where the fairies still dance and obscene old vipers snooze in the boughs. Everybody but the most dried up and dysfunctional is drawn to the grove and enchanted by its mysteries, but then they just can't wait to call in the chain saws and bulldozers and replace it with a family-style restaurant or a new S and L. That's the payoff, I guess. Safety. Security. Certainty. Yes, indeed. Well, remember this, pussy latte: we're not involved in a 'relationship,' you and I, we're involved in a collision. Collisions don't much lend themselves to secure futures ... — Tom Robbins

At night it felt as if we were walking with the moon. It followed us under thick clouds and waited for us at the other end of dark forest paths. It would disappear with sunrise but return again, hovering on our path. Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them. Under these stars I used to hear stories, but now it seemed as if it was the sky that was telling us a story as its stars fell, violently colliding with each other. The moon hid behind clouds to avoid seeing what was happening. — Ishmael Beah

Walden - all his books, indeed - are packed with subtle, conflicting, and very fruitful discoveries. They are not written to prove something in the end. They are written as the Indians turn down twigs to mark their path through the forest. He cuts his way through life as if no one had ever taken that road before, leaving these signs for those who come after, should they care to see which way he went. — Virginia Woolf

All my life," she said, "I have been told 'go' and 'come.' I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man's servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me. — Katherine Arden

Yesterday the sea was as smooth as a mirror; it is smooth as a mirror today. The island is having an Indian summer. Such a mild, warm Indian summer! Yet there is no sun. It is years since I knew such peace, perhaps twenty or thirty years; or perhaps it was in a previous life. Whenever it was, I must surely have tasted before now this peace that I feel as I walk around in ecstasies, humming to myself, caring for every stone and every straw, and sensing that they care for me once more. We are friends. As I follow the overgrown path through the forest, my heart trembles with an unearthly joy. — Knut Hamsun

Wink kissed deep. Deep as a dark, misty, forest path. One that lead to blood and love and death and monsters. — April Genevieve Tucholke

The world's a forest, in which all lose their way; though by a different path each goes astray. — George Villiers

[When you write a play] you walk into a forest without a knife, without a compass. But ... if you have a sense of geography, you find that you're clearing a path and getting to the right place. — Neil Simon

And so Galahad decided that it would be a disgrace to set off on a quest with the other knights. Alone he would enter the dark forest where there was no path. This is the myth of The Hero's Journey. — Joseph Campbell

You are about to be told one more time that you are America's most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources?! Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen a polluted river? Don't ever let them call you a valuable natural resource! They're going to strip mine your soul. They're going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist, because the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked! — Utah Phillips

Like a path frequently traveled becomes clear and well-marked in the forest, so too does the path to your Soul become more clearly marked in your consciousness. — Genevieve Gerard

Have you ever climbed a mountain in full armour? That's what we did, him going first the whole way up a tiny path into the clouds, with drops sheer on both sides into nothing. For hours we crept forward like blind men, the sweat freezing on our faces, lugging skittery leaking horses, and pricked all the time for the ambush that would tip us into death. Each turn of the path it grew colder. The friendly trees of the forest dropped away, and there were only pines. Then they went too, and there just scrubby little bushes standing up in ice. All round us the rocks began to whine the cold. And always above us, or below us, those filthy condor birds, hanging on the air with great tasselled wings ... Four days like that; groaning, not speaking; the breath a blade in our lungs. Four days, slowly, like flies on a wall; limping flies, dying flies, up an endless wall of rock. A tiny army lost in the creases of the moon. — Peter Shaffer

Come now, my child, if we were planning to harm you, do you think we'd be lurking here beside the path in the very darkest part of the forest? — Kenneth Patchen

Dance me slowly along a moonlit path,
Soaked with light from moon and stars above,
Hold my hand and whistle a tune,
Dance me slowly to the edge of Love.
Waltz here with me on forest grass,
Soft ballet pirouettes round sun dappled trees,
Hold my hand and hum a tune,
Catch my freshly blown kiss off the breeze. — Michelle Geaney

The most interesting heroes have a bit of villainy to them, and the most interesting villains have a certain bit of heroism in them, ... I think (Alan Shore) intends to do the right thing, but his view of the world is very different so, to get to the right place, he sometimes takes a path that goes through a very dark forest. — James Spader

We held hands when we walked down the gingerbread path into the forest, blood dripping from our fingers. We danced with witches and kissed monsters. We turned us into wintergirls, when she tried to leave, I pulled her back into the snow because I was afraid to be alone. — Laurie Halse Anderson

With every stroke of their keyboards they hacked a path through the forest that others would be required to follow. — Michael Lewis

The old men shall dream dreams,
The young maids will see visions,
The beast of the forest will turn away,
They will see the child of misery coming,
And make clear the path.
- Song of Venda — Mary E. Pearson

The man of genius may dwell unknown, but one always may recognize the path he has followed into the forest. It was a giant who passed that way. The branches are broken at a height that other men cannot reach. — Remy De Gourmont

It can be a way of knowledge, a path, an inspiration, a Tao, an ordering, a memory, a fantasy, a seduction, a prayer, a summoning, an incantation murmured under the breath as the torchlights sink lower and the forest looms taller and the wolves howl louder and the fire prepares for its submission to the encroaching dark. — John Lanchester

So they all left the path and plunged into the forest together. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Look at him, lying there. Why should he need me to give him strength
to watch over him, and always be worrying how he's feeling? Surely he'll find it himself. Isn't that what we believe, that we do always somehow find the strength? That the path will lead out of the forest; that the riddle will be solved; that the child never dies. — Neil Bartlett

Can a person who has been brought up in the heart of a thick dark forest, where one has to beat a path through multiple layers of trees just to take a letter to the post office, have any conception of what it's like to spend one's entire childhood waiting for a single tree to grow? — Audur Ava Olafsdottir

The way to Elfin is found on the path
That weaves through the Misty Forest
That lives between the Mountain of Vision
And the River of Reality — The Silver Elves

In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike. — Paulo Coelho

He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colorful was the world, strange and mysterious was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself. — Hermann Hesse

So Blue sat down on the path and faced Grayson, and told him all about his world.
He told him about the humans, his mother and sister, and how they went away. He told him about the long nights alone in the kennel, and the sadness that seemed to come from other dogs. All the while Grayson stared at him with his wide yellow eyes. He seemed amazed, and even sometimes frightened, as Blue recounted all the details.
Finally, when he was finished telling his story, Grayson said 'You come from a scary world, Blue. A very scary and sad world indeed. It's so different from the magical forest where no one is ever alone, and no one is ever sad.. — Michael Delaware

They've moved out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest, into the world of fire, of original experience. Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you've got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can't. You don't have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience - that is the hero's deed. — Joseph Campbell

Like a path through the forest, Sabbath creates a marker for ourselves so, if we are lost, we can find our way back to our center. — Wayne Muller

step between the gateposts of the forest with the greatest trepidation and infinite precautions, for if you stray from the path for one instant, the wolves will eat you. They are grey as famine, they are as unkind as plague. The — Angela Carter

They thought that it would be a disgrace to go forth as a group. Each entered the forest at a point that he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no path. If there is a path it is someone else's path and you are not on the adventure. — Joseph Campbell

Dovewing felt bone-weary from her ears to the tip of her tail. Just because she had better hearing, sharper senses than any cat didn't seem to give her more strength. She needed to rest, eat, talk with Jayfeather and Lionblaze about the challenge that sol had left them with, of hostile Clans that would be crushed by the dark forest if they tried to fight alone. Starclan, light my path, please.
"Come on," she meowed to Hollyleaf. "It's time we went home. Our Clnmates are waitning for us"
P. 315 — Erin Hunter