Far and Away Quotes

“books, i think, are a different kind of time machine. instead of reminding you of a lost world, they create one for you. more personal, more intimate-unlike movies, say, the world you experience while reading a book has been lived and envisioned entirely from the INSIDE, and its contours are yours alone.”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“-i was "far and away"-riding my motorcycle along an american back road, skiing through the snowy Quebec woods, or lying awake in a backwater motel. the theme i was grappling with was nothing less than the Meaning of Life, and i was pretty sure i had defined it: love and respect.

love and respect, love and respect-i have been carrying those words around with me for two years, daring to consider that perhaps they convey the real meaning of life. beyond basic survival needs, everybody wants to be loved and respected. and neither is any good without the other. love without respect can be as cold as pity; respect without love can be as grim as fear.
love and respect are the values in life that most contribute to "the pursuit of happiness"-and after, they are the greatest legacy we can leave behind. it's an elegy you'd like to hear with your own ears: "you were loved and respected."
if even one person can say that about you, it's a worthy achievement, and if you can multiply that many times-well, that is true success.
among materialists, a certain bumper sticker is emblematic: "he who dies with the most toys wins!"
well, no-he or she who dies with the most love and respect wins...
then there's love and respect for oneself-equally hard to achieve and maintain. most of us, deep down, are not as proud of ourselves as we might pretend, and the goal of bettering ourselves-at least partly by earning the love and respect of others-is a lifelong struggle.
Philo of Alexandria gave us that generous principle that we have somehow succeeded in mostly ignoring for 2,000 years: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“excitement is found along the road, not at the end, and likewise, peace is not a fixed point-except perhaps in the unwanted "rest in peace" sense. PEACE is the breathing space between destinations, between excitements, an occasional part of the journey, if you're lucky. PEACE is a space you move through very rarely, and very briefly-but your not allowed to stay there.
you have to keep moving, and go do what you do.
because you can...”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“Ernest Hemingway spent his last years in Ketchum, where he is buried—under a plain flat stone next to a matching one for his fourth wife, Mary. Near the Sun Valley Lodge there’s an artful memorial, set among the trees along a stream. The inscription reads, “Best of all he loved the fall, the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods, leaves floating on the trout streams, and above the hills the high blue windless skies. Now he will be a part of them forever. Ernest Hemingway, Idaho, 1939.” The words had been written for a friend’s eulogy, but resonate well for the writer, too.    ”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“Books, I think, are a different kind of time machine. Instead of reminding you of a lost world, they create one for you. More personal, more intimate - unlike movies, say, the world you experience while reading a book has been lived and envisioned entirely from the INSIDE, and its contours are yours alone.”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“Larry was the most talented, experienced and competent motorcyclist in the country, but this is the one thing he knew he couldn’t do anything about,” said his girlfriend, Maryann Puglisi, with whom he lived in Squirrel Hill and Washington, D.C., and who helped run his business. “Just a few weeks ago he said to me, ‘That’s how I’m going to go, it’s going to be a deer.’ He could deal with all the idiot drivers, but at night when a deer jumps in your path, that’s it and he knew that.”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“After the Phoenix show, Greg rode with us on the bus to a truck stop in Kingman, and next morning we set out for the MGM Grand in Vegas (where it was fiercely hot, 107°F, but still nothing like as uncomfortable as that South Texas swelter). Once again, I had planned an adventurous detour, on a dirt road ending at a remote shore of Lake Mead.”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“(I am glad to report that rural Texas continues to boast the most courteous drivers in the country, perhaps the world. When you come up behind a pickup or sedan on a two-lane backroad, they not only move over willingly, right onto the shoulder, but wave you by cheerfully.)”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“I actually spend far more time in the saddle than I do on the drum throne. That takes its toll, too—in the sore spots that Michael and I call “saddle tats”; in the tired mind from making a million decisions about traffic and road surfaces as you ride hour after hour; and in a body beaten by wind, vibration, and the physical activity of motorcycling, especially in the mountains, with so much braking, shifting, accelerating, and moving your body on the bike for more effective cornering. Then there was the heat—in the 100s for many days, especially in the Southwest. Desert heat is one thing, but when the humidity is also high, as in South Texas, and you’re wearing the armored suit, helmet, gloves, and boots, you get to feel like you’re covered in a coat of slime, riding past a small-town bank clock showing 105°. We have seen some fantastically scenic parts of the country, though. This western swing carried us through the Rockies, the Cascades, the Sierra Nevada, Northern and Southern California, the Great Basin, a broad swath of northern Arizona, across Colorado (or “Cop-orado,” as I have christened the state, for its overzealous enforcement of artificially low speed limits), and some of Texas’s prettiest landscapes, the Hill Country and Gulf Coast.”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time