Horn of the Hunter Quotes

“A man and a gun and a star and a beast are still ponderable in a world of imponderables. The essence of the simple ponderable is man’s potential ability to slay a lion. It is an opportunity that comes to few, but the urge is always present. Never forget that man is not a dehydrated nellie under his silly striped pants. He is a direct descendant of the hairy fellow who tore his meat raw from the pulsing flanks of just-slain beasts and who wiped his greasy fingers on his thighs if he bothered to wipe them at all. I wiped my greasy fingers on my thigh for practice. This is the only deeply rooted reason I can produce for the almost universal”
― Robert Ruark, Horn of the Hunter: The Story of an African Safari

“When man made fire, he lifted himself up, over, and above the animals. Fire is actually too good for people. Let us sit in front of one of these tiny, gleaming blazes and drink a little gin.”
― Robert Ruark, Horn of the Hunter: The Story of an African Safari

“I got to thinking that maybe this was what God had in mind when He invented religion, instead of all the don’t and must-nots and sins and confessions of sins. I got to thinking about all the big churches I had been in, including those in Rome, and how none of them could possibly compare with this place, with its brilliant birds and its soothing sounds of intense life all around and the feeling of ineffable peace and goodwill so that not even man would be capable of behaving very badly in such a place. I thought that this was maybe the kind of place the Lord would come to sit in and get His strength back after a hard day’s work trying to straighten out mankind. Certainly He wouldn’t go inside a church. If the Lord was tired, He would be uneasy inside a church.”
― Robert Ruark, Horn of the Hunter: The Story of an African Safari