Without the errors, wrong turns and blind alleys, without the doubling back and misdirection and fumbling and chance discoveries, there was not one bit of joy in walking the labyrinth. William Least Heat-Moon More Quotes by William Least Heat-Moon More Quotes From William Least Heat-Moon Beware thoughts that come in the night. They aren't turned properly; they come in askew, free of sense and restriction, deriving from the most remote of sources. William Least Heat-Moon restriction source night I've read that a naked eye can see six thousand stars in the hundred billion galaxies, but I couldn't believe it, what with the sky white with starlight. I saw a million stars with one eye and two million with both. William Least Heat-Moon stars eye believe The open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself. William Least Heat-Moon journey motivational travel At any particular moment in a man's life, he can say that everything he has done and not done, that has been done and not been done to him, has brought him to that moment. If he's being installed as Chieftain or receiving a Nobel Prize, that's a fulfilling notion. But if he's in a sleeping bag at ten thousand feet in a snowstorm, parked in the middle of a highway and waiting to freeze to death, the idea can make him feel calamitously stupid. William Least Heat-Moon stupid sleep men The hotel was once where things coalesced, where you could meet both townspeople and travelers. Not so in a motel. No matter how you build it, the motel remains the haunt of the quick and dirty, where the only locals are Chamber of Commerce boys every fourth Thursday. Who ever heard the returning traveler exclaim over one of the great motels of the world he stayed in? Motels can be big, but never grand. William Least Heat-Moon boys dirty world I like the digressive kind of traveling, where there's not a particular, set, goal. William Least Heat-Moon setting-goals kind goal Boredom lies only with the traveler's limited perception and his failure to explore deeply enough. After a while, I found my perception limited. William Least Heat-Moon boredom perception lying Franchises and chains have come to dominate small communities, but those same chains have eliminated a lot of the greasy spoons, places you didn't want to eat in the first place. William Least Heat-Moon spoons community want Spirit can go anywhere. In fact, it has to go places so it can change and emerge like in the migrations. That's the whole idea. William Least Heat-Moon migration facts ideas New ways of seeing can disclose new things: the radio telescope revealed quasars and pulsars, and the scanning electron microscope showed the whiskers of the dust mite. But turn the question around: Do new things make for new ways of seeing? William Least Heat-Moon telescopes dust sight For me, writing is not a search for explanations but a ramble in quest of what informs a place, a hunt for equivalents. William Least Heat-Moon explanation quests writing No yesterdays on the road. William Least Heat-Moon bikers yesterday Somewhere lives a bad Cajun cook, just as somewhere must live one last ivory-billed woodpecker. For me, I don't expect ever to encounter either one. William Least Heat-Moon ivory encounters cooking Memory is each man's own last measure, and for some, the only achievement. William Least Heat-Moon achievement men memories To say nothing is out here is incorrect; to say the desert is stingy with everything except space and light, stone and earth is closer to the truth. William Least Heat-Moon space light native-american Beware thoughts that come in the night. William Least Heat-Moon restriction night Instead of insight, maybe all a man gets is strength to wander for a while. Maybe the only gift is a chance to inquire, to know nothing for certain. An inheritance of wonder and nothing more. William Least Heat-Moon inheritance chance men The four horsemen of the prairie are tornado, locust, drought, and fire, and the greatest of these is fire, a rider with two faces because for everything taken, it makes a return in equal measure. William Least Heat-Moon taken fire two Other than to amuse himself, why should a man pretend to know where he's going or understand what he sees? William Least Heat-Moon should knows men Whoever the last true cowboy in America turns out to be, he's likely to be an Indian. William Least Heat-Moon cowboy lasts america