William Lewis Trogdon Quotes
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Instead of insight, maybe all a man gets is strength to wander for a while.
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Life doesn't happen along interstates. It's against the law.
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I like the digressive kind of traveling, where there's not a particular, set, goal.
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Historical awareness is a kind of resurrection.
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The four horsemen of the prairie are tornado, locust, drought, and fire, and the greatest of these is fire, a rider with two faces because for everything taken, it makes a return in equal measure.
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I have not been on any river that has more of a distinctive personality than does the Missouri River. It's a river that immediately presents to the traveler, 'I am a grandfather spirit. I have a source; I have a life.
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Boredom lies only with the traveler's limited perception and his failure to explore deeply enough. After a while, I found my perception limited.
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To an American, land is solidity, goodness, and hope. American history is about land.
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What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
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The hotel was once where things coalesced, where you could meet both townspeople and travelers. Not so in a motel. No matter how you build it, the motel remains the haunt of the quick and dirty, where the only locals are Chamber of Commerce boys every fourth Thursday. Who ever heard the returning traveler exclaim over one of the great motels of the world he stayed in? Motels can be big, but never grand.
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I did learn what I didn't know I wanted to know.
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At the beginning we learn to travel, then we travel to learn.
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A true journey, no matter how long the travel takes, has no end.
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You never feel better than when you start feeling good after you've been feeling bad.
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Other than to amuse himself, why should a man pretend to know where he's going or understand what he sees?
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It's difficult to write a book where a character is on virtually every page of the book but you cannot refer to his or her gender. It gets rid of every his, her, she and he.
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The thing that overwhelms me when I go out now is the sprawlation of America.
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On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing.
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Memory is each man's own last measure, and for some, the only achievement.
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New ways of seeing can disclose new thingsĀ But turn the question around. Do new things make for new ways of seeing?
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Get out and find ...the country. And ourselves.
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Our religion keeps reminding us that we aren't just will and thoughts. We're also sand and wind and thunder. Rain. The seasons. All those things. You learn to respect everything because you are everything. If you respect yourself, you respect all things.
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One of the sweet and expectable aspects of life afloat is the perpetual present moment one lives in and a perception that time is nothing more than the current, an eternal flowing back to the sea.
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Be careful going in search of adventure - it's ridiculously easy to find.