Ivan Eland Quotes

“Naturally, people — especially in America — live in the moment and, given the “crisis” orientation of cable news, think that [the 2000s are] the worst period the country has ever gone through. Not really.”

“Many travelers are essentially fantasists. Tourists are timid fantasists, the others - risk takers - are bold fantasists. The tourists at Etosha conjure up a fantastic Africa after their nightly dinner by walking to the fence at the hotel-managed waterhole to stare at the rhinos and lions and eland coming to drink: a glimpse of wild nature with overhead floodlights. They have been bused to the hotel to see it, and it is very beautiful, but it is no effort....My only boast in travel is my effort...”

“There wasn't a place I could think of that was more magical than a building bursting with books and stories and words...”

“Lindsay strode to the door and picked up his overcoat from the back of the couch, where he'd tossed it when they came in. She wheeled around to hand him his coat; once again, as expected, Fred was standing right behind her. But this time he wasn't looking at her. He was looking up. At the mistletoe, directly over their heads. He met her eyes with a look that glimmered with promise. Then he took the overcoat from her hand and tossed it, lightly, onto the back of the sofa once again. Everything seemed to slow. His intentions were clear, and she had plenty of time to step back. Yet Lindsay did nothing to stop him when he took her chin in his hand, tipped it upward, and brought his lips down to hers, as purposefully as if he'd meant to do it all along. Lindsay could have sworn she heard bells.... Still dazed, she followed his eyes upward. "And what's the penalty for ignoring mistletoe?" "Struck by lightning, I think.”

“There arepeople everywhere. Lindsay wants to be sick, it's like he canfeelall theireyes on him, but he does it anyway and when he finally moves away agood minute later Valentine seems to have turned from himself into a sillybashful schoolgirl, blushing and smiling and not quite looking up."Oh," he says, like that explains everything."Yeah.""Thank you.""That's a shit thing to say when somebody's just ripped all hisprinciples in half to make you feel better.""Thank you very much?""You're welcome.”

“We don’t sleep to sleep, dammit, any more than we eat to eat . We sleep to dream. We’re amphibians. We live in two elements and we need both." Edward Nesbit”

“To this day, being able to “take advantage” of someone is the measure in my mind of having a parent. For me and Lindsay, the fear of imposing stalked our minds, infecting even the food we ate. We recognized instinctively that many of the people we depended on weren’t supposed to play that role in our lives, so much so that it was one of the first things Lindsay thought of when she learned of Papaw’s death. We were conditioned to feel that we couldn’t really depend on people—that, even as children, asking someone for a meal or for help with a broken-down automobile was a luxury that we shouldn’t indulge in too much lest we fully tap the reservoir of goodwill serving as a safety valve in our lives.”

“I don't think there's any real motivation for somebody to be a truck driver. Mine was simple; dad was a truck driver, I wanted to own one.”

“A certain amount of anger doesn't make us less empathetic, less humane, less loving. It just makes us real.”

“I can't wait for summer in the city! I love all the free activities in the parks that become available to us New Yorkers. Yoga and movie screenings in Bryant Park, concerts in Central Park - there's so much more available to the New York community in the summer! And everyone just seems to smile more.”