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A man who couldn't make things go right could at least go. He could quit trying to get out of the way of life. Chuck routine. Live the real jeopardy of circumstance. It was a question of dignity.

William Least Heat-Moon

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William Least Heat-Moon
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: August 27
Historian
Writer
Kansas City
Missouri
Men
Least
Circumstance
Life
Live
Quit
Right
Routine
Real
Quitting
Trying
Dignity
Way
Couldn
Make
Circumstances
Jeopardy
Things
Question
Chuck

More quotes by William Least Heat-Moon

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The Lewis and Clark tale has all the all the elements that one would want to put into a movie. It has the, continual threat for life it's got the thread of Indians it's got disease. It has daily risk where these men may go under the water. It's got the fight with the elements. It's got the el the role of the unknown continually threatening them.
William Least Heat-Moon
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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
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What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
William Least Heat-Moon
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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
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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
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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
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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
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I like the digressive kind of traveling, where there's not a particular, set, goal.
William Least Heat-Moon
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New ways of seeing can disclose new thingsĀ… But turn the question around. Do new things make for new ways of seeing?
William Least Heat-Moon
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There are two kinds of adventurers: those who go truly hoping to find adventure and those who go secretly hoping they won't.
William Least Heat-Moon
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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
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Adventure is putting one's ignorance into motion.
William Least Heat-Moon
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The biggest hindrance to learning is fear of showing one's self a fool.
William Least Heat-Moon
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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
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...who can say where a voyage starts - not the the actual passage but the dream of a journey and its urge to find a way?
William Least Heat-Moon
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I did learn what I didn't know I wanted to know.
William Least Heat-Moon
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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
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No yesterdays on the road.
William Least Heat-Moon
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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
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Historical awareness is a kind of resurrection.
William Least Heat-Moon