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Robyn Davidson QUOTES

Robyn Davidson QUOTES

1 " And it was only then that I realized what I had let myself in for, and only then I realized how bloody thick I had been not to have predicted it. It would seem that the combination of elements--woman, desert, camels, aloneness--hit some soft sport in this era's passionless, heartless, aching psyche. It fired the imaginations of people who seem themselves as alienated, powerless, unable to do anything about a world gone mad. And wouldn't it be my luck to pick just this combination. The reaction was totally unexpected and it was very, very weird. I was now public property. I was now a kind of symbol. I was now an object of ridicule for small-minded sexists, and I was a crazy, irresponsible adventurer (though not as crazy as I would have been had I failed). But worse than all that, I was now a mythical being who had done something courageous and outside the possibilities that ordinary people could hope for. And that was the antithesis of what I wanted to share. That anyone could do anything. If I could bumble my way across a desert, then anyone could do anything. And that was true especially for women, who have used cowardice for so long to protect themselves that it has become a habit. "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

2 " If I do depart this world out here, let it be known that I went out grinning will you, and loving it. LOVING IT.
Steve, are you listening ? I FEEL GREAT. Life’s so joyous, so sad, so ephemeral, so crazy, so meaningless, so goddamn funny. This is paradise, and I wish I could give you some. "

― Robyn Davidson

3 " I kept getting the odd sensation that I was in fact perfectly stationary, and that I was pushing the world around under my feet. "

― Robyn Davidson

4 " It seems to me that the good lord in his infinate wisdom gave us three things to make life bearable- hope, jokes, and dogs. But the greatest of these was dogs. "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

5 " Camel trips do not begin or end, they merely change form. "

― Robyn Davidson

6 " AAAAHHHHHHHhhhhh! WHOOSH, WHOOSH, YOU BASTARD! "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

7 " The two important things that I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavour is taking the first step, making the first decision. "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

8 " And there are new kinds of nomads, not people who are at home everywhere, but who are at home nowhere. I was one of them "

― Robyn Davidson , Desert Places

9 " I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back. "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

10 " To be free is to learn, to test yourself constantly, to gamble. It is not safe. I had learnt to use my fears as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks, and "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

11 " There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns—small intuitive flashes, when you know you have done something correct for a change, when you think you are on the right track. I watched a pale dawn streak the cliffs with Day-glo and realized this was one of them. It was a moment of pure, uncomplicated confidence—and lasted about ten seconds. "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

12 " Real travel would be to see the world, for even an instant, with another's eyes "

― Robyn Davidson , Desert Places

13 " I liked myself this way, it was such a relief to be free of disguises an prettiness and attractiveness. Above all that horrible, false, debilitating attractiveness that women hide behind. I puled my hat down over my ears so that they stuck out beneath it. 'I must remember this whn I get back. I must not fall into that trap again.' I must let people see me as I am. Like this? Yes, why not like this. But then I realized hat the rules pertaining to one set of circumstances do not necessarily pertain to another. Back there, this would just be another disguise. Back there, there was no nakedness, no one could afford it. Everyone had their social personae well fortified... "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

14 " As I look back on the trip now, as I try to sort out fact from fiction, try to remember how I felt at that particular time, or during that particular incident, try to relive those memories that have been buried so deep, and distorted so ruthlessly, there is one clear fact that emerges from the quagmire. The trip was easy. It was no more dangerous than crossing the street, or driving to the beach, or eating peanuts. The two important things that I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision. And I knew even then that I would forget them time and time again and would have to go back and repeat those words that had become meaningless and try to remember. I knew even then that, instead of remembering the truth of it, I would lapse into a useless nostalgia. Camel trips, as I suspected all a long, and as I was about to have confirmed, do not begin or end, they merely change form. "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

15 " It’s important that we leave each other and the comfort of it, and circle away, even though it’s hard sometimes, so that we can come back and swap information about what we’ve learnt even if what we do changes us and "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

16 " So I had made a decision which carried with it things that I could not articulate at the time. I had made the choice instinctively, and only later had given it meaning. The trip had never been billed in my mind as an adventure in the sense of something to be proved. And it struck me then that the most difficult things has been the decision to act, the rest had been merely tenacity -- and the fears were paper tigers. One really could do anything one had decided to do whether it were changing a job, moving to a new place, divorcing a husband or whatever,m one really cold act to change and control one's life;and the procedure, the process, was its own reward. "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

17 " Why did people circle one another, consumed with either fear or envy, when all the they were fearing or envying was illusion? Why did they build psychological fortresses and barriers around themselves that would take a Ph.D. in safe-cracking to get through, which even they could not penetrate from the inside? And once again I compared European society with Aboriginal. The one so archetypally paranoid, grasping, destructive, the other so sane. I didn't want ever to leave this desert. I knew that I would forget. "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

18 " ... I had to learn how to be cheerful in the face of adversity "

― Robyn Davidson , Desert Places

19 " To be free one needs constant and unrelenting vigilance over one's weaknesses. A vigilance which requires a moral energy most of us are incapable of manufacturing. We relax back into the moulds of habit. They are secure, they bind us and keep us contained at the expense of freedom. To break the moulds, to be heedless of the seductions of security is an impossible struggle, but one of the few that count. To be free is to learn, to test yourself constantly, to gamble. "

― Robyn Davidson

20 " ...desert time refused to structure itself. It preferred instead to flow in curlicues, vortices and tunnels,... "

― Robyn Davidson , Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback