“To die would be an awfully big adventure.” – JM Barrie
Thoughts of adventure have been in the air lately. Maybe it’s that the cosmos have aligned and everyone I know is having restless dreams, unable to stay asleep but unable to pull themselves from bizarre moments that leave them with shivers. Maybe it’s the turning of the seasons, a crazy switch from summer into autumn, that leaves us inhaling and exhaling change like it’s oxygen.
Brian and I had a conversation recently along these lines. “If you could know the date of your death,” he asked, “would you want to know?” A debate pursued as we pondered the pros and cons of this information. What if the date was tomorrow? What would we do differently? What if the date was never? Then what? Thoughts of mortality always come hand in hand with hurried, whispered thoughts of “What’s next?” I have no plans on the horizon other than the book, the movie, and my day job. But the conversation and general feeling in the air made me want to do research on what people have said about adventure. So with that in mind, I present to you quotes!
Enjoy, and go do something grand today:
“May your adventures bring you closer together, even as they take you far away from home.” – Trenton Lee Stewart
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” – Herman Melville
“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.’ I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!” – JRR Tolkein
“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.” – Lewis Carrol
“The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” – John Krakauer
“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” – Terry Pratchett
“Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.” – JK Rowling
“It is a very strange sensation to inexperience youth to feel itself quite alone the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half an hour elapsed, and still I was alone.” – Charlotte Bronte
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” – Hellen Keller
“She knew that when she got old it would be more fun to look back on a life of romance and adventure than a life of quiet habits. But looking back was easy. It was the doing that was painful. There were plenty of things she would like to look back on but wasn’t willing to risk.” – Anne Brashares
“I go to seek a Great Perhaps.” Francois Rabelais
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