42 of the best book quotes from Jean Craighead George
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“I can only say that after living so long with the birds and animals, the movement of a human is like the difference between the explosion of a cap pistol and a cannon”
“I am well and healthy. The food is good. Sometimes I eat turtle soup, and I know how to make acorn pancakes. I keep my supplies in the wall of the tree in wooden pockets that I chopped myself.”
“Nearby another one arose and there was a pop. Little bubbles of air snapped as these voiceless animals of the earth came to the surface. That got me to smiling. I was glad to know this about earthworms. I don’t know why but this seemed like one of the nicest things I had learned in the woods - that earthworms, lowly, confined to the darkness of the earth, could make just a little stir in the world”
“I must say this about that first fire. It was magic. Out of dead tinder and grass and sticks came a live warm light. It cracked and snapped and smoked and filled the woods with brightness. It lighted the trees and made them warm and friendly. It stood tall and bright and held back the night”
“There were maples and oaks to the west, and a hemlock forest to the right that pulled me right across the sweet grasses, into it. Never, never have I seen such trees. They were giants--old, old giants. They must have begun when the world began.”
“One of the gasping joys of summer was my daily bath in the spring. It was cold water, I never stayed in long, but it woke me up and started me into the day with a vengeance.”
“I looked through the clear water and saw the tracks of mussels in the mud. I ran along the log back to shore, took off my clothes, and plunged into that icy water. I collected almost a peck of mussels in very little time.”
“See that falcon? Hear those white-throated sparrows? Smell that skunk? Well, the falcon takes the sky, the white-throated sparrow takes the low bushes, the skunk takes the earth...I take the woods.”
“Fortunately, the sun has a wonderfully glorious habit of rising every morning. When the sky lightened, when the birds awoke, I knew I would never again see anything so splendid as the round red sun coming up over the earth.”
“With Miss Turner’s map, I found the first stone wall that marked the farm… There, caterpillaring around boulders, roller-coastering up ravines and down hills, was the mound of rocks that had once been Great-grandfather’s boundary fence.”
″‘I am glad you have come,’ Jesus said. Daniel could say nothing at all. For a moment he was afraid. Only when the man turned away and his eyes no longer held his own, could he breathe freely again.”
″‘Daniel,’ he said. ‘I would have you follow me.’
‘Master!....I will fight for you to the end!.’
‘My loyal friend,’ he said, ‘I would ask something much harder than that. Would you love for me to the end?’
“It is the hate that is the enemy. Not men. Hate does not die with killing. It only springs up a hundredfold. The only thing stronger than hate is love.”
″‘All this--’ she exclaimed, the sweep of her arm including the deepening blue of the sky, the shining lake in the distance, the snow-covered mountain far to the north. ‘So much! You must look at it all, Daniel, not just at the unhappy things.‘”
“The red mist of anger cleared suddenly from Daniel’s mind. He looked at the man who had been his leader. He saw the coarsened face with its tangle of dirty beard. He saw the hard mouth, the calculating little eyes. He saw a man he had never really looked at before.”
″‘Haven’t you ever wondered,’ he attempted, ‘what good it is for them to be healed, those people that Jesus cures? They’re happy at first. But what happens to them after that? What does the blind man think, when he has wanted for years to see, and then looks at his wife in rags and his children covered in sores?”
″‘I don’t understand,’ he said again, ‘You tell people about the kingdom. Are we not to fight for it?’
‘The kingdom is only bought at a great price,’ Jesus said. ‘There was one who came just yesterday and wanted to follow me. He was very rich, and when I asked him to give up his wealth, he went away.’
“You’ve seen him caring for those people -- the ones so low that no one, not I or anyone else, cared what happened to them. When I see that, I know that the God of Israel has not forgotten us.”
“She smoothed the silver hairs of her beautiful wedding parka, then carefully took it off and rolled it up. Placing it and her fur pants in a bag made of whale bladder, she tied it securely so that no moisture would dampen her clothes while she left. This she had learned in childhood, and it was one of the old Eskimo ways that she liked, perhaps the only one. She had never violated it even in the warm, gas-heated house in Barrow, for damp clothes could mean death in the Arctic.”
“With that, Miyax became Julie. She was given a cot near the door in Martha’s little house and was soon walking to school in the darkness. She liked to learn the printed English words in books, and so a month passed rather happily.”
“The old Eskimos were scientists too. By using the plants, animals, and temperature, they had changed the harsh Arctic into a home, a feat as incredible as sending rockets to the moon. […] They had been wise. They had adjusted to nature instead of to man-made gadgets.”
“Somewhere in this cosmos was Miyax; and the very life in her body, its spark and warmth, depended upon these wolves for survival. And she was not so sure they would help.”
“Miyax knew when to stop dreaming and be practical. She slid down the heave, brushed off her parka, and faced the tundra. The plants around the pond had edible seeds, as did all of the many grasses. There were thousands of crane fly and mosquito larvae in the water, and the wildflowers were filling if not very nourishing. But they were all small and took time to gather. She looked around for something bigger.”
“Her house was not well built for she had never made one before, but it was cozy inside. She had windproofed it by sealing the sod bricks with mud from the pond at her door, and she had made it beautiful by spreading the caribou ground cloths on the floor. ”
“Any fear Miyax had of the wolves was dispelled by their affection for each other. They were friendly animals and so devoted to Amaroq that she needed only to be accepted by him to be accepted by all.”
“The wind blew across the water, shattering the tips of the waves and shooting ice-sparklets north with the storm. ‘Kapugen!’ she called. No one answered. Kapugen was gone. The earth was empty and bleak.”
“The cold chill of fear ran up Miyax’s spine – the wolves would soon depart! Then what would she do? […]
Her hands trembled and she pressed them together to make them stop, for Kapugen had taught her that fear can so cripple a person that he cannot think or act. Already she was too scared to crawl.”