Rapids Quotes

“Occasionally we glimpse the South Rim, four or five thousand feet above. From the rims the canyon seems oceanic; at the surface of the river the feeling is intimate. To someone up there with binoculars we seem utterly remote down here. It is this know dimension if distance and time and the perplexing question posed by the canyon itself- What is consequential? (in one’s life, in the life of human beings, in the life of a planet)- that reverberate constantly, and make the human inclination to judge (another person, another kind of thought) seem so eerie… Two kinds of time pass here: sitting at the edge of a sun-warmed pool watching blue dragonflies and black tadpoles. And the rapids: down the glassy-smooth tongue into a yawing trench, climb a ten-foot wall of standing water and fall into boiling, ferocious hydraulics…”

“They leave to test the waters but fail to realize the waters are full of rapids.”

“... the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future.”

“Every Christmas should begin with the sound of bells, and when I was a child mine always did. But they were sleigh bells, not church bells, for we lived in a part of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where there were no churches.”

“The artist one day falls through a hole in the brambles, and from that moment he is following the dark rapids of an underground river which may sometimes flow so near to the surface that the laughing picnic parties are heard above.”

“Youth is like being carried through life by a strong current," Admiral Winter said. "All you feel is the speed of the river, the thrill of rapids, never comprehending your utter lack of control, your constant peril.”

“I don't think people would climb mountains or jump off bridges with parachutes or kayak Class V rapids if those things didn't offer the brief and horrible illusion of imminent death. They would just be complicated, time-consuming endeavors that we'd steer well clear of because they got in the way of real life.”

“...Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands.”

“What she'd thought was love before felt like a girlhood crush compared to the feeling now crashing over her. It sucked her under like riding whitewater rapids, spinning her around, and tossing her wildly into the air. There was no land, no balance, nothing to hold on to except Victor. In those quiet moments, he captured her loyalty and heart forever. She was done.”

“Good so be would you if, duff plum of helping second A," said the Bursar. The table fell silent. "Did anyone understand that?" said Ridcully. The Bursar was not technically insane. He had passed through the rapids of insanity som time previously, and was now sculling around in some peaceful pool on the other side. He was quite often coherent, although not by normal human standards.”