8 quotes
But I should have known—when the gods seem to smile, they may in fact be laughing.
Kingbird Highway (1997)
They were good-looking, too—not in the plastic Hollywood sense, but with the healthy good looks of active young women who spend time outdoors.
Kingbird Highway (1997)
You had to make the effort to have the luck.
Kingbird Highway (1997)
The spark for a relationship might come for free—a look, a word. But the fuel to keep it going would always be expensive. Money might not buy happiness, but the lack of money could buy endless unhappiness for any two people.
Kingbird Highway (1997)
The whole thing might have been erected by a demented billionaire—which it was, I reflected, since it had been built by the U.S. government.
Kingbird Highway (1997)
We were talking about the insulation of human experience. We live enclosed in artificial structures with controlled climates, synthetic food, and purified water. No wonder our glimpses of the real world come as a shock.
Kingbird Highway (1997)
One thing was becoming obvious to me now: list-chasing was not the best way to learn birds. It had been a good way to start, an incentive for getting to a lot of places and seeing a lot of species. But the lure of running up a big list made it all too tempting to simply check off a bird and run on to the next, without taking time to really get to know them.
Kingbird Highway (1997)
The list total isn’t important, but the birds themselves are important. Every bird you see. So the list is just a frivolous incentive for birding, but the birding itself is worthwhile. It’s like a trip where the destination doesn’t have any significance except for the fact that it makes you travel. The journey is what counts.
Kingbird Highway (1997)