Beryl Markham Quotes

I learned what every dreaming child needs to know, that no horizon is so far you cannot get above it or beyond it.

If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work.

A lovely horse is always an experience.... It is an emotional experience of the kind that is spoiled by words.

A life has to move or it stagnates. Even this life, I think. Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday.

A word grows to a thought – a thought to an idea – an idea to an act. The change is slow, and the Present is a sluggish traveler loafing in the path Tomorrow wants to take.

A map says to you. Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not... I am the earth in the palm of your hand.

That's what makes death so hard--unsatisfied curiosity

There's an old adage," he said, "translated from the ancient Coptic, that contains all the wisdom of the ages -- "Life is life and fun is fun, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die.

In Africa people learn to serve each other. They live on credit balances of little favors that they give and may, one day, ask to have returned.

Conformation ... but not much else. Breeding, but too small a heart. You saw it everywhere - in men, in horses, and in women.

One day the stars will be as familiar to each man as the landmarks, the curves, and the hills on the road that leads to his door, and one day that will be an airborne life.

There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a different thing

The way to find a needle in a haystack is to sit down.

If your hunch proves a good one, you were inspired; if it proves bad, you are guilty of yielding to thoughtless impulse.

Who thinks it just to be judged by a single error?

Success breeds confidence.

You can live a lifetime and at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself.

After that, work and hope. But never hope more than you work

The abhorrence of loneliness is as natural as wanting to live at all.

Memory is a drug. Memory can hold you against your strength and against your will.

Silence is never so impenetrable as when the whisper of steel on paper strives to pierce it.

Life had a different shape; it had new branches and some of the old branches were dead.

Roots of the weed sucked first life from the genesis of earth and hold the essence of it still. Always the weed returns; the cultured plant retreats before it.

In view of this and other things, I demand forgiveness for being so obviously impressed with my own parents.

I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesterdays are burried deep-leave it anyway except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can.

Talk lives in a man’s head, but sometimes it is very lonely because in the heads of many men there is nothing to keep it company - and so talk goes out through the lips.

I have a trunk containing continents.

Africa is less a wilderness than a repository of primary and fundamental values, and less a barbaric land than an unfamiliar voice

[The lion] began to contemplate me with a kind of quiet premeditation, like that of a slow-witted man fondling an unaccustomed thought.

No human pursuit achieves dignity until it can be called work.

there are many Africas.

Success feeds confidence.

But, for a little while, this is the place for us -- a good place too--a place of good omen, a place of beginning things--and of ending things I never thought would end.

all the science of flying has been captured in the breadth of an instrument board, but not the religion of it.

the sun is as dispassionate as the hand of a man who greets you with his mind on other things.

There are as many Africas as there are books about Africa.

You can live a lifetime and at the end of it know more about other people than you know about yourself.

It was ... disconcerting to examine your charts before a proposed flight only to find that in many cases the bulk of the terrain over which you had to fly was bluntly marked: 'UNSURV

(Quoting her friend Tom Black on an amateur hunter's injury:)"Lion, rifles -- and stupidity.

A life has to move or it stagnates.

You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself.

There's an old adage, " he said, "translated from the ancient Coptic, that contains all the wisdom of the ages -- "Life is life and fun is fun, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die.