Quotes About Discovery

What limpid lakes and cool date palms may our caravans have passed untried? Until, one by one, by the blindest of leaps, we light on the road to these places, we must stumble in darkness and hunger.

original work fashions a form the true shape of which it discovers only as it proceeds, so the early strokes are useless, however fine their sheen. Only when a paragraph's role in the context of the whole work is clear can the envisioning writer direct its complexity of detail to strengthen the work's ends.

There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

The line of words is a miner's pick, a woodcarver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory.

W HEN YOU WRITE , you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a woodcarver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.

I once spent a full three minutes looking at a bullfrog that was so unexpectedly large I couldn't see it even though a dozen enthusiastic campers were shouting directions. Finally I asked, What color am I looking for? and a fellow said, Green. When at last I picked out the frog, I saw what painters are up against: the thing wasn't green at all, but the color of wet hickory bark. The lover can see, and the knowledgeable.

The line of words feels for cracks in the firmament.

I have searched for my mother's love in all the corners of the world.

As a young person, and I know it's hard to believe that I was shy, but you could take your camera, and it would take you to places: it was like having a friend, like having someone to go out with and look at the world. I would do things with a camera I wouldn't do normally if I was just by myself.

He thought his heart would kill him, he'd had no clue what it was capable of.

When will she discover that I am from a lesser race of immortals? But the high deities have always needed pixies to persuade them down to earth. When she no longer needs an intermediary, will she still love me?

You always run into something no matter where you go. Turns out you're someplace after all.

The more I drink, the more I remember all the things we've never done. I was a ghost until I touched you. Never swallowed mortal food until I tasted you, never understood the spoken word until I found your tongue. I've been a sleep-walker, sad somnambula, hands outstretched to strike the solid thing that could awaken me to life at last. I have only ever stood here under this lamp, against your body, I've missed you all my life.

She follows the putrid cloud downstairs and

There is no Final Resting Place of the Mind.

This, I knew, was the magic I had until now been only dimly and spitefully aware of.

Food, it appeared, could be important. It could be an event. It had secrets.

Looking at these photographs, I know that I will never understand the world I live in or fully know the places I've been. I've learned for sure only what I don't know - and how much I have to learn.

if you're going to a country, particularly in Southeast Asia, [where] you've never been before, it's a very good idea to go to the market first, see what they're selling, get an idea of what they're good at, what the people are buying.

The American woman's interest does not lie in the man; she wants to be alone, and she can't be alone without dabbling, today in chemistry, to-morrow in physiology and the day after in Buddhism.

It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that's enlightenment enough - to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.

Todas as grandes descobertas da cozinha tradicional, os primeiros tipos que comeram miúdos de vitela, ou experimentaram queijo Stilton não pasteurizado, ou descobriram que os caracóis afinal sabem bem com bastante manteiga de alho, eram todos temerários e inovadores, ou estavam desesperados.

As we continue upriver, we move farther and farther away from the world I know, and toward someone else's. It's thrilling to not know where you're going.

Which is how I found myself in a bathroom full of machine-guns.