One of the first books I published was called Walking to Denver. It is out of print. Recently, I reread the first chapter. It is funny. I didn’t remember that I used to be funny. I’m thinking of reviving it as an e-book. One thing I did in the book was to start each of the 58 chapters with a quote about walking. Until I can get the book ready for re-printing, I think these quotes by the greats (and a couple of mine) are worth reading.
Her walk revealed her as a true goddess.
—Virgil
So come to the shore of which we boast
and walk with me on the sunset coast.
—Alan Cook
Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
—The Bible; Amos 3:3
You, Doctor Martin, walk
from breakfast to madness.
—Anne Sexton
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
—Bob Dylan
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle
in the high aesthetic band,
If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your
medieval hand.
—William S. Gilbert
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she
walks into mine!
—Howard Koch (Casablanca)
Walk it slow
where you go
walk it slow...
—Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)
I like to make running water walk.
—Sam Rayburn
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.
—John Milton
Walk not on the earth exultantly, for thou canst not cleave the
earth, neither shalt thou reach to the mountains in height.
—The Koran
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
—Frances Cornford
But, look, the morn in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.
—William Shakespeare
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
—T. S. Eliot
"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,
“There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail."
—Lewis Carroll
Not at all similar are the race of the immortal gods and the race of men who walk upon the earth.
—Homer
Under water men shall walk,
Shall ride, shall sleep, and talk;
In the air men shall be seen
In white, in black, and in green.
—Attributed to Mother Shipton
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings--nor lose the common touch.
—Rudyard Kipling
Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,
(If our loves remain)
In an English lane.
—Robert Browning
Not to go back is somewhat to advance,
And men must walk, at least, before they dance.
—Alexander Pope
He glittered when he walked.
—Edwin Arlington Robinson
Looked as if she had walked straight out of the ark.
—Sydney Smith
As I walked through the wilderness of this world.
—John Bunyan
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sunlight
And the legend of the green chapels.
—Dylan Thomas
She walks--the lady of my delight—
A shepherdess of sheep.
—Alice Meynell
It was like saying good-bye to a statue. After a while I went
out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the
rain.
—Ernest Hemingway
"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the Spider to the Fly;
'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy."
—Mary Howitt
From his brimstone bed, at break of day,
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To look at his little snug farm of the world,
And see how his stock went on.
—Robert Southey
Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say,
Have ye not seen us walking every day?
Was there a tree about which did not know
The love betwixt us two?
—Abraham Cowley
Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.
—William Shakespeare
I nauseate walking; 'tis a country diversion, I loathe the country.
—William Congreve
Happily may I walk.
May it be beautiful before me.
May it be beautiful behind me.
May it be beautiful below me.
May it be beautiful above me.
May it be beautiful all around me.
In beauty it is finished.
—Night Chant (Navajo)
"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach."
—Lewis Carroll
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more...
—William Shakespeare
"I'll rest," said he, "but thou shalt walk";
So doth this wandering Jew
From place to place, but cannot rest
For seeing countries new.
—Anonymous
Modestus said of Regulus that he was "the biggest rascal that
walks upon two legs."
—Pliny the Younger
What creature walks in the morning on four feet, at noon upon two, and at evening upon three?
—Riddle of the Sphinx
I will walk on eggs.
—Thomas Heywood
There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to go--if there are no doors or windows--he walks through a wall.
—Bernard Malamud
We shall walk in velvet shoes:
Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dews
On white silence below.
—Elinor Hoyt Wylie
Have I not walked without an upward look
Of caution under stars that very well
Might not have missed me when they shot and fell?
It was a risk I had to take--and took.
—Robert Frost
It may not be natural for man to walk on two legs, but it was a noble invention.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your Loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.
—John Keats
(Sunday) should be different from another day. People may walk, but not throw stones at birds. There may be relaxation, but there should be no levity.
—Samuel Johnson
I thought of Chatterton, the marvelous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy
Following his plow, along the mountainside...
—William Wordsworth
I wish I loved the human race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks...
—Sir Walter Raleigh
As I was a-walking one morning for pleasure,
I spied a cowpuncher a-riding along.
—Anonymous
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies...
—Lord Byron
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
—Walt Whitman
Falstaff sweats to death
And lards the lean earth as he walks along.
—William Shakespeare
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon.
—Walter de la Mare
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by...
—Robert Frost
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
—Robert Frost
Step, step, step, step
left, right, left, right,
walking, walking, walking, walking,
muscles tensing, senses sensing.
—Alan Cook
The Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.
—Rudyard Kipling
Where’re you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade...
—Alexander Pope
It must have taken you a long time to collect these, unless you did some Internet searching of books of quota in order to acquire them. The two that you did yourself are fine and fit in.
I once walked with 17 others 50 miles for Pres. Kennedy in May 1963. The others were too slow and I had to wait for them at lunch too long, so I trekked on ahead for the last 10 miles completing the walk in 11 hours. I then waited for the next walker to arrive a half-hour later and rode with a photographer out into the night where bicycles with lights were accompanying the stragglers. Interestingly, the women out performed the men on this endurance contest.
Six months later and just before my 21st birthday, I was paralyzed in surgery, but five weeks later was able to walk out of the hospital, never to run again, but walk until 1993 when I could no longer walk without tripping and falling down.
I am curious about, Walking to Denver. Is it a true story of a walk that you took? Or just part of a action novel?
Ron