Quotes About Exploration

Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life

My philosophy of travel, such as it is, is that the more difficult somewhere is to get to, the greater the prize to be won by getting there. But when the prize was North Korea, I found this was not a view shared by my wife.

From the moment the doors of a hospital open for the first time and the first patient is treated, the facility acquires a pulse and begins to develop a personality as unique as any individual's. It fumbles and grows, learning from its mistakes. It stretches and explores, reaching out more and more to the world around it. Its organs decay and need repair or replacement. Its moods - the collective moods of its patients and employees - grow more distinctive.

You will have no sensation of a leash around your neck if you sit by the peg. It is only when you stray that you feel the restraining tug.

That summer, there was a Name the Babies contest, an annual event organized by the Whale Museum on San Juan Island. A young girl from Bellingham submitted the winning entry. The little orca should be named "Luna", she wrote, because "the whale explores the ocean like the moon explores the Earth.

It's the drunkenness of all the new things that can be.

as the American mind moves from the imprisoning whimsy of cities through some harder-boiled practicality to the eagle flight of the West.

A writer is very much like the captain on a star ship facing the unknown. When you face the blank page and you have no idea where you're going. It can be terrifying, but it can also be the adventure of a lifetime.

Is it safe?" Evadne asked. "In the heart of the lair of prehistoric people who eat humans? Probably not." Pg 197

The boy came to believe that going west was more than just a fancy for someplace new. He came to see it as a part of his soul, a missing piece that could only be made whole on some far-off mountain or plain.

He raised his eyes to a horizon carved from snowy mountain peaks, virgin white against the frigid blue sky. He could climb up there if he wanted. Climb up there and touch the horizon, jump across and find the next.

He came to see it as a part of his soul, a missing piece that could only be made whole on some far-off mountain or plain.

Glass had come to view the sea, which he once embraced as synonymous with freedom, as no more than the confining parameters of small ships. He resolved to turn a new direction.

Glass spotted another dog by the creek, and this one he did not spare. Soon he had a fire burning in the center of the hut. Part of the dog he roasted on a spit over the fire and part he boiled in the kettle. He threw corn into the pot with the dog meat and continued his search through the village.

His decision to go west was not rash or forced, but as fully deliberate as any choice in his life. At the same time, he could not explain or articulate his reasons. It was something that he felt more than understood.

In the foyer of their building they displayed a large globe, one of the few in Philadelphia. On his way home from school each day, Hugh stopped in the office, spinning the globe on its axis, his fingers exploring the oceans and mountains of the world.

The great unexplored frontier is evaluation under conditions of complexity. Developmental evaluation explores that frontier.

The thing about New York is you can leave your house without a plan and find the day. You can't do that in Los Angeles. You need to get in your car, all this, you can't just drive around like a lunatic. In New York, you can literally walk outside, and wind up anywhere.

I spend much of my time roaming the planet on assorted travel grants, studiously avoiding the sorts of honest work in which most people engage.

Prowl along the fringes of residential neighborhoods until you find the word "sucker" scratched into a tree or fencepost, usually with an arrow indicating the proper house.

one of the fun things about being a scientist is being able to make up new words)

Do you know that if you close your eyes really tightly, so you can see stars, when you open them again it's a brand new world.

Every excursion or expedition we take is a story, an inner narrative that we sometimes don't even realise we're following.

My mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas's court. You can visit the woman you love, slide down beside her and stroke her still-sleeping face. You can build castles in Spain, steal the Golden Fleece, discover Atlantis, realize your childhood dreams and adult ambitions.