The Flight of the Iguana Quotes

“People come into our lives and then they go out again. The entropy law, as applied to human relations. Sometimes in their passing, though, they register an unimagined and far-reaching influence, as I suspect Hughes Rudd did upon me. There is no scientific way to discern such effects, but memory believes before knowing remembers. And the past lives coiled within the present, beyond sight, beyond revocation, lifting us up or weighting us down, sealed away--almost completely--behind walls of pearl.”
― David Quammen, The Flight of the Iguana: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature

“He hoped these students would learn how to be at home in the desert, not how to conquer it; and he hoped that, in the process, they might discover the spiritual value of quietude.”
― David Quammen, The Flight of the Iguana: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature

“Saying no to the inevitable is one of the few precious ways our own species redeems itself from oblivion- or at least tries to.”
― David Quammen, The Flight of the Iguana: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature