During the course of my travels, I've maintained a collection of quotations that have inspired, amused or moved me in some way. The one above from Walt Whitman that titles this page is my favorite. Rightfully or not, I feel a kinship with Whitman, the great American writer, who lived out his life just a few blocks from where I was born. One of the first things I did three years ago at the start of this journey was to make a pilgrimage of sorts to the vault that contains his remains in an inconspicuous area of Harleigh Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey. There I found communion with his spirit and took energy for the long haul I had planned ahead of me. His words remain my greatest inspiration, and his Song of the Open Road was my clarion call to travel that has its own page on this site. My collection of quotations is compiled according to somewhat arbitrary categories, noted above each section in no particular order. My selections come from a variety of sources -- books I've read, music, films and conversations, mostly. Some are my own -- yes, quoting myself -- attributed to DHB. A few also have comments or notes on context. In all, they've become an important repository of thoughts about who I am and what I do now with my life, and I refer to them often. Some represent periods when things happened that don't seem as important now as they did, but I keep them nevertheless as mileposts along the evolution of my life on the road. Occasionally, I've posted some of my favorites on Facebook, or this site. But now, upon reaching three years on my journey, I've decided to publish the whole lot on a separate page of my web site, now that I have one. I hope there are some that you enjoy, or others that might have meaning for you as they've had for me. It is an ongoing, living compilation, growing as I grow. Your comments, suggestions and contributions, as always, are welcome. (Recent additions are in red type.)
ADVICE “Worry and regret are such useless currency. You get nothing in exchange for them.” -- DHB
“Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.” -- Ho Chi Minh Nice quote, but the ardent, life-long communist and nationalist was more focused on "independence and freedom" for the nation of Vietnam, than for its individual citizens.
“It’s not about the places you go, it’s about the people you meet and the friends you make.” -- DHB
“Be yourself “Take chances “Create happiness “Be passionate “Fall in love “Practice kindness “Travel often “Be generous “Value friendship “Learn new things “Laugh every day “Respect others “Let go “Be fearless” -- Poster on the wall of the S&S Diner, Miami, Florida USA
“Men who travel should leave their prejudices at home.” -- Frederick Douglass
“Always walk with your head down. You might find money.” -- George R. Bishop Sr., who grew up during the Great Depression when, on a good day, he had a nickel in his pocket to buy a pair of socks on the way to school
“Everything in moderation, including moderation.” -- Oscar Wilde
“Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters.” -- Bob Dylan, song lyrics, Subterranean Homesick Blues
Leave home
Go alone
Travel light
Bring a map
Go by land
Walk across a national frontier
Keep a journal
Read a novel that has no relation to the place you’re in
If you must bring a cell phone, avoid using it
Make a friend
-- Paul Theroux, The Essential Tao of Travel
“Please be a traveler, not a tourist. Try new things, meet new people, and look beyond what’s right in front of you. Those are the keys to understanding this amazing world we live in.” -- Andrew Zimmern, American TV personality, traveler, food writer, chef “Being invisible, the usual condition of the older traveler, is much more useful than being obvious.” -- Paul Theroux, GTES
“Some of the best travel happens where people and guide books tell me not to go.” --DHB
“Smile a lot, talk to strangers, accept all invitations, eat everything offered.” -- Rita Golden Gelman, Tales of a Female Nomad
“A merry heat doeth like a good medicine.” -- David Livingstone, Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by Martin Duggard
“Nothing shouts ‘traveling bozo’ louder than a tank top and a backwards ball cap.” -- DHB
“Comfortable shoes and the freedom to leave are the two most important things in life.” -- Sheldon Silverstein
AGE “I was taught always to play the game hard until the final buzzer sounds. That’s now my approach to life.” -- DHB
“Years are not an affliction. Old age is strength.” -- Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari
“That we age is inevitable. How we age is largely up to us.” -- Dr. Andrea Brandt
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.” -- George Bernard Shaw
“I just want to live as long as I’m alive.” -- Clay Walker
“Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter” -- Satchel Paige
“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” -- Dylan Thomas
“If I’d known I was going to live this long, I might’ve taken better care of myself.” -- Often attributed to Mickey Mantle, but also sometimes to Eubie Blake and Mae West
FEAR “Fear isn’t overcome, it’s managed.” -- Teresa Carey, sailor
“I think you have to know who you are. Get to know the monster that lives in your soul. Dive deep into your soul and explore it.” -- Tori Amos
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” -- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die.” -- Theodore Roosevelt, The River of Doubt An enigmatic statement befitting the adventurous former president, but one that can also be easily misunderstood. I believe he means fear is a debilitating emotion that hinders the ability to live a full life.
POLITICS “The popular mind is incapable of scepticism; and that incapacity delivers their helpless strength to the wiles of swindlers and to the pitiless enthusiasms of leaders inspired by visions of a high destiny.” -- Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.” -- Albert Einstein, 1901
“Action is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.” -- Mark Twain, The Esquimaux Maiden’s Romance (1893)
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” -- Mark Twain, 1887
“ … if I’d known my son was going to be president of the republic I’d have sent him to school … “ -- Gabriel Marquez, Autumn of the Patriarch
“The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.” -- William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
THE PATH FORWARD “You cannot travel the path until you become the path itself.” -- Buddha
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” -- Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
“If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” -- Yogi Berra, American baseball player
“ ... the road is life.” -- Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“I’m on the road in broad daylight” -- DHB, my expression of nothing to hide, not in the least my emotions
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Half the fun of travel is the esthetic of lostness.” -- Ray Bradbury
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” -- Lewis Carroll
“It’s not where you been, it’s where you’re going.” -- Jimmy Wayne Barber, “Walk to Beautiful”
“Just playing for Paulsboro has taught me to never give up until there’s zero seconds left on the clock. Just keep on punching and fighting.” -- Dehron Holloway, a star high school football player in 2017, playing for the same school I played for nearly 50 years before, who learned this same concept that I learned, expressed now by me in the category “Aging.”
“Every sad departure comes with the promise of a new arrival, and the thoughts of returning one day to the wonderful places you’ve been.” -- DHB
“ … it is in the nature of travel to be uncomfortable, if not scared silly.” -- Paul Theroux, Last Train to Zona Verde
“To travel unconnected, away from anyone’s gaze or reach, is bliss.” -- Paul Theroux
“If you're retired, you don't need tickets in advance to go ‘round the world. You need only the means to your next destination. One destination at a time.” -- DHB 4/24/19
HOME “He travelled in order to come home.” -- William Trevor, Matilda's England
“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” -- T. S. Eliot
“It is a truism that one travels to learn about home … .” -- H.W. Brands, The First American, a biography of Benjamin Franklin
“You go away for a long time and return a different person -- you never come all the way back.” -- Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari
“Travel is equal parts flight and pursuit.” -- Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar
BALANCE “ … the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” -- Carl Jung
“Sing, dance, laugh and cry every day, it keeps you on an even keel.” -- DHB
MOVEMENT “Oh the places you’ll go.” -- Dr. Seuss, Theodore Geisel, my favorite childhood author
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you have to keep moving.” -- Albert Einstein, 1930
“Things move to live. The more they move, the stronger they get.” -- Bruce Lee, martial artist, philosopher
“I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” -- Robert Louis Stevenson
“We don't go anywhere. Going somewhere is for squares. We just go!” -- Marlon Brando, in the film, The Wild One
“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.” -- Jack Kerouac
“Staying alive by not staying still.” -- DHB
“I know I can’t be free, but these people keep a movin’, that’s what tortures me.” -- Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues, an agonizing antithesis to life on the road, a prisoner laments from his cell block watching trains pass by carrying “rich folks in fancy dining cars, prob’ly drinkin’ whisky, and smokin’ big cigars ... “
“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been; travelers don’t know where they’re going.” -- Paul Theroux
“I decided that travel was flight and pursuit in equal parts.” -- Paul Theroux To the Ends of the Earth
“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.” -- Anthony Bourdain
“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote, To travel is to live.” -- Hans Christian Andersen
LOVE “ … we travel, in essence, to become young fools again, to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” -- Pico Iyer
“She’s so fine, ain’t no telling where the money went.” -- Robert Palmer, song lyrics, Simply Irresistible
“The sun’s in my heart, and I’m ready for love.” -- Matthew Morrison, Singin’ in the Rain
“You’re the reason that I’m traveling on. Don’t think twice, it’s alright.” -- Bob Dylan
“Traveling makes one modest -- you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” -- Gustave Flaubert, lamenting that his Egyptian paramour will not likely remember their dalliance, and that his memory will not “remain in her heart,” as he so desires (from Theroux’s Dark Star Safari).
“Love is where you find it, you better not just turn your face away from it, where you find it.” -- Laura Nyro
RELIGION “The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.” -- Albert Einstein
“Being an agnostic means all things are possible, even God, even the Holy Trinity. This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen. Being an agnostic makes me live in a larger, a more fantastic kind of world, almost uncanny. It makes me more tolerant.” -- Jorge Luis Borges
CHANGE “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” -- Henry Miller
“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” -- Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad
“... there ain't no journey what don't change you some.” -- David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
“So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.” -- H.W. Brands, The First American, a biography of Benjamin Franklin Renouncing vegetarianism as a young man aboard ship leaving Boston enroute to Philadelphia, Franklin previously reasoned that living creatures had done nothing to deserve death at the hands of humans, but the aroma of fresh fried cod the crew was cooking enticed him, and while examining the fish, he found smaller fish in their stomachs, and decided then that, “... if you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you.”
“Traveling solo forces you out of your comfort zone.” -- DHB
“Time has made me easier.” -- Ben Franklin
"All plans, all safeguards are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us." -- John SteinbeckTravels with Charley: In Search of America
“A little piece of everywhere I go becomes a big part of everything I do.” -- Richie Norton, motivational speaker “It’s sad and scary and wonderfully exciting all at the same time.” -- Nita Smith, resident of Puna, Hawaii, describing the eruption of Kilauea Volcano
MOTIVATION “The traveler’s conceit is that he is heading into the unknown. The best travel is a leap into the dark. If the destination were familiar and friendly, what would be the point of going there?” -- Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari
“What gives value to travel is fear.” -- Albert Camus
“My purpose in making this wonderful journey is not to delude myself in the objects I see. Nothing, above all is comparable to the new life that a reflective person sees when he observes a new country. Though I am still always myself, I believe I have been changed to the very marrow of my bones.” -- Goethe, Italian Journey
“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality, nothing is more damaging to the adventurous life within a man than a secure future.” -- Chris McCandless, Into the Wild, byJon Krakauer
SALUTATIONS “May your journeys always lead you to a better place in your heart.” -- DHB
“Que les vaya bien.” (Travel well) -- Traditional
INSPIRATION “Forever alive, forever forward.” -- Walt Whitman
“The only home I have now is wherever I rest my head. Vive el camino” --DHB
“You just put one foot in front of the other ...” -- Capt. Merrill, Merrill’s Marauders (U.S. film, 1962)
“When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cage of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. “Cool unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.” -- D.H. Lawrence
“The smartest man in the world just grabbed my backpack and jumped out of the plane.” -- Anonymous, punchline to a joke (ask me)
“I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” -- Lou Gehrig
“I inhale great draughts of space, the east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.” -- Walt Whitman, Songs of the Open Road
“Vivir mi vida” -- Marc Anthony
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” -- Andre Gide
“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.” -- Carl Jung
“If you got time to breathe, you got time for music.” -- Grandpa Darling, Mayberry RFD (U.S. television show)
“Remember the future. Today you eat, tomorrow you don’t know.” -- Zenovia Requena, a Maya farmer on the Columbia River, Belize
“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” -- Santiago, the shepherd, in Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist
"Some the best journeys are made of just a helping hand and a smile." -- DHB
“To a wise man, the whole earth is open, because the true country of a virtuous soul is the entire universe.” -- Democritus
"Your body will do what your mind tells it to do." -- Russell Winwood, a 53-year old Australian, marathon runner and Ironman athlete, with stage IV Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
REALITY “Only if this were a film would I consider it real.” -- Werner Herzog, Of Walking in Ice
“ … there was always another truth behind the truth.” -- Gabriel Marquez, Autumn of the Patriarch
“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” -- The intrepid Dorothy to her little dog, Toto, in the original film version of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz
“Guaranteed it’s all fiction, even the true parts.” -- DHB
“Nothing’s sure in this world.” -- Billy Idol, song lyrics, White Wedding
"In the end, writing and photography probably destroy more of the past than they ever preserve of it." -- Sigrid Nunez, The Friend: A Novel From a recent award-winning book in which, preceding the quote, the author explains that only the selected words and photos are remembered, as memories of everything else fade into oblivion.
INDIVIDUALITY “The whole point of traveling is to arrive alone … where, typically, people don’t see many strangers and were hospitable and do not instantly think of you as money on two legs.” -- Paul Theroux, GTES
“Hago lo que quiero.” -- DHB
“I hate people when they’re not polite.” -- David Byrne, song lyics, Psycho Killer
“ … a man possessed of passion is not a bankrupt in life.” -- Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
“Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts.” -- John Coltrane
“Being normal is boring.” -- Marilyn Monroe
“I was born with emotion and a song is in my soul.” -- T-Bone Walker, The Imperial Blues Years
THE GREAT INEVITABLE “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.” -- Jim Morrison, song lyrics, Roadhouse Blues
“We forget that we are all dead men, conversing with dead men.” -- Jorge Luis Borges
“Death is only for the living.” -- DHB
“The irreparable change a death makes in the course of our daily thoughts can be felt in a vague and poignant discomfort of mind.” -- Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
“C’mon everybody, Let’s have some fun, You only live but once, And when you’re dead, you’re done.” -- Sam Theard, Fleecy Moore, song lyrics, Let the Good Times Roll
“In traveling, one is always accompanied by the retinue of Death or his batman.” -- Henry Miller, Remember to Remember
“We live above others’ ruins, programmed for extinction.” -- Christopher Shaw, Sacred Monkey River
WHY TRAVEL? “Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.” -- Mark Twain
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, … “ -- Mark Twain
“The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes ‘sight-seeing.’ -- Daniel J. Boorstin
“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” -- Cloud Atlas“Connecting with people brings joy. It’s a spiritual thing.” -- Rita Golden Gelman, Tales of a Female Nomad
“I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.” -- H.D. Thoreau, Life Without Principle
“My purpose in making this wonderful journey is not to delude myself but to discover myself in the objects I see. Nothing, above all, is comparable to the new life that a reflective person experiences when he observes a new country. Though I am still always myself, I believe I have been changed to the very marrow of my bones.” -- Goethe,Italian Journey
“... a traveler like me, more interested in conversation than sightseeing, …” -- Paul Theroux, Deep South
“It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I still have to go, the more there is to learn. Maybe that’s enlightenment enough; to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom…is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.” -- Anthony Bourdain
"Such delicate goods as justice, love and honour, courtesy, and indeed all the things we care for, are valid everywhere; but they are variously moulded and often differently handled, and sometimes nearly unrecognizable if you set them in a foreign land; and the art of learning fundamental common values is perhaps the greatest gain of travel to those who wish to live at ease among their fellows." -- Freya Stark, Perseus In The Wind
MISCELLANY “El beisbol es el rey de los deportes” (Baseball is the King of Sports)” -- Albert Einstein The Spanish version was written on the wall of a lounge at the baseball stadium in Guadalajara, Mexico
“Angry Hour 5-7” “Beer is Cheaper Than Therapy” “Dogs allowed inside but leave your children tied to a post outside.” “SPECIAL OFFER: You give us money, we give you beer!” “Beer is not the answer, beer is the question. The answer is yes!” -- Notices posted at the Bad Fish Bar, Berlin
"WARNING Children unattended will be sold to the CIRCUS -- The Shamrock Irish Bar, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
“Ain’t no hangman gonna put a rope around me.” -- song lyrics, Hey Joe(traditional/attributed) Billy Roberts
“Sorry (I’m late), I got caught behind the time curve.” -- Bruce Nestande, Orange County (CA) Freeholder (circa 1975)
“I love to take a drink after babooning.” -- Ernest Hemingway, Trueat First Light