Sam Gribley Quotes

“I knew that the land was just the place for a Gribley”

“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 could hear the voices of the other people.They filled my silent mountain”

“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”

“It is indeed strange to be looked in the eye by this fearless wild animal”

“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”

“The lamp l am writing by is deer fat poured into a turtle shell with a strip of my old city trousers for a wick.”

“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.”

“Hunger is a funny thing. It has a kind of intelligence of it’s own.”

“Frightful fluffed her nubby feathers and shook. I picked her up in the cup of my hands and held her under my chin.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I must have walked a mile into the woods until I found a stream. It was a clear athletic stream that rushed and ran and jumped and splashed.”

“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.”

“I left New York in May. I had a penknife, a ball of cord, an ax, and $40… I also had some flint and steel.”

“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.”

“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.”