Accidental Tourist Quotes

I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.

It is not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with him.

Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!

There is no sound more peaceful than rain on the roof, if you're safe asleep in someone else's house.

The real adventure, he thought, is the flow of time; it’s as much adventure as anyone could wish.

But his study was so dim and close, and it gave off the salty inky smell of mental fidgeting.

Rose had a kitchen that was so completely alphabetized, you’d find the allspice next to the ant poison. She was a fine one to talk about the Leary men.

You ever wonder what a Martian might think if he happened to land near an emergency room? He’d see an ambulance whizzing in and everybody running out to meet it, tearing the doors open, grabbing up the stretcher, scurrying along with it. ‘Why,’ he’d say, ‘what a helpful planet, what kind and helpful creatures.’ He’d never guess we’re not always that way; that we had to, oh, put aside our natural selves to do it. ‘What a helpful race of beings,’ a Martian would say. Don’t you think so?

What did Ethan care? _He_ had no trouble navigating. This was because he’d lived all his life in one house, was Macon’s theory; while a person who’d been moved around a great deal never acquired a fixed point of reference but wandered forever in a fog — adrift upon the planet, helpless, praying that just by luck he might stumble across his destination.

You are here, now, because you have been loved forward. If not by fellow humans, then surely by Grace itself. That we are here means we are wanted here. It means we belong here. It is our life’s work to uncover why. At the heart of this book is the belief that every individual came into this life with a sacred purpose at the core of their birth. We are not random concentrations of stardust, nor are we accidental tourists. We are divinely inspired, purposeful, and essential to this wondrous human tapestry.

He was impressed that someone so old still wanted so fiercely to live.

He wanted to say, Muriel, forgive me, but since my son died, sex has... turned. (As milk turns; that was how he thought of it. As milk will alter its basic nature and turn sour.) I really don't think of it anymore. I honestly don't. I can't imagine anymore what all that fuss was about. Now it seems pathetic.

...that was Julian for you: reckless. A dashing sailor, a speedy driver, a frequenter of single bars, he was the kind of man who would make a purchase without consulting _Consumer Reports_.

seven. seven was when ethan had learned to ride a bicycle. macon was visited by one of those memories that dent the skin, that strain the muscles. he felt the seat of ethan's bike pressing into his hand--the curled-under edge at the rear that you hold onto when you're trying to keep a bicycle upright. he felt the sidewalk slapping against his soles as he ran. he felt himself let go, slow to a walk, stop with his hands on his hips to call out, "you've got her now! you've got her!" and ethan rode away from him, strong and proud and straight-backed, his hair picking up the light till he passed beneath and oak tree.

A Japanese man festooned with cameras, a nun, a young girl in braids.

You know what you remind me of? The telegram Harpo Marx sent his brothers: No message. Harpo.” That made him grin. Sarah said, “You would think it was funny.” “Well? Isn’t it?

... didn't paintings lie also? They showed hours instead of minutes.

About your son, she seemed to be saying: Just put your hand here. I'm scared, too. We're all scared. You're not the only one.

Just think how it would look if a reader walked into a café you'd recommended and found it taken over by vegetarians.

Disaster followed disaster... the hero stuck in there, though. Macon had long ago noticed that all adventure movies had the same moral: Perseverance pays. Just once he'd like to see a hero like himself -- not a quitter, but a man who did face facts and give up gracefully when pushing on was foolish.

She opened her eyes and studied him a moment. Then she slipped her hand in her pocket, come up with something and held it toward him - palming it, like a secret. "For you," she said. "For me?" "I'd like you to have it." It was a snapshot stolen from her family album: Muriel as a toddler, clambering out of a wading pool. She meant, he supposed, to give him the best of her. And so she had. But the best of her was not that cild's Shirley Temple hairdo. It was her fierceness as she fought her way toward the camera with her chin set awry and her eyes bright slits of determination. He yhanked her. He said he would keep it forever.

flossing his teeth. He couldn’t go to bed without flossing his teeth. For some reason, Sarah had found this irritating. If Macon were condemned to death, she’d said once, and they told him he’d be executed by firing squad at dawn, he would no doubt still insist on flossing the night before. Macon, after thinking it over, had agreed.

(Always bring a book, as protection against strangers. Magazines don’t last. Newspapers from home will make you homesick, and newspapers from elsewhere will remind you you don’t belong. You know how alien another paper’s typeface seems.)

There are, I know, those who prefer not to go beyond the impression, however accidental, which an old work makes on a mind that brings to it a purely modern sensibility and modern conceptions; just as there are travellers who carry their resolute Englishry with them all over the Continent, mix only with other English tourists, enjoy all they see for its ‘quaintness’, and have no wish to realise what those ways of life, those churches, those vineyards, mean to the natives. They have their reward. I have no quarrel with people who approach the past in that spirit. I hope they will pick none with me. But I was writing for the other sort. C.

She liked to think that she was wearing her beauty out—using it up, she liked to think. She took some satisfaction in it, like a housewife industriously making her way through a jar of something she did not enjoy, would not buy again, but couldn’t just discard, of course.

As much as he hated the travel, he loved the writing—the virtuous delights of organizing a disorganized country, stripping away the inessential and the second-rate, classifying all that remained in neat, terse paragraphs. He cribbed from other guidebooks, seizing small kernels of value and discarding the rest.

The real adventure, he thought, is the flow of time. It's as much adventure as anyone could wish.

The cat made a comma of sweat across his bare thighs.

He ate an apple and a little box of raisins from his bag, drank the milk, and went off to the lavatory to floss and brush his teeth.

Plenty of other books say how to see as much of the city as possible,” his boss had told him. “You should say how to see as little.”)

Just once he’d like to see a hero like himself—not a quitter, but a man who did face facts and give up gracefully when pushing onward was foolish. He

he wrote a series of guidebooks for people forced to travel on business. Ridiculous, when you thought about it: Macon hated travel.

Then he returned to his room and switched on the evening news. The world was doing poorly;

narrowly missed connections. They were like people who run to meet, holding out their arms, but their aim is wrong; they pass each other and keep running. It had all amounted to nothing, in the end.

Whey they started walking again, he slipped his hand into Macon's. Those cool little fingers were so distinct, so particular, so full of character. Macon tightened his grip and felt a pleasant kind of sorrow sweeping through him. Oh, his life had regained all its old perils. He was forced to worry once again about nuclear war and the future of the planet. He often had the same secret, guilty thought that had come to him after Ethan was born: From this time on I can never be completely happy. Not that he was before, of course.

It's just free speech, that's all we've got. We can say whatever we like, then the government goes and does exactly what it pleases. You call that democracy? It's like we're on a ship, headed someplace terrible, and somebody else is steering and the passengers can't jump off.

While the train racketed along, he sorted his currency into envelopes that he’d brought from home—each envelope clearly marked with a different denomination. (No fumbling with unfamiliar coins, no peering at misleading imprints, if you separate and classify foreign money ahead of time.)

you don’t have to bend over backwards, either, and go asking her to dinner or something. She does have a family of her own. You’re supposed to take my side in this.” “I thought you didn’t want us to take sides.” “No, no, I don’t. I mean you shouldn’t take her side, is what I’m trying to say.

Thinking back on that conversation now, he began to believe that people could, in fact, be used up—could use each other up, could be of no further help to each other and maybe even do harm to each other. He began to think that who you are when you’re with somebody may matter more than whether you love her. (P. 362)

he had developed a system that enabled him to sleep in clean sheets every night without the trouble of bed changing. He’d been proposing the system to Sarah for years, but she was so set in her ways. What he did was strip the mattress of all linens, replacing them with a giant sort of envelope made from one of the seven sheets he had folded and stitched together on the sewing machine. He thought of this invention as a Macon Leary Body Bag. A body bag required no tucking in, was unmussable, easily changeable, and the perfect weight for summer nights. In winter he would have to devise something warmer, but he couldn’t think of winter yet. He was barely making it from one day to the next as it was. At moments—while he was skidding

One Thanksgiving Porter and June were getting ready to leave, back when their children were small, and June was heading toward the door with the baby in her arms and Danny hanging onto her coat and this load of toys and supplies when Porter called out, ‘Halt!’ and started reading from one of those cash-register tapes that he always writes his lists on: blanket, bottles, diaper bag, formula out of the fridge … June just looked over at the other two and rolled her eyes.

system that enabled him to sleep in clean sheets every night without the trouble of bed changing. He’d been proposing the system to Sarah for years, but she was so set in her ways. What he did was strip the mattress of all linens, replacing them with a giant sort of envelope made from one of the seven sheets he had folded and stitched together on the sewing machine. He thought of this invention as a Macon Leary Body Bag. A body bag required no tucking in, was unmussable, easily changeable, and the perfect weight for summer nights.

say, ‘Brenda, I am nineteen years old and I’ll never be nineteen again. I’ll never be alive again. I mean this is the only life I get to go through, Brenda, so far as I know, and I’ve spent this great large chunk of it sitting alone in an empty apartment too proud to make up, too scared you’d say no, but even if you did say no it can’t be worse than what I got now. I’m the loneliest man in the world, Brenda, so please come to Ocean City with me.’ And Brenda, she lays down her mending and says, ‘Well, since you ask, but it looks to me like you forgot my bathing cap.’ And off we went.

Sung was a land which was famous far and wide, simply because it was so often and so richly insulted. However, there was one visitor, more excitable than most, who developed a positive passion for criticizing the place. Unfortunately, the pursuit of this hobby soon lead him to take leave of the truth. This unkind traveler once claimed that the king of Sung, the notable Skan Askander, was a derelict glutton with a monster for a son and a slug for a daughter. This was unkind to the daughter. While she was no great beauty, she was definitely not a slug. After all, slugs do not have arms and legs - and besides, slugs do not grow to that size. There was a grain of truth in the traveler's statement, in as much as the son was a regrettable young man. However, soon afterwards, the son was accidentally drowned when he made the mistake of falling into a swamp with his hands and feet tied together and a knife sticking out of his back. This tragedy did not encourage the traveler to extend his sympathies to the family. Instead, he invented fresh accusations. This wayfarer, an ignorant tourist if ever there was one, claimed that the king had leprosy. This was false. The king merely had a well-developed case of boils. The man with the evil mouth was guilty of a further malignant slander when he stated that King Skan Askander was a cannibal. This was untrue. While it must be admitted that the king once ate one of his wives, he did not do it intentionally; the whole disgraceful episode was the fault of the chef, who was a drunkard, and who was subsequently severely reprimanded. .The question of the governance, and indeed, the very existence of the 'kingdom of Sung' is one that is worth pursuing in detail, before dealing with the traveler's other allegations. It is true that there was a king, his being Skan Askander, and that some of his ancestors had been absolute rulers of considerable power. It is also true that the king's chief swineherd, who doubled as royal cartographer, drew bold, confident maps proclaiming that borders of the realm. Furthermore, the king could pass laws, sign death warrants, issue currency, declare war or amuse himself by inventing new taxes. And what he could do, he did. "We are a king who knows how to be king," said the king. And certainly, anyone wishing to dispute his right to use of the imperial 'we' would have had to contend with the fact that there was enough of him, in girth, bulk, and substance, to provide the makings of four or five ordinary people, flesh, bones and all. He was an imposing figure, "very imposing", one of his brides is alleged to have said, shortly before the accident in which she suffocated. "We live in a palace," said the king. "Not in a tent like Khmar, the chief milkmaid of Tameran, or in a draughty pile of stones like Comedo of Estar." . . .From Prince Comedo came the following tart rejoinder: "Unlike yours, my floors are not made of milk-white marble. However, unlike yours, my floors are not knee-deep in pigsh*t." . . .Receiving that Note, Skan Askander placed it by his commode, where it would be handy for future royal use. Much later, and to his great surprise, he received a communication from the Lord Emperor Khmar, the undisputed master of most of the continent of Tameran. The fact that Sung had come to the attention of Khmar was, to say the least, ominous. Khmar had this to say: "Your words have been reported. In due course, they will be remembered against you." The king of Sung, terrified, endured the sudden onset of an attack of diarrhea that had nothing to do with the figs he had been eating. His latest bride, seeing his acute distress, made the most of her opportunity, and vigorously counselled him to commit suicide. Knowing Khmar's reputation, he was tempted - but finally, to her great disappointment, declined. Nevertheless, he lived in fear; he had no way of knowing that he was simply the victim of one of Khmar's little jokes.

There's a million dark little corners in Baytowne for you two to snuggle-" "Ohmysweetgoodness, Chloe, stop!" I giggle and shiver at the same time and accidentally imagine walking around The Village in Baytowne Wharf with Galen. The Village is exactly that-a sleepy little village of tourist shops in the middle of a golf-course resort. During the daytime anyway. At night though...that's when the dance club wakes up and opens its doors to all the sunburned partiers roaming the cobblestoned walkways with their daiquiris. Galen would look great under the twinling lights, even with a shirt on... Chloe smirks. "Uh-huh. Already thought of that, huh?" "No!" "Uh-huh. Then why are your cheeks as red as hot sauce?" "Nuh-uh!" I laugh. She does, too. "You want me to go ask him to meet us, then?" I nod. "How old do you think he is?" She shrugs. "Not creepy-old. Old enough for me to be jailboat, though. Lucky for him, you just turned eighteen...What the...did you just kick me?" She peers into the water, wswipes her hand over the surface as if clearing away something to see better. "Something just bumped me.” She cups her hands over her eyes and squints, leaving down so close that one good wave could slap her chin. The concentration on her face almost convinces me. Almost. But I grew up with Chloe-we’ve been next-door neighbors since the third grade. I’ve grown used to fake rubber snakes on my front porch, salt in the sugar dish, and Saran wrap spread across the toilet seat-well, actually, Mom fell prey to that one. The point is Chloe loves pranks almost as much as she loves running. And this is definitely a prank. “Yep, I kicked you,” I tell her, rolling my eyes. “But…but you can’t reach me, Emma. My legs are longer than yours, and I can’t reach you…There it is again! You didn’t feel that?” I didn’t feel it, but I did see her leg twitch. I wonder how long she’s been planning this. Since we got here? Since we boarded the plane in Jersey? Sine we turned twelve?

Inside the vault housing Shalmaneser: cool. Waiting for the launch window, which is a decorative way of saying when the GT guide is good and ready to start, this fact has already decided several of the crowd one hundred nine strong (some of whom are tourists some of whom are genuine potential recruits lured by the handouts and TV plugs of the GT Corp. some of whom have seen themselves here so often in the personae of Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere that they couldn’t tell you why they bothered to make the visit in reality and some of whom are GT’s own plantees primed to speak up at the right moments and give the impression of Things Happening) that they aren’t going to be interested in what they’re shown. Cold! In May! Under the Manhattan Fuller Dome! And clad in Nydofoam sneakers, MasQ-Lines, Forlon&Morler skirtlets and dresslets; strung about with Japind Holocams with Biltin g’teed Norisk LazeeLaser monochrome lamps, instreplay SeeyanEar recorders; pocket-heavy with Japind Jettiguns, SeKure Stunnems, Karatands to be slipped on as easily as your grandmother drew on her glove. Uneasy, watching their accidental companions on this guided tour. Well-fed. Shifty-eyed, slipping tranks into their chomp-chomp jaws. Damned good-looking.

For racists, wherever their ancestors had been once is their motherland -even if the “ancestors” visited there as merchants, refugees, tourists, even as robbers, invaders or occupants, or just accidentally, does not make difference, everywhere the “ancestors” touched once belongs to the “worthy grandchildren of venerable forefathers” -To Be Tried As A Jew-

Thinking back on that conversation now, he began to believe that people could, in fact, be used up–could use each other up, could be of no further help to each other and maybe even do harm to each other. He began to think that who you are when you're with somebody may matter more than whether you love her.

Umm... You're not a serial killer or something, are you?

The imperial Prisoner of the United States has a lot less freedom than meaningless old me.

I broke an arm once,” Muriel said. “An arm is no comparison.” “I did it training dogs, in fact. Got knocked off a porch by a Doberman pinscher.” “A Doberman! Came to to find him standing over me, showing all his teeth. Well, I thought of what they said at Doggie, Do: Only one of you can be boss. So I tell him, ‘Absolutely not.’ Those were the first words that came to me—what my mother used to say when she wasn’t going to let me get away with something. ‘Absolutely not,’ I tell him and my right arm is broken so I hold out my left, hold out my palm and stare into his eyes—they can’t stand for you to meet their eyes—and get to my feet real slow. And durned if that dog doesn’t settle right back on his haunches. Good Lord, Macon said.

Great-grandma Elisa Ramires was a promising cook at an inn. The job was her only opportunity to raise Grandma on her own, so she made herself famous with a buttery, delicately savory fubá cake recipe. Dona Elizabete Molina had been at the inn longer than Great-grandma, and she was also famous for her own recipe. Milk pudding. It was said to be so smooth it slid on your tongue. The two were often at odds. They each wanted to prove to the neighborhood who was the best cook in town, and the opportunity came about with a cooking contest. The night before the contest, Great-grandma and Dona Elizabete were busy preparing their entry dishes and tending to the many guests at the inn. It was a busy night, with many tourists in town for Carnival. Nerves frazzled, shoulder to shoulder, and vying for space in the small kitchen, the story goes that the cooks accidentally tripped each other and sent their cake and pudding flying off the trays. Miraculously, the layers stacked up. Dona Elizabete's milk pudding landed atop Great-grandma's fubá cake. Maybe Dona Elizabete held the tray at the right angle until the last second and the pudding had enough surface tension to just slide off the right way without breaking. Maybe Great-grandma's cake was firm enough to hold the delicate layer of pudding atop. Whatever the case, they tried this new, accidental two-layered cake and realized that their recipes complemented each other beautifully. When they passed samples around to the guests, their reaction was proof that they'd produced perfection. No one remembers if they still entered the contest. Because from that moment on, the only thing everyone could talk about was their new recipe, the one they called "Salt and Sugar". One layer fubá cake, one layer pudding.

Hang on,” said Nina, standing up and going inside. She came back with a small book with a woman standing on the cover. “Here.” Lissa picked it up. “I got two copies by accident,” said Nina. “You can have it.” “The Accidental Tourist,” read Lissa. “What’s it about?” “Healing,” said Nina. “Best book ever written on the subject.

To keep your kid safe from polar bears in the Arctic Circle, don't take your kids to the Arctic Circle. Seriously, what kind of vacation is that? There are no major theme parks, and Santa's workshop is just one big tourist trap. Try Hawaii instead.

A long time ago, in a small village, there lived a wise old monk named Tenzen. One day his neighbors discovered that their sixteen-year-old daughter was pregnant. Furious, the parents confronted her and demanded to know the name of the baby’s father. Through tears she confessed, “It was the Zen master, Tenzen.” The parents went to Tenzen and angrily accused him of betraying their trust. “How could you do this?” they cried out. “You are going to raise this child!” The great sage listened attentively, replying with no emotion. “Is that so?” When the baby was born, they brought the infant to the master’s door and said, “This baby is now your responsibility.” Taking the child in his arms, he replied, “Is that so?” He then compassionately cared for the newborn. As word of the teacher’s misdeeds spread throughout the countryside, he lost both his reputation and his followers. This meant nothing to him as he continued to care for the child with great love. A year later, feeling terrible about what she had done, the young mother confessed to her parents that Tenzen was not the father. Instead, it was the young man in the butcher shop whom they had forbidden her to see. Horrified and embarrassed, the parents returned to the master’s compound to seek forgiveness. “We are so sorry,” they said. “We have just learned you are not the baby’s father.” “Is that so?” “With your blessing, we would like our baby back.” “Is that so?” And with that the master gently returned the child to the parents.

People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, knowing that it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” “Who wrote this?” “Mother Teresa.