Good Geography Quotes & Sayings

Canadian-American relations for many years did not develop spontaneously. The example of accord provided by our two countries did not come about merely through the happy circumstance of geography. It is compounded of one part proximity and nine parts good will and common sense. — Harry S. Truman

New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. — James Agate

The knowledge of that land's geography ... 'east o' the sun, west o' the moon' ... is priceless lore, not to be bought in any market place. It must be the gift of the good fairies at birth and the years can never deface it or take it away. It is better to possess it, living in a garret, than to be the inhabitant of palaces without it. — L.M. Montgomery

For whatever you're doing, for your creative juices, your geography's got a hell of a lot to do with it. You really have to be in a good place, and then you have to be either on your way there or on your way from there. — Neil Young

Like everyone is either, "I grew up with it," or "I loved it," or loved them now. And when you watch The Muppet Movie now, it is so current. It's like The Simpsons before The Simpsons. It's not as cynical as The Simpsons would be but it's self-aware and there are a billion jokes, it breaks the fourth wall every five minutes, it's astounding, it's awesome. It's very exciting to be a part of that. — Nicholas Stoller

Can you see the sunset real good on the West side? You can see it on the East side too. — S.E. Hinton

What makes a nation in the beginning is a good piece of geography. — Robert Frost

The point was the struggle. The earth thickened here so that he would labor. The shovel felt heavy so that he could feel he was doing something. The world provided resistance, and as we struggled through, we learned our final lessons. — David Vann

Interstate highways are the veins and arteries by which crime circulates in America. Serial killers seem to float through them like blood cells, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Crimes committed along interstate highways ought to be considered extraterritorially, apart from the normal rules of geography, and separate from a state's good name. These huge highways form a kind of fifty-first state of their own, a state whose flower is the deadly nightshade and whose state bird is the vulture. — William R. Maples

Columbus real achievement was managing to cross the ocean successfully in both directions. Though an accomplished enough mariner, he was not terribly good at a great deal else, especially geography, the skill that would seem most vital in an explorer. — Bill Bryson

Columbus's real achievement was managing to cross the ocean successfully in both directions. Though an accomplished enough mariner, he was not terribly good at a great deal else, especially geography, the skill that would seem most vital in an explorer. It would be hard to name any figure in history who has achieved more lasting fame with less competence. He spent large parts of eight years bouncing around Caribbean islands and coastal South America convinced that he was in the heart of the Orient and that Japan and China were at the edge of every sunset. He never worked out that Cuba is an island and never once set foot on, or even suspected the existence of, the landmass to the north that everyone thinks he discovered: the United States. — Bill Bryson

I just want to know...if I am special,' finished September, halfway between a whisper and a squeak. 'In stories, when someone appears in a poof of green clouds and asks a girl to go away on an adventure, it's because she's special, because she's smart and strong and can solve riddles and fight with swords and give really good speeches, and . . . I don't know that I'm any of those things. I don't even know that I'm as ill-tempered as all that. I'm not dull or anything, I know about geography and chess, and I can fix the boiler when my mother has to work. But what I mean to say is: Maybe you meant to go to another girl's house and let her ride on the Leopard. Maybe you didn't mean to choose me at all, because I'm not like storybook girls. I'm short and my father ran away with the army and I wouldn't even be able to keep a dog from eating a bird. — Catherynne M Valente

[David Lean's] images stay with me forever. But what makes them memorable isn't necessarily their beauty. That's just good photography. It's the emotion behind those images that's meant the most to me over the years. It's the way David Lean can put feeling on film. The way he shows a whole landscape of the spirit. For me, that's the real geography of David Lean country. And that's why, in a David Lean movie, there's no such thing as an empty landscape. — Martin Scorsese

And in time we may remember, collecting every little memory, all the bits and pieces, into a larger memory, rebuilding a great layered and labyrinthine, now imagined, international hotel of many rooms, the urban experiment of a homeless community built to house the needs of temporary lives. And for what? To resist death and dementia. To haunt a disappearing landscape. To forever embed this geography with our visions and voices. To kiss the past and you good-bye, leaving the indelible spit of our DNA on still moist lips. Sweet. Sour. Salty. Bitter. — Karen Tei Yamashita

If you were to draw a map of the two of them, of where they started out and where they would both end up, the lines would be shooting away from each other like magnets spun around on their poles. And it occurred to Owen that there was something deeply flawed about this, that there should be circles or angels or turns, anything that might make it possible for the two lines to meet again. Instead, they were both headed in the exact opposite directions. The map was as good as a door swinging shut. And the geography of the thing- the geography of them- was completely and hopelessly wrong. — Jennifer E. Smith

I was perplexed by the failure of teachers at school to address what seemed the most urgent matter of all: the bewildering, stomach-churning insecurity of being alive. The standard subjects of history, geography, mathematics, and English seemed perversely designed to ignore the questions that really mattered. As soon as I had some inkling of what 'philosophy' meant, I was puzzled as to why we were not taught it. And my skepticism about religion only grew as I failed to see what the vicars and priests I encountered gained from their faith. They struck me either as insincere, pious, and aloof or just bumblingly good-natured. (p. 10) — Stephen Batchelor

We have been studying the Isle of Man for geography,' Frances said glumly. 'The people are Manx. There are cats that are Manx. That's the only good thing about it. The word *Manx*.'
Daniel could not even think of a comment.
'It ends in an x,' Frances explained, not that that cleared things up any.
Daniel cleared his throat, deciding not to pursue the x-ish (x-ient? x-astic?) avenue of conversation. — Julia Quinn

The good folks mostly win, courage usually triumphs over fear, the family dog hardly ever contracts rabies: these are things I knew at twenty-five, and things I still know now, at the age of 25 x 2. But I know something else as well: there's a place in most of us where the rain is pretty much constant, the shadows are always long, and the woods are full of monsters. It is good to have a voice in which the terrors of such a place can be articulated and its geography partially described, without denying the sunshine and clarity that fill so much of our ordinary lives. (viii) — Stephen King

War does one good - it teaches people geography. — Will Durant

You remember your history?" He had finished five years of high school with respectable marks and a very good showing in trigonometry and geography but did not remember much history. In his final year, anyway, all you could think about was that you were going to the war. He said, "Not altogether. — Alice Munro

Trivia, as I've said before, shouldn't really be called "trivia." Facts about history, geography, books, movies, music - this is the stuff that used to be called good old-fashioned "general knowledge," the stuff that everybody was supposed to remember from school, regardless of their career niche. We lost something the more we specialized - it started to drain away this vast pool of information that everybody knew. Knowledge was what connected us, and now it distinguishes us. — Ken Jennings

[ ... ]virtue is not some kind of mode whose value is
incontestable, it is simply
a scheme of conduct, a way of getting along, which varies
according to accidents of geography and climate and which, consequently, has no
reality, the which alone exhibits its futility.
Only what is constant is really good; what changes perpetually cannot
claim that
characterization: that is why they have declared that immutability belongs to the
ranks of the Eternal's perfections; but virtue is completely without this quality: there
is not, upon the entire globe, two races which are virtuous in the same m
anner;
hence, virtue is not in any sense real, nor in any wise intrinsically good and in no sort
deserves our reverence. — Marquis De Sade

To provide background and physical description and all the rest is of course vital to fiction, but vital only insofar as such detail is in the service of a richly imagined story, rather than in the service of good botany or good philosophy or good geography. — Tim O'Brien

We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most textbooks and any speech that I could write what a proper government should be: the idea of family, mutuality, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another's pain, sharing one another's blessings - reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race, or sex, or geography, or political affiliation. — Mario

New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous.
But there is one thing about it - once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. — John Steinbeck

Mama has such cleverly timed headaches I wonder if she has any at all. — A.E. Moseley

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a bank being big. In fact, there are some good arguments about universality of geography that in theory, if you have all your eggs in one little community, and some big employer goes out, that could be your downfall. — Wilbur Ross

Percy, who was looking immensely — J.K. Rowling

Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. Butler's school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught, except a little ancient geography and history. The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank. During my whole life I have been singularly incapable of mastering any language. Especial attention was paid to versemaking, and this I could never do well. I had many friends, and got together a good collection of old verses, which by patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I could work into any subject. — Charles Darwin

I was excellent at English and Drama. Maths and Science I was terrible at. I didn't have any interest in them. I was happiest at lunchtime, playing with my friends. But I love science now, that's the funny thing. And I'd be so good at geography, as I've been fortunate enough to travel the world. — Peter Andre

Let me be very clear. For me geography does not exist! I strongly object to the whole concept of "foreign literature"...and speaking of national identity: that is how dictatorships get started! In literature there is no periphery and no center; there are only writers. The problem is not geographic but rather numeric. In the 19th century there were at least thirty literary geniuses in Russia, Germany, France, England and the United States. Today we are lucky if there are five writers of that caliber in the whole world...Where does one find good literature today? Mostly in third world countries, because adversity, isolation, combat provide good working conditions. It is harder to be a good writer in a so-called "civilized" country, in the so-called "democracies. — Antonio Lobo Antunes

Two sounds of autumn are unmistakable ... the hurrying rustle of crisp leaves blown along the street ... by a gusty wind, and the gabble of a flock of migrating geese. — Hal Borland