Scenic Quotes & Sayings

You ... you are so beautiful." I stood slowly, my eyes following the slight flush down her neck. I grinned. "You're really beautiful when you blush."
She ducked her head, but I caught her chin, forcing her eyes back to mine. "Seriously," I told her. "Absolutely beautiful."
The tender, almost shy smile appeared again. "Flattery will totally get you everywhere right now."
I chuckled. "Good to know, because I'm planning on going everywhere - and taking the scenic route. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Drugs may lead to nowhere, but at least it's the scenic route. — Steven Wright

Stepping into the "shoes" of someone's life other than my own, great movies such as Cinema Paradiso, scenic landscapes, the work of Daniel Day-Lewis, the books of Joel Goldsmith, traveling, doughnuts, ice cream. — Reggie Lee

He thought of all the quaint Victorian houses in Wayward Pines and of all the families who lived inside them. How many residents - inmates - kept up a strong, carefree countenance during the day, but then lay awake at night, sleepless, minds racing, terrified and struggling to comprehend why they'd been locked away in this scenic prison? He imagined more than a few. But human beings were, if nothing else, adaptable. — Blake Crouch

I think the Colorado Plateau is the most scenic area in the world - let's begin with that. Not just the United States. — Stewart Udall

My parents met in the theatre, and I thought that was so romantic. My dad was a scenic designer and my mom was a dancer, and that's how they met; they met in the theatre. — Skye McCole Bartusiak

I think the absolute worst job I ever had - not because it was a terrible job, just because I was just so bad at it - was when I worked at a scenic factory in Chicago. — Timothy Simons

She had more curves than a scenic railway — P.G. Wodehouse

I once watched a natural dam break on television. I remember seeing a scenic picture of a river surrounded by trees. All of the sudden, the trees disappeared
sucked away by the collapse of the riverbank. A swell of angry water rushed around the corner wiping out everything in its path. It was sudden, and it was violent.
I see the dam break in Caleb's eyes. — Tarryn Fisher

Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn't mean to take. — Angela N. Blount

Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land. Your true modern is separated from the land by many middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets. He has no vital relation to it; to him it is the space between cities on which crops grow. Turn him loose for a day on the land, and if the spot does not happen to be a golf links or a "scenic" area, he is bored stiff. If crops could be raised by hydroponics instead of farming, it would suit him very well. Synthetic substitutes for wood, leather, wool, and other natural land products suit him better than the originals. In short, land is something he has "outgrown — Aldo Leopold

Ever since the 1860s when photographers travelled the American West and brought photographs of scenic wonders back to the people on the East Coast of America we have had a North American tradition of landscape photography used for the environment. — Galen Rowell

I learned, too, how it was possible with the help of the picture and action to transform an apparently insignificant violin passage into an incident, and to lift a simple horn call into a thing of stupendous significance by means of scenic emphasis. — Anton Seidl

Homeschooling allows you the freedom to step off the highway of learning and take a more scenic route along a dirt road. — Tamara L. Chilver

Hardly anyone moved to Coot Lake unless they had some kind of tie to the community. It wasn't like Coot Lake was on the Most Scenic Small Towns list. — Anonymous

He stares at the two girls. Two broken bodies that moments before had been whole.
He did this. He helped to break the world. — Carrie Ryan

Last reason for reading horror: it's a rehearsal for death. It's a way to get ready. People say there's nothing sure but death and taxes. But that's not really true. There's really only death, you know. Death is the biggie. Two hundred years from now, none of us are going to be here. We're all going to be someplace else. Maybe a better place, maybe a worse place; it may be sort of like New Jersey, but someplace else. The same thing can be said of rabbits and mice and dogs, but we're in a very uncomfortable position: we're the only creatures - at least as far as we know, though it may be true of dolphins and whales and a few other mammals that have very big brains - who are able to contemplate our own end. We know it's going to happen. The electric train goes around and around and it goes under and around the tunnels and over the scenic mountains, but in the end it always goes off the end of the table. Crash. — Stephen King

If you know anything about me, you know that my life's taken a few unexpected curves and crashes along the way. But hey, at least I can say I took the scenic route! — Naomi Judd

My favorite drive is Highway 101 in California between Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo. I love the 101; Highway 1 is too windy, and 5 is too boring - the 101 is just right. It's like the Mama Bear of scenic drives. — Art Alexakis

I grew up in somewhat of a war zone in West Philadelphia in 1985, '86. It wasn't as extreme as someone coming in the classroom and just unloading on a class, but I knew to take the scenic route to go to the grocery store to avoid certain elements. — Questlove

My parents can take themselves off on a scenic tour of hell before they tell me who my friends will be, Gan said pleasantly. — Mercedes Lackey

To smell and enjoy the beauty of this precious journey we call life, decorate yourself with luscious scenic nature. — Debasish Mridha

You can't avoid the destination mapped out especially for you. But if you choose to, you may take a scenic route. — C.C. Wyatt

I think the reason novels are regarded to have so much more 'information' than films is that they outsource the scenic design and cinematography to the reader ... This, for me, is a powerful argument for the value and potency of literature specifically. Movies don't demand as much from the player. Most people know this; at the end of the day you can be too beat to read but not yet too beat to watch television or listen to music. — Brian Christian

The canvases which Mr. St. Jones referred to with a paintbrush that was long and slightly bowed: for the most part interiors, or undergrounds, of pocked and craggy holes, rock vaults with mossy floors and slimy walls, or narrow scenic vistas that skinny silver streams squirmed through like sidewinders flipped on their backs, beneath downward grasping tentacles of roots, stalactites dagger-sharp and dangling by threads of stone, stalagmites teetering, all doused, frozen in molten electric white that suggested what a glimpse of hell might be, too beautiful, some still lifes too, great bulbous beets, hoary legumes, giant scallions, white carrots, tomatoes, berries, squash in huge radiant bowls, and portraits, signed by Ionia, of shadows, from which gleamed eyes and teeth and nails and, here and there, a glowing bubble, or scrotum, caught the eye. Near the door a counter clacked but rather quietly. — Douglas Woolf

There's so little money in my bank account, my scenic checks show a ghetto. — Phyllis Diller

The central part of the state is more remote and less scenic, and there's a huge agricultural belt that stretches from the south of Lake Okeechobee to the border of Everglades National Park, where the restoration effort is being concentrated, .. Obviously the movement to save the Everglades runs up against agricultural concerns. — Carl Hiaasen

The scenic ideals that surround even our national parks are carriers of a nostalgia for heavenly bliss and eternal calmness. — Robert Smithson

Look, Neal, Hawaii is not some magical pixie wonderland; it's an American state populated by atomic weapons, a remnant native population and people too stupid to spell their way out of a paper bag. Most of them came here to escape pathetic lives in the forty nine other states, so in some sense, Hawaii is a scenic cul-de-sac filled with people who want to drink themselves to death without feeling judged. — Douglas Coupland

In Pennsylvania, I love the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington. It's a scenic area. We also enjoy visiting the Laurel Highlands in Western Pennsylvania. The mountains are really something to be seen, and it's a great area to be outside. — Troy Polamalu

I find that daydreams are oftentimes similar in this respect to real dreams, the kind we experience in an unconscious state. Our mind puts together scenic imagery and simulated interactions in a seemingly designless, irregular, and often circuitous manner. We may think the substance of the dream is simply an agglomeration of thoughts, ideas, and experiences, but in truth, it may be pulling inspiration from somewhere deep down within. It may be the result of some unfulfilled desire, or possibly the expression of some dark hidden fear (like spiders or clowns). — J.W. Lord

The scenic vistas of North Carolina and Tennessee make you feel like you're looking at a work of art, but crossing through the rural countryside of southwest Virginia and caressing the tall grass with your fingertips, you feel like you're part of the painting. — Jennifer Pharr Davis

I mean, we make a 15-minute show that's incredibly silly, even though all of our scenic designers, puppet builders. animators, everybody that works on the show take their work very seriously. So somebody saying that we'd even be in contention for a very respectable award is really nice. — Seth Green

It is not just that animals make the world more scenic or picturesque. The lives of animals are woven into our very being - closer than our own breathing - and our soul will suffer when they are gone. — Gary A. Kowalski

This is not wilderness for designation or for a park. Not a scenic wilderness and not one good for fishing or the viewing of wildlife. It is wilderness that gets into your nostrils, that runs with your sweat. It is the core of everything living, wilderness like molten iron. — Craig Childs

The truth is that writing is simply not reliable. You can't count on it to be there just because you've made some space for it. In fact, making space might make it disappear. You tell yourself you can't write in the middle of your daily life, with all its distractions and commitments, and when you finally clear the decks, light off for someplace scenic or at least private, you sit there completely paralyzed. You have devoted yourself to writing, but it has not returned your devotion. If writing were a person, you would be in an abusive relationship. The healthy thing to do would be to get a restraining order and shut it right out of your heart. — Kim Addonizio

Taking a scenic route in Southeast Iowa is like talking about a good Barry Manilow album. You have to make certain allowances. — Bill Bryson

The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid. — Antonin Artaud

The scenic route was a paved graveyard of dreams, but Fillion hoped his would rise from the ashes, marking the moment when he would finally own his life. — Jesikah Sundin

Keynes, quite ignoring the covert gestures, the attempts at signaling, of nearly every senior officer, examined [Lily] and declared that she was perfectly fit to fly, "had better fly, I should say; this agitation is unnatural, and must be worked off."
"But perhaps," Laurence said, voicing the reluctance which the captains all privately shared, and they as a body began to suggest flights out over the ocean, along the scenic and settled coastline and back; gentle exercise.
"I hope," Catherine said, going pink clear up to her forehead in a wave of color, "I hope that no-one is going to fuss; I would dislike fuss extremely. — Naomi Novik

I would love to do a live show with dancers and fashion and scenic elements - definitely bring my love of the theater to a concert-style performance. — Adam Lambert

I dont hate L.A. There's a very beautiful side to it; it's scenic, and I can go horse riding. — Leona Lewis

Bad news travels fast. Good news takes the scenic route. — Doug Larson

Our air, water, soil, forests, oceans, rivers, lakes, scenic beauty, wildlife habitat, minerals, that is the wealth of the country. — Gaylord Nelson

People came to the desert because the stars were in the desert, and the stars had yet to be corrupted by man ... The stars, it seemed, would crush man in a scenic, gravitational panorama before man would ever corrupt the stars. — Rick Moody

Minnesotans who bought scenic art usually avoided winter scenes. Hannah didn't find that surprising. Minnesota winters were long. Why would they want to buy a painting that would constantly remind them of the bone-chilling cold, the heavy snow that had to be shoveled, and the necessity of dressing up in survival gear to do nothing more than take out the garbage? — Joanne Fluke

But those who read thrillers are an impatient race. They chafe at scenic rhapsodies and want to get on to the rough stuff. — P.G. Wodehouse

I hate that would. Straight. At the very least, those of us who are nonstraight should get to be called curvy. Or scenic. Actually, I like that: 'Do you think she's straight?' 'Oh no. She's scenic. — David Levithan

Sometimes when we're focused on quickly getting to our destination, we'll encounter unexpected roadblocks and detours. Always remember that there's more than one path that will lead you to where you're going. Who knows? You might just enjoy that new, more scenic route! — Clifton Anderson

The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity ... that's all there is. That's the whole economy. That's where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world. — Gaylord Nelson

Every once in a while, take the scenic route. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty. The objective is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human beings and all other living creatures. — Gaylord Nelson

During winter sunsets, standing on a promontory so I saw the scenic sea as a surface rather than a line and, as coal-boats appeared from all sides of the horizon, I thought that, as they opened their portholes, they would throw their coals onto this fire. They swarmed over the ocean like blowflies ready to devour the decomposed star, and the blank gesture of a cloud fanned them. — Georges Limbour

Always take the scenic route. — Janice Anderson

Our children are an integral component of our stories as we are of theirs and, therefore, each child acts as the knighted messengers to carry their forebears' stories into the future. To deprive our children of the narrative cells regarding the formation of the ozone layer that rims the atmosphere of our ancestors' saga and parental determination of selfhood is to deny them of the sacred right to claim the sanctity of their heritage. Accordingly, all wrinkled brow natives are chargeable with the sacrosanct obligation of telling their kith and kin the memorable story of the scenic days they spent as children of nature splashing about in their naked innocence in the brook of infinite time and space. We must scrupulous document our family's history as well as scrawl out our personal story. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The desert at night was black and a strange madder-tinted silver; the sky was black, and the great contorted cliffs, and the vast expanses of sand that stretched out in all directions. But the red moon cast a pale crimson-tinged luminescence over everything, and far above the stars were glittering points of silver. — Rachel Neumeier

My brain tends to take the scenic route. Things come to the forefront of my mind sooner or later, it just takes time. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Part of me wanted to find out the reason why he felt he needed me to be there so badly, then rationalize it away, so he could go without me. Isn't that what you are supposed to do? Communicate, talk about your problems, then reach an agreement about dealing with them. Except I knew that would have just been the scenic route to getting my own way. — Kate Kerrigan

My reason for writing stories is to give myself the satisfaction of visualising more clearly and detailedly and stably the vague, elusive, fragmentary impressions of wonder, beauty, and adventurous expectancy which are conveyed to me by certain sights (scenic, architectural, atmospheric, etc.), ideas, occurrences, and images encountered in art and literature. — H.P. Lovecraft

If you like, you could call this the psychology of total equivalence, let's say neuronics for short, and dismiss it as biological fantasy. However, I am convinced as we move back through geophysical time, so we reenter the amnionic corridor, and move back through spinal and archeopsychic time, recollecting in our unconscious minds the landscapes of each epoch, each with a distinct ecological terrain, its own flora and fauna, as recognizable to anyone else as they would be to a traveller in a Wellsian time machine. Except that this is no scenic railway, but a total reorientation of the personality. If we let these buried phantoms master us as we reappear, we'll be swept back helplessly in the floodtide like pieces of flotsam. — J.G. Ballard

The affluent society has built well in terms of economic progress, but has neglected the protection of the very water we drink as well as the values of fish and wildlife, scenic, and outdoor recreation resources. Although often measureless in commercial terms, these values must be preserved by a program that will guarantee America some semblance of her great heritage of beautiful rivers. — Frank Church

Rail travel for me is the most relaxing, most scenic way to see the country. — John Paul DeJoria

I'm a first class passenger on the Spaceship Earth, and I got one ticket. And I gotta make the ride count, you know? And, as far as I figure, you can either take the service road or the scenic route. And, man, if I only have one ride, I want it to be beautiful.
84. Highway. — Eric Bogosian

If you have the freedom to fly, why not take the scenic route! — Claire Williams

Nothing is really typical of my efforts ... I'm simply casting about for better ways to crystallise and capture certain strong impressions (involving the elements of time, the unknown, cause and effect, fear, scenic and architectural beauty, and other seemingly ill-assorted things) which persist in clamouring for expression. — H.P. Lovecraft

If Yucca Mountain had not been designated as a dumpsite for radioactive waste in 1987, it might easily have become a scenic overlook on the long drive between Tonopah and Las Vegas. — Wil S. Hylton

At one with the power of the American landscape, and renowned for the patient skill and timeless beauty of his work, photographer Ansel Adams has been visionary in his efforts to preserve this country's wild and scenic areas, both in film and on Earth. Drawn to the beauty of nature's monuments, he is regarded by environmentalists as a monument himself, and by photographers as a national institution. It is through his foresight and fortitude that so much of America has been saved for future Americans. — Ansel Adams

When you enter a beloved novel many times, you can come to feel that you possess it, that nobody else has ever lived there. You try not to notice the party of impatient tourists trooping through the kitchen (Pnin a minor scenic attraction en route to the canyon Lolita), or that shuffling academic army, moving in perfect phalanx, as they stalk a squirrel around the backyard (or a series of squirrels, depending on their methodology). — Zadie Smith

Walking with someone through grief, or through the process of reconciliation, requires patience, presence, and a willingness to wander, to take the scenic route. — Rachel Held Evans

Ah, well, then you've never stood on a beach as the waves came crashing in, the water stretching out from you until it's beyond sight, moving and blue and alive and so much bigger than even the black beyond seems because the ocean hides what it contains. — Patrick Ness

At the risk of being simplistic, a railway metaphor comes to mind. John Wesley's marriage was a train wreck (Wesleyan historian, Henry Rack called it a 'disaster' and 'catastrophe'); [George] Whitefield's was a freight train (satisfactory but functional); and [John] Newton's was a scenic passenger train (enjoyable and relational). — Grant Gordon

One can find a squalid America as easily as a scenic America; a bitter, hopeless America as easily as the confident America of polyethylene wrapping, new cars, and camping trips in the summer. — Robert Kennedy

As the saturating colors of sun-life fade from sight, the ominous moon reaches out its long arm and applies the dark dyes of night. — Daniel J. Rice

Orcas can be spotted from the shores of Seattle, Tacoma, Port Angeles, Bellingham, and the popular San Juan Islands in Washington State; and Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Campbell River, and other cities in BC. These venues not only offer easy access to the whales, they are scenic and pleasant places to live: Researchers who study orcas tend to gravitate more toward this region than, say, Iceland. — David Kirby

She had come to that state where the horror of the universe and its smallness are both visible at the same time - the twilight of the double vision in which so many elderly people are involved. If this world is not to our taste, well, at all events, there is Heaven, Hell, Annihilation - one or other of those large things, that huge scenic background of stars, fires, blue or black air. All heroic endeavour, and all that is known as art, assumes that there is such a background, just as all practical endeavour, when the world is to our taste, assumes that the world is all. But in the twilight of the double vision, a spiritual muddledom is set up for which no high-sounding words can be found; we can neither act nor refrain from action, we can neither ignore nor respect Infinity. — E. M. Forster

Nonfiction writers are the packhorses of literature. We're meant to carry the story. If we can make it up and down the mountain by a reliable if not scenic route, we have delivered. Technique is optional. — Stacy Schiff

You know you're living with the habit of zest if you purposefully choose the scenic route to wherever you are going. Or you choose clothing because you love the texture of the fabric. Or you pick a shampoo or cleaning product because you love the smell - smell being just as important to you as how the product works. — Karen Salmansohn