Trains Quotes

“Now he slept soundly through the nights, and often he dreamed of trains, and often of one particular train: He was on it; he could smell the coal smoke; a world went by. And then he was standing in that world as the sound of the train died away. A frail familiarity in these scenes hinted to him that they came from his childhood. Sometimes he woke to hear the sound of the Spokane International fading up the valley and realized he’d been hearing the locomotive as he dreamed.”

“It's my experience that most folk who ride trains could care less where they're going. For them it's the journey itself and the people they meet along the way. You see, at every stop this train makes, a little bit of America, a little bit of your country, gets on and says hello.”

“Displaced Person’s SongIf you see a train this evening,Far away, against the sky,Lie down in your woolen blanket,Sleep and let the train go by.Trains have called us, every midnight,From a thousand miles away,Trains that pass through empty cities,Trains that have no place to stay.No one drives the locomotive,No one tends the staring light,Trains have never needed riders,Trains belong to bitter night.Railway stations stand deserted,Rights-of-way lie clear and cold,What we left them, trains inherit,Trains go on, and we grow old.Let them cry like cheated lovers,Let their cries find only wind,Trains are meant for night and ruin,And we are meant for song and sin.”

“The highest training trains oneness.”

“It's not getting from A to B. It's not the beginning or the destination that counts. It's the ride in between...This train is alive with things that should be seen and heard. It's a living, breathing something -- you just have to want to learn its rhythm.”

“Early youth is a baffling time. The present moment is nice but it does not last. Living in it is like waiting in a junction town for the morning limited; the junction may be interesting but some day you will have to leave it and you do not know where the limited will take you. Sooner or later you must move down an unknown road that leads beyond the range of the imagination, and the only certainty is that the trip has to be made. In this respect early youth is exactly like old age; it is a time of waiting before a big trip to an unknown destination. The chief difference is that youth waits for the morning limited and age waits for the night train.”

“The last wendigo died in 1962, or so the story goes. Reputedly, he (it?) stood in front of the train to Churchill, Manitoba, believing that the train would stop for him, a supernatural being, and then he would be able to eat the passengers. The train ran him over. Sic transit gloria mundi.”

“The train may fall in love with a station, but it has to go and it goes! Don’t be like the train; stay at the station you fell in love, go nowhere!”

“Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.”