Nicholas Crane Quotes

“Maps codify the miracle of existence.”

“Even after three hundred maps have been handed out, Ama and I still melt the moment people switch from being suspicious that we want to sell them something--"Hey? What do you want? Money? Directions?--to realising that we just want to know their stories, their memories, what they love--"Oh, in that case, thanks, sweeties!”

“I speak to maps. And sometimes they something back to me. This is not as strange as it sounds, nor is it an unheard of thing. Before maps, the world was limitless. It was maps that gave it shape and made it seem like territory, like something that could be possessed, not just laid waste and plundered. Maps made places on the edges of the imagination seem graspable and placable.”

“If you follow the ancient maps written on the stars, no person will ever understand you. So if you could read these maps, would you follow them? And forever be misunderstood? Or would you close your eyes tightly and pretend to be like everyone else?”

“Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our private world we use every day; here I was happy, in that place I left my coat behind after a party, that is where I met my love; I cried there once, I was heartsore; but felt better round the corner once I saw the hills of Fife across the Forth, things of that sort, our personal memories, that make the private tapestry of our lives.”

“Maps are essential. Planning a journey without a map is like building a house without drawings.”

“I am an agnostic on most matters of faith, but on the subject of maps I have always been a true believer. It is on the map, therefore it is, and I am.”

“A labyrinth is a symbolic journey . . . but it is a map we can really walk on, blurring the difference between map and world.”

“You can't map a sense of humor. Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld we know that There Be Dragons Everywhere. They might not all have scales and forked tongues, but they Be Here all right, grinning and jostling and trying to sell you souvenirs. ”

“Patterns cannot be weighed or measured. Patterns must be mapped.”