Ice Age Inspirational Quotes

We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a ‘higher answer’– but none exists

We don’t ask when people age out of singing, or eating ice cream; why would we stop making love?

Vivian Carlisle happened to her, like an avalanche or tsunami, as sudden and unforgiving as natural disaster. That was the thing about nature, though. It was frightening, dangerous, unpredictable–yes, all that. It was also inspiring. Even Beautiful.

Gate C22 At gate C22 in the Portland airport a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed a woman arriving from Orange County. They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking, the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other like he’d just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island, like she’d been released at last from ICU, snapped out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing. Neither of them was young. His beard was gray. She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish kisses like the ocean in the early morning, the way it gathers and swells, sucking each rock under, swallowing it again and again. We were all watching– passengers waiting for the delayed flight to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots, the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling sunglasses. We couldn’t look away. We could taste the kisses crushed in our mouths. But the best part was his face. When he drew back and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost as though he were a mother still open from giving birth, as your mother must have looked at you, no matter what happened after–if she beat you or left you or you’re lonely now–you once lay there, the vernix not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth. The whole wing of the airport hushed, all of us trying to slip into that woman’s middle-aged body, her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses, little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.

Your lingering presence erodes me. Heartbeat by heartbeat. Cell by aging cell. Washing away any sense of self I ever had. Intruding into a nothingness I've struggled to find the pieces to fill. A jar filled with stones, piled with pebbles, topped with sand, only to be left with the knowledge that water, with enough time and persistence, has the power to wash it all away. Your name is on my lips. Frozen. A familiar cadence of syllables that once soothed me. A name I can't speak. Can't think of. Not on this shore, at our lake. Not on this day. When only a year ago, with a foreshadowing that is now ice in my veins, you stood next to me, in this jacket, your hand in mine, so warm, and stared out at this expanse and whispered in awe, "This is what a cold lake looks like.

Pont Saint Benezet.” “What happened to it?” Luce asked. Daniel glanced over his shoulder. “Remember how quiet Annabelle got when I mentioned we were coming here? She inspired the boy who built that bridge in the Middle Ages in the time when the popes lived here and not in Rome. He noticed her flying across the Rhone one day when she didn’t think anyone could see her. He built the bridge to follow her to the other side.” “When did it collapse?” “Slowly, over time, one arch would fall into the river. Then another. Arriane says the boy-his name was Benezet-had a vision for angels, but not for architecture. Annabelle loved him. She stayed in Avignon as his muse until he died. He never married, kept apart from the rest of Avignon society. The town thought he was crazy.” Luce tried not to compare her relationship with Daniel to what Annabelle had had with Benezet, but it was hard not to. What kind of relationship could an angel and a mortal really have? Once all this was over, if they beat Lucifer…then what? Would she and Daniel go back to Georgia and be like any other couple, going out for ice cream on Fridays after a movie? Or would the whole town think she was crazy, like Benezet? Was it all just hopeless? What would become of them in the end? Would their love vanish like a medieval bridge’s arches? The idea of sharing a normal life with an angel was what was crazy. She sensed that in every moment Daniel flew her through the sky. And yet she loved him more each day.

This guy! I plead the fifth. This guy is nuts.” - Eminem “Dope questions, man. Very insightful, very thoughtful.” - Guru (Gang Starr) “You like a Psychiatrist or some shit? This shit is just coming out but go ahead.” - Mary J. Blige “Definitely a real interview! Digging deep up in there, man. Not afraid to ask questions!” - K-Ci Hailey (Jodeci) “The Wizard asked me for a copy of your magazine.” - Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (Daft Punk) “You didn’t wear your glasses and you haven’t carried your hearing aid. What else is wrong with you?” - Bushwick Bill “Peace and blessing, Brother Harris. Thank you for inspiring my words. Keep ‘yo balance.” - Erykah Badu “Can I see that pen?” - Bobby Brown “What else do you want to know? Talk to me.” - Aaliyah

A hundred miles beyond the point, the farthest point, the most distant point on the horizon. Out past the alkali flats and sinks; Misfit and Stillwater, Humboldt and Carson. Out over the mountains, ice age islands and archipelagos, Ichthyosaur, Columbian Mastodon boned talus slopes and scree fields. Beyond the Saltbrush, Bitterbrush, Creosote Plants and Rabbitbrush, petrified Redwood forests and Mount Mazama blowouts. Out over the playas, hoodos and springs, koi ponds and basins. Beyond the mustangs, horned lizards, whiptails and rattlers and over the abandoned mines; silver and gold, copper, bornite and cinnabar. Out past the hematite and jasper, chert and agate. Out over Lovelock, Spirit Cave and Wizard's Beach. Beyond the grinding rocks, diorite and granitic boulders cast adrift in a sea of sand, dust and wind. Beyond the Rye Grass, Rice Grass and Bunchgrass. Out over the land into the distance and beyond. The distance of a thousand years, a million years, a century, a lifetime. A distance of roads forgotten and graves abandoned, misplaced Iris and Lilac the only indication of a person's passing. Out past Bonneville, Daggett, Donner and Walker. The two tracks, the single tracks, the deer and coyote tracks, lizard tracks and no tracks at all. Out over the land.....

A hundred miles beyond the point, the farthest point, the most distant point on the horizon. Out past the alkali flats and sinks; Misfit and Stillwater, Humboldt and Carson. Out over the mountains, ice age islands and archipelagos, Ichthyosaur, Columbian Mastodon boned talus slopes and scree fields. Beyond the Saltbrush, Bitterbrush, Creosote Plants and Rabbitbrush, petrified Redwood forests and Mount Mazama blowouts. Out over the playas, hoodos and springs, koi ponds and basins. Beyond the mustangs, horned lizards, whiptails and rattlers and over the abandoned mines; silver and gold, copper, bornite and cinnabar. Out past the hematite and jasper, chert and agate. Out over Lovelock, Spirit Cave and Wizard's Beach. Beyond the grinding rocks, diorite and granitic boulders cast adrift in a sea of sand, dust and wind. Beyond the Rye Grass, Ricegrass and Bunchgrass. Out over the land and into the distance and beyond. The distance of a thousand years, a million years, a century, a lifetime. A distance of roads forgotten and graves abandoned, misplaced Iris and Lilac the only indication of a person's passing. Out past Bonneville, Daggett, Donner and Walker. The two tracks, the single tracks, the deer tracks, coyote tracks, lizard tracks and no tracks at all. Out over the land.....

If the normal portolano is indeed derived from the lost atlas of Marinus of Tyre, then it follows that other high-quality maps of regions much further afield than the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and indeed a world map, might also have been preserved by the Arabs -- for we know from Ptolemy's testimony that other Marinus maps, including a world map, did once exist. It will therefore do no harm to keep an open mind to the possibility that the portolan world maps that began to appear during the century after the Carta Pisane, might also have been influenced by earlier 'Tyrian sea-fish' maps of Phoenician origin. Christopher Columbus, whose passionate belief in lands across the Atlantic lead to his 'discovery' of the New World, seems to hint at a Phoenician connection when he describes one of the inspirations for his journey: 'Aristotle in his book On Marvellous Things reports a story that some Carthaginian merchants sailed over the Ocean Sea to a very fertile island ... this island some Portuguese showed me on their charts under the name Antilia.' Antilia first appears on a portolan chart of 1424. It is a mysterious presence there, a riddle.

No, what little inspiration I have in life comes not from any sense of racial pride. It stems from the same age-old yearning that has produced great presidents and great pretenders, birthed captains of industry and captains of football; that Oedipal yen that makes men do all sorts of shit we’d rather not do, like try out for basketball and fistfight the kid next door because in this family we don’t start shit but we damn sure finish it. I speak only of that most basic of needs, the child’s need to please the father. Many fathers foster that need in their children through a wanton manipulation that starts in infancy. They dote on the kids with airplane spins, ice cream cones on cold days, and weekend custody trips to the Salton Sea and the science museum. The incessant magic tricks that produced dollar pieces out of thin air and the open-house mind games that made you think that the view from the second-floor Tudor-style miracle in the hills, if not the world, would soon be yours are designed to fool us into believing that without daddies and the fatherly guidance they provide, the rest of our lives will be futile Mickey Mouseless I-told-ya-so existences. But later in adolescence, after one too many accidental driveway basketball elbows, drunken midnight slaps to the upside of our heads, puffs of crystal meth exhaled in our faces, jalapeño peppers snapped in half and ground into our lips for saying “fuck” when you were only trying to be like Daddy, you come to realize that the frozen niceties and trips to the drive-thru car wash were bait-and-switch parenting. Ploys and cover-ups for their reduced sex drives, stagnant take-home pay, and their own inabilities to live up to their father’s expectations. The Oedipal yen to please Father is so powerful that it holds sway even in a neighborhood like mine, where fatherhood for the most part happens in absentia, yet nevertheless the kids sit dutifully by the window at night waiting for Daddy to come home. Of course, my problem was that Daddy was always home.