A Quote by Beryl Markham

To me, desert has the quality of darkness; none of the shapes you see in it are real or permanent. Like night, the desert is boundless, comfortless, and infinite. Like night, it intrigues the mind and leads it to futility. When you have flown halfway across a desert, you experience the desperation of a sleepless man waiting for dawn which only comes when the importance of its coming is lost.

Beryl Markham

Quote Topics

Across Boundless Coming Darkness Dawn Desert Desperation Experience Flown Futility Halfway Importance Infinite Leads Like Lost Man Me Mind Night None Only Permanent Quality Real See Shapes Sleepless Waiting Which

Quote Author

Beryl Markham
English - Author
October 26, 1902 - August 3, 1986

To wake in that desert dawn was like waking in the heart of an opal. ... See the desert on a fine morning and die - if you can!

Gertrude Bell

I don't look like a desert person because I stay indoors most of the day and fool around at night. That's what the desert animals do - they don't have a tan either.

Captain Beefheart

It's no wonder most religions are born in the desert, because when men lay beneath that boundless night sky and look up at the infinite expanse of creation they have an uncontrollable urge to put something in the way .

Terry Pratchett

Night. Heavenly delicious sweet night of the desert that calls all of us to love her. The night is our comfort with her coolness and darkness. On wings, on feet, on our bellies, out we all come to glory in the night.

Leslie Marmon Silko

The desert wears... a veil of mystery. Motionless and silent it evokes in us an elusive hint of something unknown, unknowable, about to be revealed. Since the desert does not act it seems to be waiting -- but waiting for what?

Edward Abbey

Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light -- a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.

John Muir

I always thought that people who live in the desert are a little crazy. It could be that the desert attracts that kind of person, or that after living there, you become that. It doesn't make much difference. But now I've done my 40 years in the desert.

James Turrell

A vision is like an oasis in a desert. You can't have it all the time, as you need to keep on continuing your journey through the desert of life experiences, full of faith trials... I am not so concerned about waiting for a vision to appear because I know it will come to me when I least expect it... I still do have visions that inspire my work.

Akiane Kramarik

The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement desert as desert complements city, as wilderness complements and completes civilization.

Edward Abbey

I lived in small town out in the desert and my friend used to steal his mom's car in the middle of the night. He'd drive over to my house, I'd sneak out and we'd go out to the desert and just burn things down.

Mark Hoppus

He wanders, like a day-appearing dream, Through the dim wildernesses of the mind; Through desert woods and tracts, which seem Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

How are we to live with the desert, in the desert, within the desert?

Magnus Larsson

The desert is so vast that no one can know it all. Men go out into the desert, and they are like ships at sea; no one knows when they will return.

J.M.G. Le Clézio

Under the desert sun, in the dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean, the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises to your nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.

Edward Abbey

I will fill myself with the desert and the sky. I will be stone and stars, unchanging and strong and safe. The desert is complete; it is spare and alone, but perfect in its soltitude. I will be the desert.